Cathy Lamb:  You and I met when we were both freelance writers for The Oregonian and we’ve been girlfriends ever since. How many years ago was that?

Sheila Hagar: Oh my gosh. I remember reading your piece about your vodka-drinking, tomato-growing neighbor Bonnie, and immediately emailing the Sunday Forum editor, Pat Harrison, to express my admiration for your work. I am guessing that was in 2001. I think we had both been getting published by Pat and others at The Oregonian pretty regularly by then. You told me you also loved my pieces and had been planning to write me. This was before the paper published email addresses of commentary writers, so we had to ask the headmistress permission for everything.

2.  What led you to writing?

I believe it was the same thing that led me to breathing.

3.      Tell us about your current job.
OK! I have one of the best jobs one could ask for in current journalism markets. I write for a small daily newspaper as a health and social services reporter. I also do a bi-monthy lifestyles column and a blog, which I post there during what I call my smoke breaks. Blog writing is such a stress reliever that it is literally like walking away from my regular duties and indulging myself.

Because the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin is small, I also get to veer off my beat ALL THE TIME to do some of the really fun stuff, like make videos, do podcasts and write some reality experiental columns. I’m trying to talk my editor into letting me do a cosmetic surgery piece next.

 4.      Sheila, you daredevil woman, your columns are often very personal. Is it scary to open yourself up to that many people?

In the beginning, no. I put up the baby gates to block off my living room while my toddler twins ran around like hooligans and just wrote, wrote, wrote. It was very self-absorbed and cathartic.

In a few months, however, people starting recognizing me and discussing their favorite columns while I was grabbing gallons of milk. I remember one awakening moment when I was shopping in a Washington store. As an Oregon resident, I signed a tax exempt form at the check out counter. I was not having a good day with my children and I was using the “Mommy is damn grumpy” voice, by the way. The woman behind me obviously looked at my signature and rushed over to tell me that my piece about my mother’s death had changed the way she felt about her relationship with her own mother. She thanked me.

That was the day I told my husband we needed to not be yelling at the kids in public, no matter how many times they had asked for candy. After that, it became a lot harder to imagine no one was actually reading my stuff.

5.      What do you like about writing a column and being a reporter?

Where to even start? First of all, I get an open door into the lives of the most amazing people. I get to tell our readers about the most compassionate, horrific, joyful and devastating things happening in their community. Sometimes, as my husband is quite fond of saying (and for which he gets a good swat), I get to change lives.
Also, let’s not kid ourselves — my job lets me ask very nosy questions that people fail to realize they don’t have to answer. Not to mention, I have gotten to interview people I would never normally encounter, in worlds that are closed to the common folk, for the most part.

6.      Who are your three favorite newspaper columnists?

Ellen Goodman, may she retire in peace; Anna Quindlen and … well, of course, I cut my reading teeth on Art Buchwald. And Mike Royco, who gave me courage, and John Kass who followed in his Chicago Trib footsteps! Can I have more than three?

7.      Nope. You can’t. I’m limiting you, Hagar. Another questions: If you could bring three dead writers back to life and have lunch with them, who would you choose?

Erma Bombeck, to ask her if she ever had to manually dial up “funny,” Mike Royco to just bask in his sharp wit, and Beverly Cleary, to thank her for making me feel normal. Wait…she’s still here, right? Ms. Cleary, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Can we have wine together?

8.      And three living writers? Why?

Cathy, you’re making my head hurt. There are way too many writers I adore. Love. Drool over. I do have to say I am currently in love with Kent Haruf’s writing. And I would invite Anne Tyler over any time. And you, my middle-of-the-night sister.

9.      Share with us, Sheila. What does your day usually look like as you manage both a career and a family?

Camo Man and I get up at 4:30 and head straight for the coffee pot and the dog crates. I make breakfast while he showers, we unload the dishwasher and drink our first cup of coffee together. He leaves and I head for the shower and after that, everything is a blur until we reconvene in the late afternoon. We have his-and-hers teens at home, although that is getting close to “ours” every day. We do a lot of that intense teen parenting, we attend community functions, we chase each other around the house while the kids roll their eyes. We clean too much, as I still struggle with that little OCD issue, as you recall. But geez Louise, why can’t people put their dishes in the dishwasher?

I am trying to leave work at work, but I can’t help but be a reporter. Technology only serves to make that problem worse.

At the end of the day, we fall into bed and we have… hang on, what audience is this going out to?

10.  With three grown children and three younger, what advice do you have for working mothers?

Keep red wine in your bedroom closet. A wine glass is not necessary. Send Amazon gift cards on a random basis to the people who might be called on to provide emergency child care. Find a natural hair style you can live with to cut down morning routine time, buy two of everything that fits and flatters. Find and purchase really good makeup. Tell your children if they text you one more time during school, you will have to deactivate their Facebook accounts — to hell with matching the consequences to the crime.

11.  What are your future goals for your career?

In newspapers, our only real goal is to KEEP OUR JOBS. I want to serve my readers to the best of my ability, always. I used to think I wanted to write a book, and now I know I don’t, but figure I’ll have to someday write about raising kids with mental illness. Because my head will not shut up until I do.

12.  What are you reading right now? (You don’t have to say you’re reading one of my books, I won’t throw anything at you if you’re not.)

Seriously? I am trying to mow through a million page New York Times piece about the science of making junk food additive, I just finished “Room,” Haruf’s newest book arrived from Amazon a couple of days ago and I just finished “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout. “Henry’s Sisters” is on my nightstand, moving up toward the top.

13.  In your spare time you like to….

…snuggle with Camo Man! Oh, Heaven, I love that man! Plus, of course, there is the home remodeling addiction I fight without much success. Now he’s hooked on the DIY and HGTV shows, too, and we watch house porn in bed.

 

Thank you, Sheila! 

Blog: http://blogs.ublabs.org/fromthestorageroom/

Newspaper: http://union-bulletin.com/