A year-round book festival dedicated to great conversations with today's best writers.

Rhoda Janzen, a former poet laureate of UCLA and now an assistant professor of English at Hope College, will appear at the National Writers Series on March 5 to discuss her best-selling memoir, “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.” The book, which recounts Rhoda’s experience moving back in with her conservative Mennonite parents at age 43 after a series of traumatic setbacks, has been called “wonderfully intelligent and frank” by the New York Times, and it received rave reviews in USA Today, People, Entertainment Weekly and Publishers Weekly. We caught up with the author, currently at work on a follow-up memoir, to discuss her hit book and what took place after “The End” to inspire a second book.

National Writers Series: For those who haven’t read “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress,” describe the book in your own words.

Rhoda Janzen: I would describe it as a humorous look at going home. It talks about how going backward can change the way you move forward.

NWS: The book covers a period of time in which your ex-husband left you for a man he met online, and you were involved in a serious car accident. Why did you decide to document those experiences – which were very private and painful – in a a forum as public as a memoir?

Rhoda: It’s a difficult negotiation to undertake, and one I’m sure every author does differently. I hadn’t decided to write about it until I signed the book contract. Initially, I started writing about my family and the funny and sweet things my parents did – safe things to write about. But my editor and agent encouraged me to include more about my past, and on their advice I did so, although it was with hesitation at first.

NWS: Were you worried at all about exposing yourself or your family or your ex-husband?

Rhoda: I wasn’t worried about any kind of exposure while I was writing it. It seemed overall to be positive, and I had good intentions. I like and respect my ex-husband still to this day, and I didn’t have any aspersions against the Mennonite community. In fact, I saw this as my tribute to them. I did feel a little vulnerable, though, when I thought about putting myself out there and realizing everyone would know my mistakes.

NWS: What is it like encountering strangers who know so many personal details about you?

Rhoda: It’s a little weird, but interesting. People feel – perhaps rightly – that they can follow up where the book left off and approach me as if we have had this ongoing relationship. And I need to expect that, because I have invited it by writing this book.

NWS: You were a published poet before “Mennonite” came out, but this was your first book of prose. Talk about the experience of having this first book launch you into the national spotlight. Were you prepared for its success?

Rhoda: It was just so startling. I didn’t believe it. I had assumed that only people like me would read it – people interested in writing and personal reflection, or that shared my sense of humor. I didn’t expect men and women, old and young, all these different people to pick it up! (laughs) I’ve been very surprised by that, and by how it’s being read – almost as a how-to book on moving through recovery and getting past a broken relationship.

NWS: As a first-time prose writer, not realizing the book would garner this much attention, is there anything you see in the writing or final product that you regret? Or are you happy with the outcome?

Rhoda: I would say I’m happy with the final product. I’d probably do a couple things differently, but overall I’m happy and proud of it. I’m just so thrilled that this risk paid off.

NWS: You were a poet before you became a memoirist, and published a well-received collection called “Babel’s Stairs.” Do you plan to continue writing poetry, or is prose your passion now?

Rhoda: Poetry is my first love. I can’t imagine my life without it. Poetry is small – you can come to a finished draft in a few hours, and then visit it over and over again. A memoir is such a big project. It has a different kind of energy. I wrote almost all of “Mennonite” in one month in my parents’ gazebo. It was a magical month. I was lucky to have the time to do it, and it was so exciting and fabulously new that I could turn out 25 pages in a day. But I don’t expect it to always be that easy.

NWS: Many authors leave their day jobs to write full-time, but you’re still employed as a professor at Hope University. What do you find rewarding about teaching that couldn’t be fulfilled by writing full-time?

Rhoda: I really love and respect the teaching arena. To me, it’s the idea of paying it forward. I was helped so much by other authors and mentors when I was younger, and I’d love to pass that on to my students. But I also learn so much from my students and colleagues. I can’t imagine finding that kind of vital atmosphere outside of the inquiring academic world. I have the best possible things to say about that dynamic.

NWS: You are currently working on a follow-up memoir called “Backslider,” which is slated for release in March 2012. In what ways does that work as a companion piece to “Mennonite,” and in what ways does it stand as its own work?

Rhoda: It’s probably a companion piece in the sense that it’s going to be in the same humorous voice as “Mennonite” and written in the same tone. It also picks up the narrative thread where that book left off, covering how I met my current husband and how he helped me move through cancer.

It’s different in the sense that there’s a slightly more serious or consequential edge. “Mennonite” was more open-ended – I was growing spiritually, but didn’t know to what end. “Backslider” covers my return to organized religion, and what it’s like for someone like me – who’s been outside the church – to approach it again with deliberation and intention, even though I still have some of the same doubts.

Rhoda post-chemotherapy

NWS: After everything you survived in “Mennonite,” it may be a shock for readers to discover you have since battled breast cancer. Has the process of writing these books helped you take away any lessons from such a rapid series of traumatic experiences?

Rhoda: That’s the kicker – bad things happen in life, but for some people they happen all at the same time. (laughs) I think what it comes down to is how you create meaning out of your experience. It’s one thing to have an experience, but another thing to learn from it. These gigantic, cosmic things were happening to me, and they were all inviting change. Fortunately, I took the hint.

Rhoda Janzen will appear at the City Opera House next Friday, March 5. Her memoir, “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress,” is in local bookstores now.