Channeling Marilyn: How Writing a “Marilyn Monroe Afterlife” Book Helped Me Grieve (Guest Post by Mima Tipper)
During the years I researched background material for my paranormal YA novel Channeling Marilyn, I read a lot about Marilyn Monroe’s life and death. To be honest, though many of those books—fiction and non-fiction—probably hold truth, I wasn’t interested in adding to that arena of Marilyn stories. I wanted to follow my inspiration and write a story around the premise of “What if Marilyn’s spirit could come back down to earth?” I wanted to tell a story about what Marilyn’s spirit would think of the world and her legacy today. How would she feel? What would she do? What would she want to do? Who would she visit, and why? Hello fiction and fantasy! And so I began writing, diving deep into what I imagined would be a fun, funny, poignant tale about my very made-up characters and my very made-up world. What I didn’t understand until much later was that a common writing prompt for those who’ve lost a loved one is to write another story for that person. After spending years revising my Marilyn book, receiving that specific prompt around grief illuminated an aspect of my story that I’d never even considered.
A little background here: my niece Maggie Feiss died tragically young about a year before I began writing Channeling Marilyn. Then years later we lost my young nephew Michael Burke. After my nephew’s death, a lot of thoughts came and went. A thought that stayed was that I needed more tools for processing grief and loss. I attended a “Grief Toolbox” workshop at the Moretown Memorial Library in Moretown, VT, where an exercise was to “write your grief.” This exercise was also mentioned during a class I took online with author Alison McGhee. In both workshops, I learned that a suggested prompt was to write what I wish could’ve happened: a re-writing of the past toward healing/resolution, as it were.
I never would’ve come up with this prompt on my own, but writing about what I wish could’ve happened with my nephew led me to recognize that my paranormal novel about Marilyn Monroe’s spirit displayed many of the hallmarks of writing through grief.
I thought about how, during the years I was drafting Channeling Marilyn, I often told people that I wanted to give Marilyn a “different” story. That need for something different was why I concocted a tale about a seventeen-year-old, plus-size girl whose life goes sideways when the spirit of Marilyn Monroe takes up residence in her body. I thought about all my writing and revising, writing and revising, and how when at long last I sent the book to my publisher, I had to write a dedication for the book. The words came like lightning striking: “For Michael and Maggie, and all those gone too soon.” Writing those words was when I realized that part of my writing about my fictionalized spirit-Marilyn was helping me deal with a lot of feelings about losses I’ve experienced in my own life. Not all of those losses are deaths, though thinking of both my nephew’s and niece’s deaths showed me that I held and still hold a lot of grief for the loss of those lives cut short. And that possibly Marilyn’s death—also at a young age—represents for me some aspects of those losses. Both my niece and nephew are brilliant, bright lights gone too soon. As is Marilyn Monroe.
So, for me, part of the draw of writing about Marilyn’s spirit and imagining her coming back to this mortal coil is that it allowed me to think of her loss in a different way. I could put her in a stronger place by literally creating new “memories” for her. No spoilers, but through many revisions, I wanted to give my Marilyn an experience all my reading and researching about her suggested she didn’t seem to get during her life. In giving her that new experience—and many others—in my fiction, I gained a lot of healing and peace about the losses of my niece and nephew, and also gained important insight about productive ways to express my grief.
~
Mima Tipper’s “Channeling Marilyn” (She Writes Press) is a charming YA paranormal comedy releasing on June 2, 2026, right after the 100th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth on June 1. In the book, Marilyn Monroe’s spirit returns (literally) to help a shy, plus-size teen to star as the sexy showgirl “Cherie” in a school production of Monroe’s famous “Bus Stop”– and together, they both learn what they truly need to move forward.
Mima Tipper is the award-winning author of the YA novel "Kat’s Greek Summer" and the upcoming YA novel "Channeling Marilyn." Beyond devoting most of her time to writing, Mima helps at Inklings Children’s Books in Waitsfield, Vermont, volunteers at her local library, and is committed to promoting literacy and supporting the writing community. Find her at www.mimatipper.com.
Comments
Post a Comment