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Writers Collaborate, But Haven't Met

© Robert Powers

Lynne Hugo lives in southern Ohio with her husband and two children. She has published two collections of poetry. Anna Tuttle Villegas lives in the Central Valley area of California with her teen-age daughter. Hugo and Villegas had never met, yet they have collaborated on a just-published novel, Swimming Lessons (William Morrow, $21).

The book tells the story of an Olympic hopeful who gave up her swimming career when she fell in love. When Marna meets Laurel, who seems perfect, friendship appears unlikely. But Laurel isn't the smooth professional she appears. For one thing, she's terrified of the water. When she asks Marna to give her swimming lessons, that's the beginning of a staunch friendship.

An excerpt from Swimming Lessons was published in the June issue of Good Housekeeping.

Hugo and Villegas don't see their unusual collaboration as particularly unique. Hugo, for instance, calls Villegas one of her closest friends, but doesn't see the necessity for a face-to-face meeting. "Although the nuances of voice and laugh communicated by phone have added a significant dimension to our friendship," Hugo said, "I feel like I know Anna thoroughly from our written correspondence."

The two women "met" in the fall of 1996, when a literary agent suggested that Hugo contact Villegas for a reference. Anna said their first phone call lasted "over an hour as we discovered we had similar publishing starts and literary interests." Before long, as the two began to learn more about each other, the idea for Swimming Lessons began to flower.

"Our back-and-forth commentary . . . inspired us to begin (the novel)," Villegas said. "We imagined two women, a strong, single professional named Laurel, and a not-so-confident professional named Laurel, both in love with the same man.. I would write Marna, and Lynne would write Laurel, and we would trust each other in the imagination of our characters' stories."

Hugo said they spent literally hours on the phone "in marathon sessions. We'd go over chapters the other had written, discussing, questioning, challenging, affirming, correcting--in short, serving as each other's editor."

The result is a book that the review service Booklist called "engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable" while Publishers Weekly described it as "bittersweet and rewarding."

The two collaborators did book tours last month, Lynne in Ohio and Anna in California. And no, they still haven't met. But both are looking forward to that first live encounter, though Anna believes that "in some ways it will be almost anticlimactic. Lynne says she wants to see Anna so "I can borrow her clothes."

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