V.L. Brunskill: Savannah Scribe

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐲 𝐂𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐞𝐝  |  𝐏𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲 𝐛𝐲 𝐋𝐞𝐢𝐝𝐲 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫

“Writing has always been very natural to me,” says V.L. Brunskill, “I wrote very dark poems as a child. I kept journals. I was always writing something.”

 The author of a novel, a memoir and numerous stories and essays says, “I can’t not do it, even if it’s not publishable, it has to be written down.”

V.L. went from being a student in a journalism class to Boston’s go-to rock writer and national music journalist. It all started with the late great punk icon Joey Ramone.

“I had so much fun, but at first it was just to prove a point. I was learning interview skills in a journalism class at Emerson College in Boston. The Ramones were coming to town and I cold called their management and asked for an interview. They said yes as long as it was a cover story. ‘Of course,’ I said, hung up the phone and called a local music scene magazine and offered them the story!”

That cover story launched her career and before long, “I was being sent press kits and was interviewing every band that played Boston. I went to a lot of concerts and had a blast!”

As a national music journalist, V.L.’s work appeared in Metronome Magazine, CREEM, and The Boston Globe.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on Christmas Eve and adopted after seven months, V.L. says she was reborn in 1991 when she was reunited with her biological parents in Savannah.

Her writing journey paralleled her personal journey with the publication of her novel Waving Backwards: A Savannah Novel in 2015.

“I had moved to Savannah and fell in love with the city,” she said. “I was only writing short pieces but used NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month held every year in November—as a writing tool. I didn’t write a complete book but at the end of the month I had 50,000 words.” She says “I was writing while I was picking my daughter up from school because I just wanted to see if I could. And the first version of the book was awful.”

But she persevered and rewrote until she completed the book, which was published by Southern Yellow Pine Publishing, LLC.

𝐖𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬

“Imagine not knowing who you are, until you find yourself in a statue 800 miles from home.”

Waving Backwards: A Savannah Novel weaves the story of New York college student Lara Bonavito with the city of Savannah. Adopted into an abusive and impoverished home, Lara’s quest to find her roots lands her in Savannah’s historic district. A vivid cast of characters help her unravel clues found in a cryptic letter hidden in the family bible for two decades. ‘The baby’s roots are with the Southern lady who waves forever.’

The novel features a cast of characters that could be found only in the south, including trolley tour guide Robert Taylor; Kipling-quoting florist Abel Bloom; and comically outspoken Louisiana beauty, Susan Fletcher, Ultimately the heroine uncovers family secrets wrapped in the mystique of Savannah’s Waving Girl statue.

It is a coming-of-age quest that reveals the healing power of family bonds, and maternal love. (www.amazon.com)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐭 - 𝐀 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐢𝐫

“I was eleven years old when I failed to kill my father.”

V.L. followed the success of her novel with The Killing Closet- A Memoir, also published by Southern Yellow Pine Publishing, LLC, in November 2023.

She says, “I started the book in 2016, but didn’t publish it until last year. It took time, but ultimately I needed it to be out there. I grappled with the idea of publishing. First, because I had hidden from my childhood abuse for so long. I was also concerned whether people would want to read a candid retelling of the abuse.”

She says the impetus to tell her story came from anger. “I started the book when the woman who inherited my father’s estate accused me of abandonment. I wanted her to know what my family had suffered so I recorded my most horrible childhood memories. I was telling her that ‘you didn’t know the man I knew,’”

The Killing Closet is a story of surviving unthinkable abuse, escape and the damage done when one lives a false life.

The false life V.L. refers to is her adoptive father’s life. “My adoptive father had a secret gender. When it was revealed to me, it was yet another dysfunction to sweep under the proverbial rug. I ran away from my father’s truth because I wanted a strong, loving, masculine dad,” she says.

She knows this is a difficult topic for many readers but it also speaks to the pain many live through when they deny who they are, and how that pain becomes inflicted on those around them.

V.L. says, “I could not accept Jo’s truth because I was still healing from the mayhem of having her as my father. This book paints a picture of a tortured life and how her suffering became ours.”

As the book progressed, V.L. says both bereavement and healing began to happen and she was able to use her book as “an examination of domestic abuse and the many ways we humans become trapped.” She says she was able to go back and “find what I really thought and have a perspective of what we really went through,” as a family experiencing profound and brutal domestic violence.

“There is strength in the telling. Whether people read to heal from their own demons, or to understand the dynamics of suffering and survival, there is a place in the world for the books that reveal the frailty of the human condition.” Silence and secrets are deadly not only to the bearer but also to those in their orbit.

“I think another takeaway is the importance of embracing one’s truth. It is going to be painful, and it might break lifelong connections, but only by living one’s truth can we be whole. We need to stop telling people who they are. They already know.”

V.L. was concerned the transgender topic narrowed the story but actually the story is much larger and encompasses family, faith, domestic violence, and finally escape. And there were those who helped.

“The shelter we fled to was the first of its kind in NY, which is important to note. It literally saved our lives.”

As a survivor bearing witness, she has become a helper herself. “Whether trapped by violence or the inability to live one’s truth, I hope my book allows at least one person to unlock their killing closet and step into the light.”

𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬

Waving Backwards explored an adoptee’s search for her biological family in Savannah, and The Killing Closet describes the domestic violence an adoptee and her family experience.

“I believe my memoir offers the adoption yin, while my novel was the yang. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang represent a universal harmony,” says V.L. “There is good and bad in all things. The way I understand it, the yin is negative, darker, and feminine, and the yang represents positivity. I touch on the topics of adoption, separation, reunion, and family dysfunction in both books.”

She says at book signings there are always those who share their own personal experiences on these topics. “That part of having my books out there has been amazing. What happens is we discover how much we have in common.”

𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬

Hard at work on her third book, V.L. is returning to fiction and it is definitely not adoption related

“My current project is a historic crime fiction set in the south in the early 1900s. It’s a mystery that takes place in the time between the first road races in Savannah and it is based on a real murder.”

She has done extensive research and recently acquired the full transcript of the actual trial. “I am knee-deep in hand-written court records and the researching of historic details,” she says, “and I have 45,000 words done so I am getting there..” The working title for the book is Between the Races.

𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠

In addition to writing, V.L. is a full-time virtual event producer, with clients in Human Resources, the financial world and the law.

“I am always writing, as the job requires a lot of writing about completely different topics.”

She says she makes time for her own personal writing whenever job and family life allow. For relaxation she “absolutely loves my front porch”—a centering place where she can relax and enjoy the southern coastal lifestyle.

“I do love the historic district in Savannah, too” she says, “I enjoy going to local bookstores, and antiquing.”

Savannah is a great writer’s town with a variety of independent bookstores and author events including world-famous Savannah Book Festival where V.L. was honored to meet the late great Pat Conroy, whom she subsequently met at other author events.

“He was very kind to me and when I published Waving Girl, I was honored to give him a copy,” she says.

That’s the magic of Savannah, where writers create and thrive under the sweet southern Spanish moss.