Telling the Dark – an intriguing title. How did you come to name your work that way?
Thirteen years ago, when I first dared submit some short fiction to a publisher, an editor remarked, “These are some dark and hopeful stories. There’s a lot wrong with them but I think they are worth trying to save.” That was not precisely what I hoped to hear but the stories were accepted, and I titled my first short story collection, Dark on the Mountain. Five years later, I was still writing dark and hopeful stories, hence the title of my second collection of tales, Early Dark. I am still mining that vein, I suppose. There needs to be some dark in a scene to show us where the light is shining.
Why do you consider the short story form important?
I began writing short stories because I had first written a novel that after two hundred queries was still in search of a publisher. It didn’t take long to realize that it is more difficult to write a good short story than it is to write a novel. A short story is a high wire act. Missteps have serious repercussions. There’s no room for surplus verbiage. There is a reason birds travel light. A real advantage to writing short stories rather than novels is that it takes much less time to fail at one. They also take much less time to read, a real advantage in a cultural climate that favors short attention spans.
What other sort of material do you write?
Between short stories, I’ve written six novels over the past thirteen years. They all began as elaborations of a short tale, usually because a character in one of them caught my fancy and convinced me they had more to say. I also run a newsletter on Substack, Drovers Gap, that requires a short daily post, generally a reflection on the absurdities of life in Trumplandia, or an excerpt from whatever fiction project I may be working on.
Do you have a writing routine?
I don’t get religious about it, but over the years a pattern has developed. I try to get out of bed before daylight and write for a couple of hours while I’m the only human awake in the house. I tend to write on paper and edit on a screen. In the mornings I’ll work in my garden if the weather’s fit or take a walk with my wife, Jane Ella, across the mountains surrounding our little town. Afternoons, I’ll answer mail and read as unavoidable errands allow, and maybe write for an hour or two in the evenings, or talk to my wife about her day. We don’t have a television.
Or a writing space?
I love my writing space. It is a former porch we enclosed against the weather with windows along the long north side overlooking the garden. I find the steady silvery daylight calming and focusing. Jane Ella’s office space is on the opposite south side of the room. We work back-to-back and are effectively alone unless we don’t need to be.
Do you have any advice for the wannabe short story writer?
Steady beats inspired. Write something every day. If you write enough bad stuff, something among it will be pretty good, maybe better than you knew how. And pay attention to your editor. They will be that person you hate to love, but when you behold your published story, you will. Your editor will see the story as a reader does, will prick you in that spot where your skin is thinnest, will open your eyes where you didn’t have any, will prune your tale to the quick. An editor’s loyalties are all with the story. If they must dent your ego to make your tale shine, they won’t hesitate. But at the end, you must know for yourself where you have writ right and where you missed your mark.
Are you working on any other projects at the moment?
I’m working on a novel, tentatively titled Gather the Fallen that I fantasize might become the second book in a trilogy that began with my 2023 novel Among the Fallen. Also sorting through thirty years of poems to see if there is something there that could be gleaned into a book. And there are the little stories, of course. I think I may have written the last one, and turn a corner to meet one more. Short stories remain my first love as a writer.
Do you have any events planned?
Later in September there will be a reading/signing launch party in the parish hall of the local Episcopal Church where my wife, a.k.a The Main Muse, sings in the choir. We’re working out dates for a couple of events at area independent book stores. I’m not clergy, but I’ve been invited to preach to some Episcopalians over the next few weeks. The first text I’ve been assigned is that lovely passage in Luke 14 where Jesus says we must hate everybody kin to us. When one is old and strange, folk will try to persuade you to do all manner of weird things you never expected to do.
Find your copy of the book here
