By Tabitha Blankenbiller

Silk Road forked into my writing life path two years ago. I was halfway through the MFA program at Pacific University—far more polished and disciplined than I had been coming in, as someone who wrote while mistaking vagueness for intrigue, and couldn’t name off three memoir-writers even if my Nordstrom credit line depended on it. Still, I had two semesters of heart-letting and insomnia-spirals yet to learn from, and I was fluorescent green to the writer “business.” By entering the Pacific community I had a few literary journal names, like Tin House and Ploughshares. I had a fresh new Submishmash account (rest in peace, best web name ever lost!). But I had no idea how these literary journal entities worked, exactly. Who was reading our work? Why the long response times? What did a yes or a no mean, and what did a receipt of either reflect upon my writing?

In the first few months of working alongside editors Tammy Dietz and Hannah Pass in Silk Road nonfiction, I quickly learned that:

1. Journals get a ton of submissions. On Writer Island, as we are alone in our spare rooms and offices and hall closets combing through Google for possible homes for our work, it feels as if we’re the only ones doing so. I remember thinking with my first round of submissions I sent, there can’t be THAT many people sending stuff to Hayden’s Ferry Review. I have to have a good shot. I didn’t even see most of the submissions that were sent to Silk Road; the fantastic staff of junior editors sifted out the best to be sent up to the editing staff. Only a small fraction of favorites came across my screen, and of those, we may have accepted one out of every ten. For that reason, I began to feel slightly less awful as the form rejections started rolling into my email box. Although the perspective may have worn a bit after the 20^th.
2. A No is rarely a verdict that the writer is terrible. The vast majority of the time we passed on a piece, it was for reasons along the lines of content or style not fitting in with the journal’s vision, or perhaps not working with the other nonfiction pieces we’d curated for the issue already. I read writing from many people whose work left me spellbound, and downright jealous, but ended up passing on for reasons described above. The theory was later proven from the other side, when pieces I had rejected from some journals were enthusiastically snapped up by others. Good writing has a place. It’s just a bear sometimes to find where it is.
3. I love editing almost as much as I love writing. I’ll never forget the giddy joy I got from pressing Send on the first acceptance letter I wrote. Working to edit and restructure the piece into its final published version filled me with all the pride that drives people to do good work. I helped! It’s addictive.

I’ve had two bustling years of experience with Silk Road journal, lessons I’ve harnessed to propel forward: into my first journal acceptance letter of my own, my graduation, my finished manuscript, and my new job as a full-time editor. And as my latest learning curve, I’m stepping out with fellow Pacific alumni (Tiffany Hauck, Kase Johnstun, Charlotte O’Brien, and Sean Davis) to start a literary journal of our own, Spilt Infinitive. Spilt Infinitive is a journal that strives to represent new and underrepresented writers by publishing gritty, honest, scene-driven work. We crave scenework and substance, and a story above a situation. Pieces that are smart, funny, surprising, bizarre, yet profound are our favorite finds. I’m sad to be exiting Silk Road, but thrilled to pass along the good editing karma I learned here to this brand-new adventure, one I’m helping to carve with my own hands (or at least typing fingers). Our first issue is up on our website, http://www.spiltinfinitive.com, where you can download it directly onto your Kindle. The issue has work by outstanding up-and-coming writers, including Pacific alums Autumn Sharp, Jaydn DeWald, Laura Henley, and Leigh Camacho. We’re also accepting submissions for our second issue, and we welcome your poems, stories, and essays. Our guidelines and submission links are available at http://www.spiltinfinitive.com/submissions. Finally, my secret-delicious Spilt job is Woman Behind the Social Media Curtain, so please come see the Tweets (https://twitter.com/SpiltInfinitive) and Facebook posts (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spilt-Infinitive) that make me laugh uproariously to myself.

Best of luck to all Silk Road staff and submitters in the coming year! And thank you for all the challenges, questions, and joys you’ve blessed my time with. I’m sure our literary paths will be crossing again shortly.

Read “Love as Stained Glass” and “Overheard in Lincoln, Nebraska.”

The Interview

Elizabeth Vandermolen: You had two poems in the last issue of Silk Road that varied greatly from each other in both form and subject. How would you describe your writing style?

Andrea Scarpino: I definitely tend toward the lyrical in all of my poetry, but I do like to maintain some sort of narrative thread, no matter how fine that thread may be. I also tend toward an involvement in place and the natural world, although that tendency isn’t really on display in the two poems Silk Road published. But I spend a lot of time thinking about how a particular place/scenery/landscape is altering my thinking and writing, my mood, how I understand my place in the world.

EV: Who do you feel has influenced you as an artist?

AS: There are so many people! I grew up reading Dickinson and Plath and loved both of their work for different reasons—attention to fragments and fragmented moments in Dickinson, and the ability to emotionally connect with a poem through Plath’s work. But I also love poets like Adrienne Rich and Carolyn Forche, Muriel Rukeyser and Maxine Kumin—poets who connect with the larger world around them in interesting and surprising ways.

I also have been very influenced by visual art, by the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo, by stained glass windows in churches, by sculpture and dance. And as I said earlier, by place. When I lived in Los Angeles, I found myself writing poems with fire and drought and desert landscapes. Now that I live in Michigan, I find myself writing poems with snow and water and lush landscapes.

EV: I was very amused by your poem Overheard in Lincoln, Nebraska. My favorite line was, “As far as I can tell, the Russians/ aren’t making licorice.” How often do you find yourself inspired by conversations you overhear?

AS: Honestly, I eavesdrop more than I probably should admit. Sometimes I find myself more engaged in listening to a complete stranger’s conversation than in paying attention to my own conversation—which again is not something I should admit! But I find the language we use in everyday conversations really interesting and evocative, particularly when we come upon another’s conversation in broken fragments, overheard as we’re doing something else entirely.

EV: Writing a good love poem is a daunting task yet you captured the feeling beautifully in your poem Love as Stained Glass. The metaphor works so well in the body of the poem largely because the word “love” is only appears in the title. How important do you find titles in your work and in poetry in general?

AS: Well first, thank you, especially since I really struggle with titles. They feel so final, like they could make or totally ruin a poem, which I know isn’t entirely true. But I find that any one poem may go through multiple title revisions before I actually hit on the one that sticks. And sometimes this tells me that a poem hasn’t yet really found what it wants to say—when I can’t figure out the title, it may be that the body of the poem isn’t really working yet either, which is helpful information for me to have.

In terms of poetry in general, I really like a descriptive title, something that helps me to read the poem that follows it, that helps shape my understanding of what’s coming next. For that reason, untitled poems make me a little bit crazy—I feel like I’m walking into a blind date.

EV: What is the earliest moment you remember where you thought ‘I want to be a writer?’

AS: You know, I’m not sure if I’ve ever thought that! I have memories of speaking poems to my mother before I could write—she would type them on a typewriter for me. But I didn’t really think of myself as writing poems; I was more recording moments or feelings or images that I thought needed to be recorded. In high school, I had a wonderful poetry teacher—a rare thing for a high school student—but even then, I’m not sure I dared to imagine what it would mean to be a writer. Writing was just something I did, something I loved, something incredibly important to me. And I think that’s still the way I think about it.

EV: Okay, final questions. What are you currently reading? Or, if you had to recommend a book to read before the end of the year what would it be?

AS: Everyone should immediately read Terry Tempest Williams’ book When Women Were Birds. I just finished reading it, and it is utterly fantastic—lyrical and magical and just right-on all around. There are sections—the opening chapter for example—that take my breath away and make my heart sink into my chest at the same time. Really, it’s one of those rare books that feels like it has changed something deep inside me. And I love that.

Check out our 7.2 issue of Silk Road with cover art by Irish painter, Josie Gray. Along with painting, Gray has also written a collaborative work with Tess Gallagher titled, “Barnacle Soup and Other Stories from the West of Ireland”. Read more about him in this article written by Tess Gallagher.   http://www.cerisepress.com/01/01/the-paintings-of-josie-gray

Issue 7.2 brings together the work of 21 authors.

“Years ago when I realized why I wanted a boyfriend (for warmth), I started viewing men as jackets. In a hug, I tried them on. How does this feel, I asked myself, moving my hands up and down their backs. Sometimes they thought I was trying to steal their wallets, but I didn’t know how to explain myself.” –Meg Thompson

Our first chapters section includes the opening pages from Lesley Heiser’s upcoming novel The Girl in a Tree. In “All you Really Need Is a Light Jacket”, Meg Thompson entwines the lives and habits of animals and humans. The New Millennium Writings prize winner Vic Sizemore depicts characters struggling to teach their children to live a life of non-violence in a violent world in his short story, “Squirrel Gun”.

In our interveiw with author Deborah Reed, the author talks about how balances multiple genres as well as her path to becoming an author.

Read excerpt from a couple of the pieces in this issue at our website. http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/index.html

Barbara Price is a writer and editor living in Fresno, California. When she’s not writing, editing, hitchhiking, or having religious experiences via social media, she’s chasing her kids or driving them somewhere. Some of her poems have recently appeared in Slant, BorderSenses, and Redactions. Barbara loves to hear from other writers–look her up at http://www.editthis.biz.

Read “Winter 1979” and “I Find God on Facebook.”

The Interview

Elizabeth Vandermolen: Hi! This is Elizabeth and today I am interviewing Barbara Price. First off, thank you for taking the time for this interview. You had two poems in the last edition of the Silk Road Review and both featured an very narrative style. What attracts you to this form over, say, fiction?

Barbara Price: Thank you, Elizabeth!

Yes, some of my poems are very narrative, but of course they’re not tiny prose stories. When you’re writing — and when your goal perhaps is to pack as much meaning into as small a package as possible — poetry gives you more possibilities to make your meaning in a concise way, more ways to present your ideas from as many angles as possible. A poem, even a narrative poem, offers me more possibilities than a corresponding piece of fiction.

For example, I love crafting the rhythm and flow of a piece from beginning to end. If it doesn’t sound right to me all the way through, if the right rhythm isn’t there, it’s not done yet. Certainly there is fiction with beautiful rhythm and flow, but it’s unsustainable — and I think sometimes it gets lost, too, in the bigger context of a prose piece.

In Winter 1979, which appeared in the last edition of Silk Road Review, the somewhat choppy rhythm, along with the repetition, give readers an idea of the speaker’s uncertainty and hesitation, her ambivalence, the fear that seems to be lurking around the edges — maybe she protests too much that “it didn’t feel dangerous” or maybe the adult speaker knows something in hindsight that the hitchhiker doesn’t know.

If I were to convey all that in a short-short piece of fiction — well, I don’t think I could. It would turn out overwrought and melodramatic. In a poem, the rhythm can do that work for you.

And with fiction, too, you miss out on all the fun of line breaks and certain plays on meaning, or even certain parallel meanings. If I Find God on Facebook – the other poem that appeared — were made into a little story, I’d have missed out on the great fun of “the creator / of the Flintstones” or “God is King / of the Spam Status.”

EV: Who would you say are your poetic influences?

BP: This is such a hard question — every poet I’ve ever encountered has been an influence. Every poet I’ve read, every poet in every workshop, every poet who’s asked for or given me feedback, has been an influence. That’s true of everyone, right? And if you ask me to pick certain names, I feel that little twinge of panic that an Oscar-winner must feel, with too many people to thank, not enough time, and the certainty that she’s going to leave out someone absolutely essential. How can you even try to name names?

Even if someone else’s work is not directly visible in your poems, if you’ve read their work, you’ve absorbed it, and you’re influenced in some way. No one would likely recognize the influence of Lucille Clifton in my poems — as much as I might wish it were so — and yet, the way she could pack so much beauty, pain, and power into such short poems has had a huge influence on me. These are qualities I study in her work, qualities I aspire to. Even if you can’t see her, Lucille Clifton is there.

I also admire and study poets who use humor not just to be entertaining but in service to another purpose. I resist the idea that anything funny and easily understood should be thrown into the dreaded category of “light verse” or lumped in with “There once was a girl from Nantucket.” Sometimes, if you make readers laugh, they don’t look beyond that — they figure your poem is a throwaway — and you need to work a little harder to show them, “No, I also have something to say here.” So I spend a lot of time reading poets who do the things I hope to do, like Bob Hicok, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Tony Hoagland, Thomas Lux, David Kirby, Margaret Atwood — and of course I couldn’t help but notice Billy Collins’ influence on I Find God on Facebook.

My poems tend to fall into two categories — funny or dark — and I’m always working hard to bring the two closer together, to synthesize these two halves of my poetic personality. So, certain poets, I revisit them again and again, studying them, asking myself, “How does this poet do what I want to do?” I keep going back to Kim Addonizio’s “The First Line Is the Deepest” again and again, for this reason — it’s so funny and so sad.

EV: I really enjoyed your poem I Find God on Facebook. In particular, it discusses issues of faith through the humorous metaphor of social media. What inspired this idea?

BP: Thank you! Before I wrote this poem, a lot of thoughts had been running through my head. As anyone who writes poetry knows, you’re not necessarily thinking, “Let’s write a poem about these things!” — they’re just things you think about day to day, things you keep coming back to, and eventually they’ll find their way into your work if you let them.

Social media has become a bigger presence in our daily lives — even when you meet people face-to-face, the conversation seems to work its way around to someone’s posts or pictures or news. It’s like we’re all living in the same small town now — and for better or worse, you know people’s business, even people you haven’t seen in years.

Also, Facebook has become something like the “permanent record” that every vice principal warned us about: “This will go down on your permanent record!” There are stories — whether true or apocryphal — of people losing jobs, failing to get jobs, destroying friendships, undermining a romantic relationship, all because of their Facebook activity. And so in recent years, people have put more thought into what they put out there — they work toward sanitizing their image, making it safer: safer for work, for their bosses, for their kids or elderly relatives — because in some sense we all fear judgment. On the other hand, you can’t please everyone, so this is an impossible task, right?

Meanwhile, God or religion crops up fairly regularly in my work, too — it’s another ongoing obsession — so one day when I was thinking all these thoughts about social media, this just popped into my head: “What if God were your Facebook friend?” The idea made me laugh — but it also spoke to these other thoughts and concerns. If God were your Facebook friend, you might have all these concerns about your online presence — but even more so. And so…I went with that, and discovered that my speaker was not only afraid of judgment; she also judged. It turns out that God and his buddies were annoying Facebook friends.

EV: In your poem, I Find God on Facebook, you state “The Internet is forever. Yes,/ the Mardi Gras photo of me/ flashing that redneck in Biloxi/ named BillySam or SammyBill/ will live somewhere for all eternity.” Would you say that burgeoning writers should be careful of what they post? Especially given the importance of social media in today’s publishing world?

BP: In some sense, no, I would say just the opposite. If you have a Facebook account, say, and you avoid posting anything that might be controversial, anything that might make someone squirm or judge you — and these days, some people try to do just that — you’ve got to ask yourself: What’s left? You’re not portraying a real person anymore — you’re portraying some sort of bland dilution of yourself. You’re like a homeopathic remedy: nothing’s left of the original substance. You’ve taken out everything that made you real. You might be safe, but who are you?

So my advice would be the opposite — be exactly who you are, without apology. If you’re the person who flashed that guy in Biloxi, be that person. If you like watching and discussing reality TV, be that person. If you love to post pictures of your twenty-six cats in vintage designer shoes, be that person. Don’t worry so much about your image. Don’t worry about seeming cool enough, or smart enough, or wholesome enough, or whatever it is you’re worried about.

For a while, I struggled with this, with the “image” I was putting out there. I like to post photos of my kids, and very few women artists — take a poll! I’m sure this is true — want to project an image of being “a mom who is crazy about her kids.” We’re afraid it makes us sound dull, or the opposite of glamorous or artistic or intellectual or deep. Fill in the blank. Especially if you’re a woman, there’s a sense that you’re not serious enough about your work — or you’re not interesting enough — if being a parent is also very important to you. Well, screw that. That’s who I am.

Or, take political posts — especially right now before an election, everyone complains about people who bombard their Facebook friends with political posts — and hey, I hate that too — and yet sometimes I feel strongly about an issue and will make a strongly worded, strongly felt political post. So hate me.

At first I was worried about what people would think — about my kids’ pictures, about my political posts, about my swear words or lack of tact, about my silliness or my strong opinions — but if I censored those things out, there wouldn’t be anything left but a safe persona, interchangeable with any other. Anyone who won’t give me a job because of my online image, or anyone who thinks I’m too boring, not serious enough, too political, too tactless, too impulsive, too maternal, whatever — well, I’ve made my peace with that. I don’t need to impress those people.

As artists, that’s all we have — that’s all we can bring: who we really are.

EV: Your second poem, Winter 1979, focuses on a young woman hitchhiking during the last winter Ted Bundy was at large. How often are you inspired by recent historical events such as this?

BP: Fairly often — a sense of time can be as effective as a sense of place. Not every kid was hitchhiking in the slush in New Hampshire in 1979, but every woman of a certain age remembers Ted Bundy, remembers the news coverage, remembers how it made her feel or how it affected her view of the world.

I tend not to write about the “biggest” events — I haven’t written a 9/11 poem, for example. It’s hard for me to stake my claim there — so many other writers have already covered it so thoroughly and so well. But I’ve written about the era that followed 9/11 — about a wedding in Afghanistan that was bombed, or about a soldier with a head injury, or about Jenna Bush’s wedding. So…I don’t necessarily choose the biggest headlines, but I choose events that might speak to a reader and invite her own thoughts or reactions, or invite her in to a conversation.

EV: All right, last questions. What are you currently reading? Or name one book you insist goes on our readers’ bucket lists.

BP: Right now I’m re-reading everything by Robert Frost and Louise Bogan. Their work changed and evolved so much — it fascinates me to look at how much, and in what ways, their work changed.

And for the bucket list: One book I find myself zealously pushing on every poet I meet is “The Door” by Margaret Atwood. It’s one of those books that shifted the way I look at poetry. She blends the serious and the funny in such a genuine, graceful, powerful way. She’s so highly regarded as a fiction writer that her poems don’t always get the love and attention they deserve.

Imagine that’s your desk. That’s your manuscript. And you are sending it to the incredible editors at Silk Road.

No more summer vacation for writers or the editors who love them.  

Get writing.  Send us your work.  

Imagine that is your desk and the manuscript a blazingly good submission for Silk Road.

http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/Submit.html

Recent Sitka writer-in-residence and winner of the Sixth Annual Tartts First Fiction Award, Josie Sigler will read from her new book, The Galaxie and Other Rides

Silk Road Review was the first home to several of the stories in this powerful collection. Two of the pieces are included in Silk Road’s newly released issue 7.1.

These stories portray the struggle for survival and the resurgence of wilderness in the post-industrial heartland: a young man fears the worst when his best friend is deployed to Iraq; a woman resists a nuclear plant’s attempts to force her off her property; and a man who believes that Van Gogh’s The Starry Night is a painting of the smokestacks in his hometown loses his job at General Motors. Despite their losses, these characters maintain a porch-light-left-on love for each other that defies the odds. Indeed, love is their salvation amid the ruins.

T.C. Boyle has called The Galaxie and Other Rides “a smashing debut” and Ann Pancake writes “with language at times lyric and lush, at others raw and spare, Sigler has created a unique poetry of poverty and proves that beauty can outlast brutality.”

Saturday, June 2, the event begins with mingling and light snacks at 4:30 pm followed by a reading at 5:00 pm and a book signing at 6:00 pm. 

If you’ve never been to the Sitka Center, this is a great chance to see what it is all about in a friendly and festive atmosphere. For a complete list of summer events and driving directions, head to the Sitka Center’s website at http://www.sitkacenter.org or call our office at 541.994.5485.

Committed to expanding the relationships between art, nature and humanity, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology is well known for its workshop and residency programs. Located on Cascade Head, with views of the Pacific Ocean and Salmon River, Sitka Center offers a place where artists, writers, scientists, and musicians of all abilities and backgrounds go to nourish and inspire their creativity which ripples out into the world, making it a brighter place for all. Go to http://www.sitkacenter.org or call 541.994.5485 to learn more.

R.H. Sheldon

The Interview

Gina Warren: How did you begin writing Birds of Paradise? Was there an initial catalyst that sparked the idea?

R.H. Sheldon: I’d been traveling around the country for the better part of the year and landed in the South, which is when I started the story. In one town after the next, I saw closed-up business, abandoned buildings, and boarded up windows. The economy had hit these places hard, yet the aftermath had given the towns a timeless, almost fantastical quality, as though they could have belonged to any number of depressed eras. For many who lived in these places, there was no choice but to leave and head to wherever they could find work or a better life. For others, leaving wasn’t that easy. And even in towns that had not been as decimated, at least not apparently, there still seemed a sense of desperation and resignation among many of the people who lived there, feelings no doubt complicated by such issues as obesity, poverty, drug abuse, and teen pregnancy, issues all too common to much of rural America. So my story was born out of the desperation I sensed in these places. And I sensed too, that beneath the desperation, there simmered desires and passions that could never be fully realized, all of which pointed to the complex undercurrents that define much of rural life in this country, including the South, and overturns any simplistic stereotypes of the people in these regions. That said, there was never one inciting incident that prompted the narrative itself. Only the feelings I was left with after having visited there.

GW: There is some ambiguity in this story, questions it raises without fully answering: such as why Tulip left so rapidly for New Orleans, why Fletcher’s daddy told Tulip not to visit the garage anymore, and what started the fire that killed Fletcher’s father. How do you balance the tension between keeping the reader in suspense and telling a good story, especially in a piece this short?

RHS: I’m a big fan of ambiguity in fiction, perhaps because it seems to better approximate real life. The trick, I think, is to provide enough ambiguity to leave readers with something to consider after finishing the story, but not leave them so befuddled they revolt in frustration and anger and want to rip your story to shreds. When used effectively, ambiguity makes readers take a second look at what they’ve just read and challenges them to rethink their conclusions, perhaps to the point they want to reread the story to discover what they might have missed or to figure out a new way to assemble the pieces. At times, however, I think I tend to go too far overboard with the ambiguous. For example, originally, I had not provided any dates in the story because I was going for a certain timeless quality and felt that placing the characters in a particular era might pigeonhole them too much, but persistent editors insisted otherwise, so I succumbed. Balance is the key, I suppose. Without it, you end up with Hollywood-type writing on one end of the scale and a Naked Lunch sort of thing on the other end, in which the pieces never quite fit together. For such a story, you better be damn sure of your audience and what you’re trying to achieve.

GW: The diction of Birds of Paradise conveys a strong sense of the narrator; how did you chose this voice?

RHS: I think this ties to my response to the first question and my travels around the county. I had passed through a lot of new places and was exposed to a lot of different people. During that time, I was experimenting a great deal with different aspects of my writing, particular those aspects related to narrator and voice. In fact, playing around with narrator and voice is one of the best parts of writing fiction, at least for me. However, it can be difficult to do that if I limit myself to a small subset of people and places. I think that one of the most challenging aspects of writing that we, as a writing community, have to face is how to make time to write but not shut ourselves away from the world. So when I have the opportunity to get out there and experience what’s going on, I like to use the things I see and feel and hear and taste and smell in ways that let me occupy other voices and narrators and let me experiment with different perspectives of the world.

GW: Do you begin writing stories with an ending in mind, or do you tend to see where the narrative takes you? What about pieces that are as compact as Birds of Paradise?

RHS: Rarely do I know where a story is going when I start it. Writing works best for me when I share with the reader the process of discovery. If I’m not interested in where a story is heading, chances are, no one else will care. I write, in fact, to find out what’s going to happen. The unfolding of a story is an evolutionary process, one in which the process of writing itself holds the key.

John Ashford

JOHN ASHFORD volunteered in Botswana with the Peace Corps from 1990-1993. Upon his return, he earned a Certificate in Writing and Literary Fiction from the University of Washington. He has participated in critique groups and edited several nonfiction books. In addition to newspaper pieces, his story “The Boycott” appeared in the anthology, One by One, Thirty-one years of the Peace Corps in Botswana (1997). He has returned to Botswana twice and for several years has been at work on a book about travels in the Kalahari Desert. His nonfiction piece, “Topo,” appeared in Volume 6, Number 2 of Silk Road.

Read “Topo” here.

The Interview



Gina Warren: When did you begin writing? Have you always written creative nonfiction?

John Ashford: I really began writing when I was in the Peace Corps. In the village where I lived in Africa, there weren’t many distractions and I had the time and personal space to write.I often used the time to sort out my thoughts. Some of my journal writing began to develop into a structure that felt comfortable. When I came back to the U.S., I enrolled in writing classes and, a few years ago, took a workshop on creative nonfiction led by Lee Gutkind, long time editor of the Creative Nonfiction journal. That was where I learned there was a name for some of the writing I’d done in the Peace Corps.

Before that, in college I’d written short stories, but none of them ever found a publisher. For several years, working as a teacher and librarian, my writing was technical, or for a professional purpose.

GW: Writing creative nonfiction sometimes requires a catalyst for a story, whether it’s an insight, reflection on an experience, prompt, or moment in time. What gave you the idea to write “Topo”?

JA: An excellent question. Much of my identification with Topo was a subjective experience beyond my ability to analyze. I felt a sense of empathy for him, in the recognition that here is a young man living a life with elements of tragedy, but he’s learning how to cope.

I think the catalyst you refer to can be a rather complex experience. As far as writing the story, my interest in Topo began with a mystery. Topo’s name on my class roster was Ketopoyaone, though everyone at the school used the shorter form, Topo. I asked an African teacher to translate the meaning of his name and was told it meant, ‘This is the child I requested from God’. I realized, here is a young boy, at birth he’s given this prayerful name. I asked myself, what happened during those years to create the kind of turmoil he was facing at age fifteen? I was never able to fully answer the question, but it provided a focus, and when Topo’s problems were discussed among the teachers, I paid attention and took notes that later became part of the narrative.

I should make a confession here. I’ve formed a habit over the course of a career working in schools and colleges. When I’m in a meeting, I jot notes on everything that’s being said. The habit comes from the need to keep myself awake during often boring meetings. But in this case, the subject of the meeting in the story shed light on Topo’s background and was helpful to me in understanding his story.

GW: Readers get a clear picture, not only of Topo, but of the narrator in this piece. What do you believe are some important aspects of characterizing yourself as a narrator?

JA: I am, obviously, a Western observer seeing the landscape and some of the events at the school from the point of view of a foreigner. As the observer, I filter information and describe the elements important in the story.

Readers will be aware that, although the story is mainly about Topo, there is this other character who narrates the sequence. Naturally, readers will want to know how this person finds himself wandering down a road in the Kalahari Desert reacting to the arid landscape and the misguided donkey cart. My interactions with the headmaster at the school make it clear that in some ways, I don’t quite fit in here. The ways that I am an outsider provide a certain kind of context for the narrative.

GW: What drew you to Botswana? Did any of your initial motivations, besides teaching, for going to Africa come through in this piece?

JA: Actually, the place was selected by the Peace Corps. They try to match skills and experience of volunteers with the needs of a country. So, that part was accidental from my point of view. But it was a happy accident because I love being in the desert. I live on the wet side of Washington State and I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the arid sections of the Pacific Northwest.

But another motivation was my need for change at the time. I’d worked at an administrative job for twenty years and when I started working with immigrant students, I found the experience very satisfying. Eventually, I made the decision to teach overseas and got the necessary experience and certification for teaching English as a Second Language. As it turned out, I found it very fulfilling to live in another culture with a different language, different reactions, mannerisms, way of life. It really stimulated my ability to observe. I began seeing everything around me in a new way and I’d like to think that quality comes through in the story.

GW: It seems that Topo would not have had the same respect for the teacher had he beaten him, and perhaps that Topo wouldn’t have been supported by his community if he was violent. What is the importance of not being a “whip wielder”?

JA: You’re correct to think that if Topo had been violent he would have been considered an outcast. Despite the problems in his life, I never saw Topo express anger or aggression. Actually, in the context of an African village, very seldom do people resort to violence. Villages are typically very safe in that respect. However, in schools, corporal punishment is used widely. I myself did not feel comfortable with the practice and made a decision not to use physical punishment to deal with student behavior.

In a situation where a school uses caning, one kind of misbehavior is treated the same as any other kind. I’d rather come to an understanding with students verbally. I think students gain maturity with adults in the process of talking about a problem.

Jessica McCaughey

JESSICA MCCAUGHEY earned her MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University in Virginia, where she also teaches undergraduate English. Her work has appeared in The Colorado Review; Hot Metal Bridge; Phoebe, and other journals. Jessica lives in Arlington, Virginia. Her piece, “Scramble,” appeared in Volume 6, Number 2 of Silk Road.

Read “Scramble” here.

The Interview

GW: What are some of your literary influences?

Jessica McCaughey: This list is a mix of those nonfiction writers I’ve been reading for years and some newer favorites for me, but they are all folks whose work I turn to when I feel the need to immerse myself in really, really good stuff: Anne Fadiman, Susan Orlean, Sarah Vowell, Ira Sukrungruang, Kyoko Mori, David Sedaris, John McPhee, and Dave Eggers.

GW: What draws you to creative nonfiction?

JM: What’s most appealing to me about creative nonfiction is the idea of creating meaning from events and people and ideas that actually occurred. I’m definitely naturally a (too) reflective person, really, and digging through experiences in my head is, therefore, a pretty natural process for me. So, in considering these constraints of keeping things rooted in the truth sets me up, in I think a way that is different from fiction or poetry, to understand my life and the things around me better. I can’t fudge the details, and so what I can extrapolate feels more believable to me, and perhaps more legitimate. (I know there’s lots of controversy, specifically right now regarding John D’Agata, about whether or not this is, in fact, the case, but I’m pretty sure, for me at least, it is.)

GW: In Scramble you note that, “Years later, I will think back and wonder how we convinced ourselves that a day outside might cancel out years of such a strained connection, that a hike might override the sadness that seemed to sit silently between us for the duration of our relationship.” How did you decide to write Scramble after this lapse in time?

JM: Writing this essay was actually a unique experience for me, in that I wrote the first draft of it, the hike, mainly, very soon after it occurred. I felt capable, at the time, of forming something from it, and so I wrote down a lot of the details about that day and the weeks that followed, but ultimately I felt very stuck as I tried to revise. I ultimately put it away and several years later, once I had quite a bit of distance from the situation, came back to it and I knew much better, I think, what it needed.

GW: How can the passing of time and the reflective voice be valuable for creative nonfiction?

JM: For me, as I said above, the passing of time was crucial to even be able to include any real reflective voice here beyond the trite, expected considerations for this piece. And for creative nonfiction, I think that mix of storytelling and reflection is really crucial for giving a reader a full understanding, no matter how focused the actual story is in providing that specific perspective.

GW: Throughout this piece you juxtapose the narrative of climbing the mountain with the future knowledge of how the relationship between the narrator and William ends. “In that moment, as we pass the trailhead and start up the mountain, I don’t know that this will be the last weekend day we will spend alone together. That one night very soon, while watching a History Channel special about salt, I will finally admit that our relationship feels like pretending.” When writing Scramble how did you decide when to break out of the story of climbing Old Rag to reflect on different parts of the narrator’s relationship with William?

JM: The two storylines (the hike and the later reflection) were really intertwined from the beginning with this piece. I went back and forth a number of times on the breaks, where one scene switches to reflection or another scene, until it felt balanced, and until I felt like the reader had enough information to know what was going on, but didn’t know so much that it would color their reading of the hike itself throughout the piece. That felt really important to me as I was revising—that the reader knows, throughout, just a little more than the narrator in those past moments, but not quite as much as the narrator does years later.

GW: This piece is very honest; how can such intimacy be important to creative nonfiction? Do you think close scrutiny and specific details lend the narrative voice a certain credibility, does it deal with accurately defining meaning, or is it another phenomena entirely?

JM: I do think that an intimate, honest narrator and a lot of very specific details can lend credibility, but I think more important than that is striving to give a full picture, and anticipating the things one’s reader would be wondering about. Little details (the color of a pair of eyeglasses, a key piece of dialogue that gives some insight into a character’s thought process) are essential in creating meaning, and in developing this reader-writer relationship, but I think what I worry about more is enveloping the reader in whatever situation or scene I’m recreating on the page. The last thing I want is for a reader to be distracted, wondering, for instance, “I wonder why she was there” or “is this character 20 years old or 50?” In the revision stages, these questions come up a lot for me, and in workshopping this piece with other writers, they were the questions I was most intent on answering in future drafts. Ultimately, though, yes, I do think that by creating this full picture through details and reflection, I hope to give both a more meaningful account.