{"id":428,"date":"2011-10-14T15:12:06","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T14:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/?p=428"},"modified":"2011-10-14T15:12:06","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T14:12:06","slug":"exclusive-david-vann-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/2011\/10\/14\/exclusive-david-vann-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive David Vann Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Vann is one of the most exciting voices in contemporary American letters. His first work of fiction, Legend of a Suicide<\/em><\/a>, won seven literary awards and was selected as a book of the year by 25 publications, including the New York Times<\/em>. He has taught at Stanford and Cornell and is currently a professor at the University of San Francisco. On Monday 10th October, he spoke at the Cheltenham Literature Festival and read from his recent novel, Caribou Island<\/em><\/a>. Afterwards, he was kind enough to offer some writing tips for Creative Writing students at the University of Gloucestershire. Vann struck me as erudite, politically-engaged, and passionate about what he does; he also seemed like a genuinely nice bloke.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

D.D. Johnston<\/strong> I came to your work this year, and for me Legend of a Suicide<\/em> \u2013 that was the first of your books I read \u2013 was one of those rare, truly exceptional books\u2026 one of those books that, sort of, changes the way you see things.<\/p>\n

David Vann.<\/strong> Well, thank you.<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> But what I had no idea about until today was that you\u2019d finished the book fourteen years ago.<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> Yeah!<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> And I can understand why publishers would be reluctant to take it on \u2013 cause it\u2019s so unusual and stuff \u2013 but I\u2019d be fascinated to know how the book changed from the original version you finished fourteen years ago to the version in which it\u2019s published today.<\/p>\n

D.V. <\/strong> Well, not at all! No, that\u2019s where I finished fourteen years ago and then nobody would publish it. I should have changed the title \u2013 should have taken \u2018suicide\u2019 out the title \u2013 and maybe cut the stories, maybe just had it as a short novel, and then maybe it would have been published before the twelve years. But, yeah, it\u2019s unchanged; that was the way I finished it at twenty-nine\u2013 or I think I\u2019d maybe just turned thirty, in the fall, when I finally finished the revisions on it\u2026 which weren\u2019t much: I wrote more than half of \u2018Sukkwan Island\u2019 [the 165 page novella that forms the bulk of Legend of a Suicide<\/em> (D.D.)] in seventeen days while sailing from California to Hawaii. It just came very quickly after ten years of throwing stuff away. I\u2019d been working on it from nineteen until twenty-nine, writing stuff about my father, and after all that time throwing stuff away, it just came very quickly\u2013<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> You wrote that in seventeen days! That makes me sick!<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> Yeah, I wrote a little more than the first half and then it was a few more weeks to finish the rest of it, because I was sailing that summer and then by Fall I\u2019d finished the revisions and it was all done the way it is now.<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> Incredible.<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> Yeah, I just couldn\u2019t get it published [laughs]. It was actually second placed in a contest back then. First place was publication; second place was nothing. So it almost got published when I was thirty.<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> I was also interested by what you said about how dramatic writing influences your work. So I wonder if, for our students who have to study prose, poetry, and drama, but who are sometimes only interested in one or two out of these three strands, I wonder if you could say something about\u2026 about what you see as being the value of studying all the different disciplines?<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> Yeah, I think it\u2019s essential to read across genres, and to understand what all the genres borrow from each other, because in the end they\u2019re all the same ingredients; they\u2019re just put together differently. You don\u2019t fully understand the ingredients until you see how they\u2019re emphasised differently in the different forms. So in drama \u2013 theatre \u2013 you understand gesture and dialogue a lot better. And you understand a more streamlined dramatic form \u2013 you really understand a protagonist who is divided in some way, who has some problem, and an antagonist, who maybe wants the best for the protagonist \u2013 who isn\u2019t evil or anything \u2013 but who\u2019s just the worst possible person for them; they match up in a way that speaks to whatever problem is inside the protagonist. So you understand the basics of that \u2013 of what makes conflict, how each scene pushes into and creates the next scene, and what a scene is. So I\u2013<\/p>\n

At this point, D.D. was hailed by a student, one of five splendidly attired young pirates. For reasons not entirely clear (something to do with a birthday), they had dressed up as pirates and were on a mission to photograph a celebrity. While protesting he was \u2018just a writer\u2019, Vann happily posed for photos. Vann could not be further from the stereotype of a socially-awkward reclusive writer. He joked with the pirates about his own sea adventures, and showed them where he broke a tooth in a boating accident. \u2018Why didn\u2019t you get a gold one?\u2019 asked one of the pirates. \u2018Sh*t,\u2019 he said, as though genuinely struck by his oversight. \u2018I should\u2019ve gone gold; you\u2019re so right!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

D.D. <\/strong> [Laughing] OK, so, every writer has to draw on his or her own biography\u2013<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> But wait; I don\u2019t think I finished the other question.<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> Oh aye! Sorry, I got thrown by the pirates.<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> I think what you learn from poetry is that you can actually structure something with an image \u2013 with the development of an image. And so if you\u2019re writing fiction \u2013 if you\u2019re writing landscape description, for instance \u2013 and you want to think about how those descriptions build and work together. And for poetry\u2026 if you want to think how reflection and analysis work in a novel, read Melville. So whatever genre you\u2019re working in, all the other genres will actually give you the tools to do your own genre the best you possibly can. I don\u2019t really see anyone being a writer without reading the other genres. It\u2019s silly to think you can just read one genre and figure it out. Is that enough ammo for you? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> So, one way or another we all have to draw on our own personal experience and\u2013 Does it p*ss you off, by the way, that your work is so often dragged back to your biography?<\/p>\n

D.V. <\/strong> No, actually it doesn\u2019t. I mean, it should in that I\u2019ve noticed that before with other writers. Like, I saw a whole panel of Asian-American women writers and all they got to talk about was, like, what they thought of China. And [laughing] none of them had ever lived in China! And they were interesting writers, and they were all different, and we could have talked about their writing, but all they got asked were some stupid political questions. I felt really bad for them. And so I can see how you could feel like that, how you could feel that you don\u2019t get to discuss your work. But for me, I feel like all the questions they could ask about my personal life do actually relate to my work, and I do end up talking about the work at the same time that I\u2019m talking about my life. And so I\u2019m fine with all that; I enjoy it.<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> What I think I was about to ask you was about how some students find writing from personal experience really difficult. And you seem to draw on your own life in exceptionally interesting and complex ways, so I wondered if you had any tips for writers who were finding that hard?<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> Yeah, one tip is to move the location. Like, Sukkwan Island I\u2019d never seen. I was describing Ketchikan, which I spent my childhood in, but I moved it fifty miles, so that although I know the forests and the water, the actual shape of the hills, and what it\u2019s like when you go for a hike and look at the bay\u2013 All that\u2019s going to fit into the story, can actually be part of the paranoid world of fiction, rather than just being incidental because it happens to be part of real life. So I recommend moving things. And the same with characters in stories \u2013 like, just placing them somewhere else. So you have to displace things enough so that you\u2019re only using the psychological and emotional core, but you\u2019re actually making up everything that happens in the story. That\u2019s what gives your unconscious free room to surprise you and to do interesting things.<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> Penultimate question, I promise. It\u2019s been a great year for me in terms of reading, cause\u2026 I\u2019ve read three books that have really, kind of, excited me: I came to your work and the other two I\u2019m thinking of are Jennifer Egan\u2019s A Visit from the Goon Squad<\/em> and Foster Wallace\u2019s The Pale King<\/em>. So I was wondering if you\u2019ve read Goon Squad and Pale King and, if so, what did you think of them?<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> You know, I hope you don\u2019t put that on there cause I haven\u2019t read those yet [laughs]. They\u2019re on the list but I\u2019m behind. One thing about doing four-and-a-half months of touring, literature festivals, half-a-dozen book launches, and tons of interviews and stuff\u2026 And working on a new novel, and doing revisions for the novel coming out in May \u2013 like, the copy editing and stuff \u2013 and teaching \u2013 like, I\u2019m writing lectures and I have to read a student book right now \u2013 and I\u2019ve reviewed books, and blurbed books, and so\u2026 there\u2019s very little I get to pick anymore, like for what I\u2019m going to read. But this winter I\u2019ll be in New Zealand, December through April, and I\u2019ll have a lot more free time, and those are both on the list. But it\u2019s a list of, like, twenty books. Sorry, I feel like I\u2019ve disappointed you [laughs].<\/p>\n

D.D.<\/strong> Nah \u2013 I\u2019ll just cut that bit [laughs]. Ok, let me ask you instead, if you don\u2019t mind, about\u2026 You mentioned Blood Meridian<\/em> in your talk and I agree it\u2019s an amazing work. But I wonder if you were to recommend one book, something quite recent, that you think every student should read\u2013<\/p>\n

D.V.<\/strong> Yeah, that would be it. Blood Meridian<\/em> by Cormac McCarthy. It goes back to old English for [inaudible] heavy stresses. It concentrates content quite a bit. It\u2019s more cohesive than most fiction is. He gets away with a higher level of cohesion, like you\u2019d have in poetry normally: repetition of sounds and image. And it breaks all the rules of what you\u2019re supposed to do: we don\u2019t give a sh*t about the main character; we don\u2019t have any access to thoughts or feelings; and the whole thing works anyway. So\u2026 it\u2019s pretty amazing. I think everybody has to read it because they have to understand that all these rules that we think of for writing can be broken if you provide something else in substitution. And so the beautiful description he has, the depiction of an inferno, has larger significance for the culture of America and our own hearts, and fills in for not having a protagonist who we know or care about his feelings or anything. So it\u2019s interesting to see something that kind of breaks all of those rules.<\/p>\n

D.D. And, finally, what\u2019s your best tip for up and coming writers?<\/p>\n

D.V. Well, I had a class with Grace Paley, and she said that every good story is at least two stories. And to me that\u2019s the one unbreakable rule in writing \u2013 the only one. That if you just have an account of something, and it\u2019s just an account \u2013 like in most people\u2019s journals or blogs or whatever \u2013 it\u2019s just sh*t. Like it will never work. I can\u2019t think of a single good work ever that was just one thing \u2013 that was just an account of something. What we read for as readers is that second story \u2013 the subtext \u2013 and the interest of what story will come out from behind the other one. And so you can\u2019t break that rule, as far as I can tell. I\u2019ve never seen it done.<\/p>\n

A massive thank you to David Vann for being so generous with his time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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