Associate Professor of Creative Writing, Matt Cashion, has been teaching at UW-La Crosse since 2006 and has been writing since the 4th grade. He published his first book in 2004, and just recently he has received the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction for his new published collection of short stories, “Last Words of the Holy Ghost,” which was selected out of more than 250 submissions. His advice to anyone interested in a creative writing career: be persistent and persevere…
When did you become a serious writer?
I was first interested in writing around 4th grade. In High school I wrote a lot of really bad poetry [Ha!]. Then, in college I took my first creative writing class and met a really nice, cool professor who told me that if I worked a little harder and practiced more that, maybe, I could develop some more talent. He encouraged me to do a lot more rewriting. So, that helped. I’ve been taking it seriously since then. I worked for a newspaper for a couple of years after college and learned a lot there by writing everyday and having deadlines.
What comes first to you, writing or teaching?
I think they both compliment each other quite a bit. I try to take my writing seriously as a job in itself and try not to rely on so-called momentary gust of inspiration. When I can, I try to take that seriously and write every day, every morning and schedule my classes to teach in the afternoon. So, I take them both very seriously, and I think teaching helps my writing. Talking to students who are also writers and who are interested in writing helps me articulate some of my own ideas and forces me to do more reading. Sometimes the stuff that I assign to read is new stuff every semester that I’m excited about—maybe new writers that I’ve discovered. So, that also kind of helps my writing. Students help me from being too lazy with ways I think about writing, and the summers are nice, because you can get into your writing and sustain your concentration for longer periods, which helps with longer pieces like novels.
Tell me about the Katherine Anne Porter Prize.
It’s an annual competition run by the University of North Texas Press. It’s one of quite a few competitions in the country that are based around story collections. This one, like many others, receives lots and lots of submissions that go through some screening and then get narrowed down to a group of finalists that are then forwarded to a final judge, who in this case was Lee K. Abbott, a pretty well known and great writer. He’s written 7 short story collections of his own and taught for a very long time at Ohio State University. So, it meant a lot coming from him. There’s a small cash prize, but they also give you publication.
Tell me about your short story collection, “Last Words of the Holy Ghost.”
It’s a collection of 12 short stories that I’ve written over a period of a few years. Most of them I’ve written since I got to UW-L in 2006. They offer a pretty wide range of voices, stories and points of view. The oldest narrator is 80 and the youngest is 9. They are men and women, black and white, straight and gay, poor and not poor, rural and urban. And they all have secrets to confess.
What was your inspiration for your short story collection?
These are stories I was interested in writing, some of them, for a long time. Some of them might be loosely based in autobiographical experience, but others make a point to do something new, challenging and ambitious or to write about other people and their points of view. I wanted to get into other people’s heads and tell their stories more than mine.
Have you been published before?
My first novel came out in 2004. It’s called “How the Sun Shines on the Noise,” which is loosely based on my newspaper experience, but relies a lot on imagination, which all of my writing does. Since then, I had been working on, what I thought was going to be at the time, a novel, but wasn’t liking it very much, and so I started rethinking and revising it and discovered, finally, that it just needed overhauling. I took two chapters out of the middle, and those chapters, which were originally published as short stories anyway, are now included in the short story collection along with the others I’d written. Meanwhile, the novel I was working on is going to come out next fall; it’s called “Our 13th Divorce.”
Who is your biggest role model?
As far as life goes, living day-to-day life and trying to be a good person and good teacher…maybe, my grandmother who I lived next door to for most of my life in Georgia. I’m lucky to have a lot of good and supportive people in my life. My wife is the first reader of everything I write, she’s honest and I like that. She’ll tell me what is not working and what is. As far as writer role models, I’ve got a long list of favorite southern writers. I like a lot of the humor Flannery O’Connor used in some of her stories, but also some of the serious issues that she was writing about. William Faulkner and Eudora Welty are others. I like a lot of contemporary writers too—George Saunders and Steven Millhauser may be my favorites at the moment.
What advice would you give to anyone pursuing a creative writing career?
I think the issue of persistence and perseverance is more important than what we might think of as raw talent. I guess I’ve discovered that to be true in my own life. There are tons of people with talent: writers, musicians and artists, but I think we all go through periods of uncertainty and doubt and rejection and other issues from life that interrupt us and get in the way. I think the people who stick with it and persevere continue to do what they love doing because they love it. Do it because you love it, not because you’re chasing fame or fortune, which illusory and maybe the wrong sort of motivation anyway. Keep reading, be immersed in language, be involved with other writers and see what they’re up to. Find a good support system and minor in creative writing at UW-L!
Professor Cashion will be at the Root Note from 7 to 7:45pm this Thursday, Nov. 5 for a brief reading from his prize-winning short story collection and to sign copies. You can check out more about his work on his website, MattCashion.com. Congratulations, Professor Cashion!