Author Interview – Luke Wallin

A Conversation on Creativity, MFA Programs, and The Writing Market

May 12, 2009

Luke Wallin has published award-winning fiction, non-fiction, and music. He locates his work at the intersection of nature and culture.

On an afternoon in May of 2009, Luke Wallin sat down with Suite101 in his North Carolina sunroom.

Suite101: you graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1971, an exciting period for the program when Richard Yates and Seymour Krimm were on the faculty. You now teach in the Spalding University brief-residency MFA. How would you compare the two programs?

LW: We require 20 times the work from our students at Spalding, and we offer 20 times the personal attention. It was great to be in the presence of someone like Richard Yates, but the quality of our teaching is much better. We are supportive and kind to our students in a way Iowa wasn’t.

LW: In the ‘70s I lived in New York City, wrote journalism and TV scripts, and taught at the School of Visual Arts. In the ‘80s I published novels for young adults and children. In the late ‘80s I became a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. In the ‘90s and 2000s, I concentrated on creative nonfiction, in the area of nature and environment.

Suite101: Your eight young adult novels were selected as best books by the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and others. Your novel about the Creek Indians in the 1830s, In the Shadow of the Wind, was recommended by The Committee on U. S. History Standards for high school classes. What do you think about the recent trend toward blockbuster fantasy novels like the Harry Potter and Twilight series?

LW: Well, three of my novels are science fiction; a fourth is a ghost story. Fantasy is fun and gets a lot of people reading. A novel in any area can be original and spirited. Two of my novels portray American Indians, one depicts Cajuns, and two others deal with race in the South. Each one of these is a story I desperately wanted to tell. One’s book might or might not connect with a publishing trend; a writer should write the best book she can, that’s most important.

Suite101: In the last several years you have recorded a number of CDs with your Crawfish Band. Has songwriting become more gratifying than other types of writing?

LW: I’ve always loved it. My first novel, The Redneck Poacher’s Son, grew from a song I wrote by that name. One of my stories, “Collecting Butterfish,” contains one of my blues songs. I enjoy having creative control of the songwriting and performing process, and I love playing with my friends in the band. Also, writing a book takes a lot longer.

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