Ron Carlson

by Adam Reger

. . . interviewed at Fiction Writers Review. Interesting stuff, very much about teaching as well as writing, and the writing questions are specific, process-oriented questions. I’ve lost track of his career over the last five to eight years but he used to be a favorite, beginning with his time as writer-in-residence at Beloit College. A few years ago I saw him read a selection from “Beanball” at the AWP conference and wondered why I’d stopped reading Ron Carlson. I wonder that now, too.

I’m heartened to hear that he’s not an everyday writer, that even for an established writer there are weeks when you muster only two days at the keyboard.  His goal of working more days per week than he doesn’t seems refreshingly sensible to me. I am floating into that zone myself, no longer having the available time to sit down for a dedicated, unbroken chunk of time each day. Partly it hurts, but partly it’s great, too: there are enough other things going on that I don’t have a daily string of hours from the time I get home to when I go to bed.

Also, this quote: “A lot of days I’d stop in the middle of a word. I’d know how to pick up, because I knew how to spell.”