American writer Richard McCann, author of the award-winning fiction book, Mother of Sorrows, as well as a collection of poems entitled Ghost Letters, visted UMBC on Wednesday, October 18 to read. His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in many magazines such as the Washington Post Magazine, and in numerous anthologies such as Best American Essays 2000. The room was full beyond capacity for his book reading, during which he read passages from Mother of Sorrows.

The Retriever Weekly: You have received numerous awards. How did success with your writing affect you? How did it affect your writing, if it did affect your writing?

Richard McCann: There are so many kinds of success: there's a difference, say, between feeling pleased with a book and achieving commercial success. I try to focus on those things that are more in my control, such as the writing itself, and to keep myself from focusing on things that are to some large degree outside of my control, such as marketplace reception. Every time one finishes a book, one gains some confidence that one can do it again; but every time one starts a book, it's like starting from scratch!

TRW: Do you read critics? If you do, how do they affect you personally and how do they affect your writing?

RM: I think you probably mean here critics of my own work, yes? Perversely, it's more upsetting to receive a mixed review than it is pleasurable to receive a rave review: one's mind always goes toward the criticism, doesn't it? Newspaper and magazine critics don't affect my writing much at all. I am interested in the opinions of some fellow writers. How does criticism affect one personally? Well, it's upsetting, of course, just as with any enterprise.

TRW: You are working on "The Resurrectionist, which explores the experience and meanings of illness and mortality through a narrative exploration of his experience as a liver transplant recipient." It seems that you already have done this before in essay form. Why write about such a topic in the first place? Why are you doing it again in book form?

RM: The essay you are referring to is like a sketch for a much larger mural. I also want to look at my experience as a liver transplant recipient in some broader contexts, e.g. living through and with the AIDS pandemic, the loss of many friends, and the death of my mother. The condition of being a survivor - a provisional survivor, I should say, since that's all that any of us can be from day to day - has meaning for me in these contexts as well as in terms of my own experience of illness. The experience of mortality isn't something that one can drain in one essay.

TRW: You earned your M.A. in Creative Writing and Modern Literature from Hollins

University. When did you first decide to take on a career in creative writing? Weren't you scared that it would be a risky move since many writers don't make a good living? What do you have to say about people that don't do what they want because they're scared of the possiblenegative outcomes?

RM: Imaginative writing - I'm not a big fan of the term "creative writing," forgive me, for it reminds me a bit of finger painting in elementary school - isn't so much a career as it is a calling. One doesn't do it so much for material success (which comes to only a few) but rather instead to give meaning to life itself and to use writing as a means of deepening daily life and experience. Yes, I started writing poetry when I was in college. I was very lucky to be young in an era when people didn't worry as much about money as they do now (everything was much cheaper, for instance); I never thought of writing as a means for making money but rather always figured I'd need a day job, which, in my case, is teaching. Most writers and artists have to do something that allows them to do their artistic work, e.g. paid work.

TRW: How did you feel when your first book was published, particularly your fiction? How hard was it to get it published, and what was the process you went through?

RM: I published my first book, a book of poems, when I was 27, and I think I didn't have a clue how to respond: I just kind of shrugged it off, not knowing what it meant or how to feel. Then I stopped writing for about eight years. When I started again, I was more aware of what writing meant to me and I felt desirous of producing in others the sorts of emotional reactions that some of my favorite books had produced in me. I write very slowly and painstakingly, so I have been in the perhaps enviable position at times of having less work than a publisher might want. It's extremely pleasing to publish a book. That is, it's pleasing to make something in this life, something that's separate from oneself and that (one hopes) might have at least a slightly longer life than mortal life allows.

TRW: It seems as though writers usually like to stick to one field, such as fiction, or creative nonfiction, or poetry. But you've done all three! What about all three interests you and which is your favorite, and why?

RM: I don't have a favorite, not really. All of my work derives from autobiographical impulses and I think the genre is often determined by a set of feelings and the nature of what I'm writing about: Is this piece largely a lyrical expression, for instance, or is it about how things move in time? The first feels more like a poem to me; the second, more like prose. I love language and working with language and it's been a pleasure to push at language in different genres, as different manners of speaking.

TRW: You teach the MFA [Master of Fine Arts] Program in Creative Writing at American University. This is great for students interested just in creative writing there, but how do you feel about colleges that offer things like literature programs as majors and creative writing programs as minors?

RM: I feel fine, in that people should do what they want to do, but I do feel wary when undergraduates spend a lot of their time reading the works of their peers and not reading the works that have preceded them. A writing program should be developing readers as much as or even more than writers. At American University, I've argued against a creative writing minor, so that students have a chance to spend more time with the works of others. I think that workshops are great. However, I would never have started writing without them, I don't think. Or, more precisely, I would never have kept writing. In the end, however, I don't think I know very much, certainly not about what's best for other people.

TRW: You have received grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts. Tell us what motivated them towards giving you a grant.

RM: The quality of my work, I should think, since these grants are awarded on that basis.

TRW: What advice do you have for people who want to write fiction? Creative nonfiction? Poetry?

RM: Just write and then write more. While you're writing, read a lot. That's all!

TRW: Do you think people need writing courses to become better writers?

RM: I think the most important thing that people need is to be entirely engaged with their subject matter.

TRW: Do you think a regime is necessary to become a full-time writer? Is so, what is yours?

RM: I don't have much of a regime. Or, more accurately, I work long hours when I'm writing, day after day; then I go for months without writing. I tend to be quite compulsive in many things I do, including writing, and although I would love to be a person with a clear routine, I'm afraid I'm stuck with my compulsiveness, which tends to mean that I work a lot and then burn out for a while.

TRW: What do you think the hardest part of writing is?

RM: In two words: Getting started.

TRW: Anything else that you wish was asked of you? If so, tell us and then answer it.

RM: No, just that it was a pleasure to visit UMBC and a chance to say I really appreciated the Q & A and the lively exchange, which was a great pleasure.