Sitting Down in a Virtual Swamp With Devin Murphy
Devin Murphy's short story "In the TV Chair at the Belle Glade Greyhound Station" is available in Saw Palm 11.
What’s your connection to Florida? What most compels you about America’s Australia?
My visits through Florida were as a tour guide leading camping treks for foreigners when I was twenty-four years old. I drove a fifteen passenger van with a roof rack full of tents and camping gear. We toured the coast, cities, and swamps. I bathed in camp showers, rivers, lakes, the gulf and the ocean. I slept outside every night minus a few low budget Miami motels. I was young, happy to be alive, and everywhere I looked the incredible natural beauty of the state and diversity of the kooky locals amazed me. All the tourist spots and all the inadvertent stops offered a glimpse of a place so much different then where I grew up near Buffalo, New York. I was hypnotized by the state, and find myself imagining wandering there again in my writing. I’m also captivated by stories told about Florida. Carl Hiaasan’s books are lent a sense of the ridiculous from the state; Karen Russell’s Swamplandia a feeling of the fantastic; and Laura van den Berg’s stories, especially, "Opa-Locka," a dramatic energy I love to read about.
Tell us a little about your piece in Saw Palm. What inspired it?
My story in Saw Palm, "In the TV Chair at the Belle Glade Greyhound Station," came from the memory of sitting in such a chair as a kid. Begging quarters. Studying the people. Being a bit scared and probably annoying to my parents. I mixed that memory with an attempt at writing a moment of trouble for a young person, which turns out to be a different kind of trouble than the immediate menace the stranger proposes, and more of a prophetic trouble of the kind I see women having to face in a sex crazed, sexist culture.
What do you hope readers come away from your work thinking or feeling?
I should probably think about this more while writing, and as I get older I do, but this is a story that only wanted to capture a moment in someone’s life, when things are not going well and everything is uncertain. I am scared for this little girl. Scared of what brought her here, what confronts her here, and where she will go next. I’m not sure what a reader will leave this story with, but I left it with a sense of outrage and unease. I wanted to help this girl. She could have been my sister. She could be my daughter. Or, any stranger who needs help. Who needs a small kindness. I think the optimist in me shows people in need so the reader can find that spark of willingness to help others once the lights are turned down and everything goes dark. That’s what I look for in myself when I read dark material.
Do you have a writing routine? Describe your writing process.
I have had many writing routines. That should tell you how effective they have been. Though I’ve found that as my life changes, so does my routine. As a graduate student, I wrote day and night, but as a father of two young children with a third on the way, and a full time teaching gig, I carve out time where I can. I’m also a little, just a little, less frantic about my output, as I’m coming to terms with the fact that I have a lifetimes worth of writing ahead of me. I’m not going to run out of material, as at some point, routine after routine, trained me to absorb whatever comes my way through experience or reading and make use of it for my own stories. I have a family and that comes first. Writing is an obsession and a calling and all that other idealistic lingo to me, so I treat it as such, and when I have time, I work. Early. Late. When I can, I work. That is my routine for the foreseeable future. I try not to get frustrated when life gets busy, and when I do, the cure is easy. Do a little more work.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
When I was young, nineteen or twenty, not yet brave enough to give voice to the fact that I wanted to be a writer to friends and family, I let slip to a stranger this yearning, and he did not scoff at my proclamation but asked me a question that changed the shape of my life. “What are you doing to practically achieve your goal?” That was all he asked, and to be honest, the rest of the conversation falls off in my memory, but that questioned floored me. What am I doing I thought. I read a lot. I write in a journal all the time. But to what end? What practical end? From this one question and the series of questions I asked myself afterwards I became a series writer, and I always go back to that question and rehash it for each project. What are you doing to practically get through this scene? To revise it? To outline this book? To get into graduate school? To get yourself educated? To read as many books as possible? It sort of gave my energy focus, and whoever that guy was, I thank him by passing that question on to my students now, those 18-24 year olds who meekly knock on my office door with the first stirring of longing to write and make language a pillar of their lives.
What is the most surprising piece of writing you’ve come across recently?
Lidia Yuknavitch’s, The Small Backs of Children, a novel, and Laura Naughton’s, The Jaguar Man, a memoir, both floored me. They were poetic, inventive, and dealt with dark material with such love and poetic light that it made me want to change the kind or writer I am. I think those books drove me to write this story in Saw Palm from the point of view of an unfairly put upon young girl.
Is there a certain piece of writing you find yourself turning to again and again?
There used to be a lot. The first three pages of Peter Mathieson’s, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, are gritty, realistic, and poetic all at once. I loved them. I showed them to my dad when I first read them at fifteen, and he patted my head, and said, “You’re still young.” I was a bit hurt by that but knew what he meant. I was romanticizing hardships in the world. But, there is poetry and rhythm in the prose that sill held up as I returned to it over the years. But now, there are too many books I want to read that I find myself going forward more than backward. I imagine many writers have this feeling of total dread that they will not get to all the books they want to in this lifetime. This impulse makes going backward a challenge.
The “Florida Man” Twitter account curates news headlines of bizarre domestic incidents involving state residents, such as “Florida Man Fights to Keep Pizza-Loving Alligator.” If you had to write a Florida Man-style headline about yourself, what would it be?
New York Naïve Preemptively Overdoses on Anti-Venom Shots Due to Fear of Snakes.
Where can we find out more about you? Social media, website?
I’m in the process of getting a social media presence for the sake of my debut novel coming out in September. My new website is https://www.devinmurphyauthor.com/ and my Twitter handle is @boatrunnerbook.
What’s your connection to Florida? What most compels you about America’s Australia?
My visits through Florida were as a tour guide leading camping treks for foreigners when I was twenty-four years old. I drove a fifteen passenger van with a roof rack full of tents and camping gear. We toured the coast, cities, and swamps. I bathed in camp showers, rivers, lakes, the gulf and the ocean. I slept outside every night minus a few low budget Miami motels. I was young, happy to be alive, and everywhere I looked the incredible natural beauty of the state and diversity of the kooky locals amazed me. All the tourist spots and all the inadvertent stops offered a glimpse of a place so much different then where I grew up near Buffalo, New York. I was hypnotized by the state, and find myself imagining wandering there again in my writing. I’m also captivated by stories told about Florida. Carl Hiaasan’s books are lent a sense of the ridiculous from the state; Karen Russell’s Swamplandia a feeling of the fantastic; and Laura van den Berg’s stories, especially, "Opa-Locka," a dramatic energy I love to read about.
Tell us a little about your piece in Saw Palm. What inspired it?
My story in Saw Palm, "In the TV Chair at the Belle Glade Greyhound Station," came from the memory of sitting in such a chair as a kid. Begging quarters. Studying the people. Being a bit scared and probably annoying to my parents. I mixed that memory with an attempt at writing a moment of trouble for a young person, which turns out to be a different kind of trouble than the immediate menace the stranger proposes, and more of a prophetic trouble of the kind I see women having to face in a sex crazed, sexist culture.
What do you hope readers come away from your work thinking or feeling?
I should probably think about this more while writing, and as I get older I do, but this is a story that only wanted to capture a moment in someone’s life, when things are not going well and everything is uncertain. I am scared for this little girl. Scared of what brought her here, what confronts her here, and where she will go next. I’m not sure what a reader will leave this story with, but I left it with a sense of outrage and unease. I wanted to help this girl. She could have been my sister. She could be my daughter. Or, any stranger who needs help. Who needs a small kindness. I think the optimist in me shows people in need so the reader can find that spark of willingness to help others once the lights are turned down and everything goes dark. That’s what I look for in myself when I read dark material.
Do you have a writing routine? Describe your writing process.
I have had many writing routines. That should tell you how effective they have been. Though I’ve found that as my life changes, so does my routine. As a graduate student, I wrote day and night, but as a father of two young children with a third on the way, and a full time teaching gig, I carve out time where I can. I’m also a little, just a little, less frantic about my output, as I’m coming to terms with the fact that I have a lifetimes worth of writing ahead of me. I’m not going to run out of material, as at some point, routine after routine, trained me to absorb whatever comes my way through experience or reading and make use of it for my own stories. I have a family and that comes first. Writing is an obsession and a calling and all that other idealistic lingo to me, so I treat it as such, and when I have time, I work. Early. Late. When I can, I work. That is my routine for the foreseeable future. I try not to get frustrated when life gets busy, and when I do, the cure is easy. Do a little more work.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
When I was young, nineteen or twenty, not yet brave enough to give voice to the fact that I wanted to be a writer to friends and family, I let slip to a stranger this yearning, and he did not scoff at my proclamation but asked me a question that changed the shape of my life. “What are you doing to practically achieve your goal?” That was all he asked, and to be honest, the rest of the conversation falls off in my memory, but that questioned floored me. What am I doing I thought. I read a lot. I write in a journal all the time. But to what end? What practical end? From this one question and the series of questions I asked myself afterwards I became a series writer, and I always go back to that question and rehash it for each project. What are you doing to practically get through this scene? To revise it? To outline this book? To get into graduate school? To get yourself educated? To read as many books as possible? It sort of gave my energy focus, and whoever that guy was, I thank him by passing that question on to my students now, those 18-24 year olds who meekly knock on my office door with the first stirring of longing to write and make language a pillar of their lives.
What is the most surprising piece of writing you’ve come across recently?
Lidia Yuknavitch’s, The Small Backs of Children, a novel, and Laura Naughton’s, The Jaguar Man, a memoir, both floored me. They were poetic, inventive, and dealt with dark material with such love and poetic light that it made me want to change the kind or writer I am. I think those books drove me to write this story in Saw Palm from the point of view of an unfairly put upon young girl.
Is there a certain piece of writing you find yourself turning to again and again?
There used to be a lot. The first three pages of Peter Mathieson’s, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, are gritty, realistic, and poetic all at once. I loved them. I showed them to my dad when I first read them at fifteen, and he patted my head, and said, “You’re still young.” I was a bit hurt by that but knew what he meant. I was romanticizing hardships in the world. But, there is poetry and rhythm in the prose that sill held up as I returned to it over the years. But now, there are too many books I want to read that I find myself going forward more than backward. I imagine many writers have this feeling of total dread that they will not get to all the books they want to in this lifetime. This impulse makes going backward a challenge.
The “Florida Man” Twitter account curates news headlines of bizarre domestic incidents involving state residents, such as “Florida Man Fights to Keep Pizza-Loving Alligator.” If you had to write a Florida Man-style headline about yourself, what would it be?
New York Naïve Preemptively Overdoses on Anti-Venom Shots Due to Fear of Snakes.
Where can we find out more about you? Social media, website?
I’m in the process of getting a social media presence for the sake of my debut novel coming out in September. My new website is https://www.devinmurphyauthor.com/ and my Twitter handle is @boatrunnerbook.
Devin Murphy's debut novel, The Boat Runner, is forthcoming from Harper Perennial/Harper Collins in the fall of 2017. His recent fiction appears in The Chicago Tribune, Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, New Stories from the Midwest, and many other journals. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Bradley University.
