Sitting Down in a Virtual Swamp With Mark McBride
Mark McBride's short story "Artificial Intelligence" is available in Saw Palm 11.
What’s your connection to Florida? What most compels you about America’s Australia?
My parents, refugees from the farmlands of Alabama, chose to start their family in Jacksonville, Florida (sometimes confused as South Georgia). Both spoke with heavy hick accents, though my mother’s tongue was more gifted. (Once she said of my then one-year-old son, “Why, Mark Allen, Casey looks so much like you, you could’ve pried him out of your ass with a crowbar.” Her mother died when she was four and left her to be raised by rough talking makes.) Somehow I escaped childhood without a country accent and have lived in Florida since my birth. I relocated to East Central Florida almost 25 years ago and now live on a barrier island that is a half mile wide: the Atlantic on one side, the Indian River Lagoon on the other. When I travel and return home, I realize, over and over again, how unique our peninsula is. Rivers, lagoons, and an ocean that contain alligators, manatees, and sharks. Where else can you find stuff like this?
Tell us a little about your piece in Saw Palm. What inspired it?
My story, “Artificial Intelligence,” was born from a lunch I had with an honest and brilliant friend, a story of an environmental club’s trip to the Keys and the bait ball they came across, and seeing the Rodin sculpture and appreciating its title, She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker’s Beautiful Wife. Add a dash of “A Rose for Emily” and I was set.
What do you hope readers come away from your work thinking or feeling?
I guess that life is not as we always think it is, and that sometimes when we are sure of something, that certainty can be ripped away from us in an instant.
Do you have a writing routine? Describe your writing process.
I try to write for at least an hour a day, most days. I am slow. If I forge on too fast, I end up with a lot of words that go nowhere. I rewrite over and over again. I enjoy losing myself in sentences. The big picture is often a mystery to me. And to make matters worse, I am self-delusional. I will think my writing is brilliant until I show it to others who quickly strip me of that opinion.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
Dipping into the process every day. Even if for only fifteen minutes. You never know what will happen.
What is the most surprising piece of writing you’ve come across recently?
H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. It’s a memoir about training a goshawk, dealing with the grief of a deceased father, and how T.H. White didn’t really fit into the world. The summary sounds almost ludicrous. The book, though, was amazing. I didn’t want it to end and I’ll probably re-read it this coming year.
Is there a certain piece of writing you find yourself turning to again and again?
Sometimes nothing excites me. I suppose that’s one of the symptoms for depression: apathy. When I’m in that place, I will re-read things like Cheever’s “The Country Husband,” Babel’s “The Story of My Dovecot,” O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story,” Lorrie Moore’s “You’re Ugly, Too.” There are more stories, novels, poems. But these get me feeling again and thinking about how wonderful the written word, and that maybe, maybe, I have something to say too.
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?
“Florida Man Covers Front Yard in Twenty-Dollar Bills to Keep It Green”
Where can we find out more about you? Social media, website?
My blog, Writing That Matters: https://markmcbride.wordpress.com
What’s your connection to Florida? What most compels you about America’s Australia?
My parents, refugees from the farmlands of Alabama, chose to start their family in Jacksonville, Florida (sometimes confused as South Georgia). Both spoke with heavy hick accents, though my mother’s tongue was more gifted. (Once she said of my then one-year-old son, “Why, Mark Allen, Casey looks so much like you, you could’ve pried him out of your ass with a crowbar.” Her mother died when she was four and left her to be raised by rough talking makes.) Somehow I escaped childhood without a country accent and have lived in Florida since my birth. I relocated to East Central Florida almost 25 years ago and now live on a barrier island that is a half mile wide: the Atlantic on one side, the Indian River Lagoon on the other. When I travel and return home, I realize, over and over again, how unique our peninsula is. Rivers, lagoons, and an ocean that contain alligators, manatees, and sharks. Where else can you find stuff like this?
Tell us a little about your piece in Saw Palm. What inspired it?
My story, “Artificial Intelligence,” was born from a lunch I had with an honest and brilliant friend, a story of an environmental club’s trip to the Keys and the bait ball they came across, and seeing the Rodin sculpture and appreciating its title, She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker’s Beautiful Wife. Add a dash of “A Rose for Emily” and I was set.
What do you hope readers come away from your work thinking or feeling?
I guess that life is not as we always think it is, and that sometimes when we are sure of something, that certainty can be ripped away from us in an instant.
Do you have a writing routine? Describe your writing process.
I try to write for at least an hour a day, most days. I am slow. If I forge on too fast, I end up with a lot of words that go nowhere. I rewrite over and over again. I enjoy losing myself in sentences. The big picture is often a mystery to me. And to make matters worse, I am self-delusional. I will think my writing is brilliant until I show it to others who quickly strip me of that opinion.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
Dipping into the process every day. Even if for only fifteen minutes. You never know what will happen.
What is the most surprising piece of writing you’ve come across recently?
H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. It’s a memoir about training a goshawk, dealing with the grief of a deceased father, and how T.H. White didn’t really fit into the world. The summary sounds almost ludicrous. The book, though, was amazing. I didn’t want it to end and I’ll probably re-read it this coming year.
Is there a certain piece of writing you find yourself turning to again and again?
Sometimes nothing excites me. I suppose that’s one of the symptoms for depression: apathy. When I’m in that place, I will re-read things like Cheever’s “The Country Husband,” Babel’s “The Story of My Dovecot,” O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story,” Lorrie Moore’s “You’re Ugly, Too.” There are more stories, novels, poems. But these get me feeling again and thinking about how wonderful the written word, and that maybe, maybe, I have something to say too.
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?
“Florida Man Covers Front Yard in Twenty-Dollar Bills to Keep It Green”
Where can we find out more about you? Social media, website?
My blog, Writing That Matters: https://markmcbride.wordpress.com
Mark McBride’s work appears in such journals as Gargoyle, Normal, The Southeast Review (winner of the World’s Best Short Short Story Contest), Subtropics, and The Yale Review. He teaches at Eastern Florida State College.
