Art Taylor: Hone Your Craft, Connect with Your Community
A quick look at Art Taylor's website (or bio) will tell you he's been published a lot and he's won a few awards too. Among them is the 2019 Edgar Award for his short story "English 398: Fiction Workshop" that was originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. It's the sort of track record many writers dream about as they clack away on their keyboards and fill up dozens of pages in their notebooks. But if you ask Art, focusing your energy on honing your craft, connecting and talking with members of the literary community, and creating a routine that fits your lifestyle will take you much further. It all comes down to your mindset.
First and foremost, congrats on winning the Edgar Award!
Thank you! It’s also been up for a number of other awards—most recently, the Macavity Award.
Sweet!
Yeah!
So short stories are your jam?
Yeah, it's where I feel most at home. I can see the whole narrative arc in my head, which is nice because I don’t write linearly. A short story is easier to browse around in. I can write something in the middle and then build off it. With a novel I think you need to have a sense of the architecture before you dive in—whether you’re a panster or a plotter.
When you set out to write a story do you ever go, “Oh this won’t work because it’ll be too long,” or do you just write it and let the chips fall where they may?
I write pretty long short stories. They're usually 10,000 to 12,000 words long. But if a story needs to be longer or shorter it is what it is. Where novelists have more of a tendency to accumulate (e.g. add more characters, dialogue, scene), I have the tendency to trim things down.
Gotcha. Before we completely dive into all things literary, I have to know something. If you were heading to a deserted island and you could only bring one gadget, one food or drink, and one person, what and who would you be bringing?
Ha! Oh my! One gadget… I’d have to take my phone because I live on that most of the time. I’d take bourbon—or something of the sort. The person though is tough. I’d bring my wife Tara, but we wouldn’t want to leave my son, Dash, behind. We’d miss him. We’ll smuggle him in using a big backpack.
Ha! Yes! What’s your go-to road trip song?
Dash and I made a road trip playlist last year that we listen to a lot. One of his favorites is “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads, so I’ll go with that one.
What’s Dash up to these days?
He’s been doing a bunch of summer camps. He actually just got done with his secret agent camp.
WHAT?! That’s so cool!
He’s big into secret agents right now. He has all sorts of gadgets. Some help him inspect crime scenes. Others help him become invisible. He also has these mirror glasses that let him see what’s behind him.
I used to have a pair of those! Too cool!
And see I encourage all this because I write genre fiction. It’s awesome when he asks questions about James Bond because I’ve got answers!
Has he seen any of the movies yet?
He’s seen Dr. No and Goldfinger. They’re a little more tame, you know?
Yeah, definitely. I wouldn’t recommend starting him off with Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig.
No.
Does he want to be a writer?
You know, if you grow up in a house of books I think you naturally come to love them—and Dash does. When he first started school they asked him what he wanted to learn and he immediately told them he wanted to learn to read. He’s grown up in this world of books and writing, so it’s all very normal to him. Tara and I take our writing seriously. But we also value the community and the written word. So we want to be active participants and we want Dash to be a part of that. We want to share all these things that we’re passionate about with him.
And he is interested in writing. He actually entered his first contest this year—the local PBS station was putting it on. It’s funny, I won the Edgar Award and Tara won the Agatha Award, but if Dash would’ve won I think we would've been even more excited about that. We wouldn't have been able to contain ourselves.
I’m sure!
He didn’t win though.
Aw man!
But he took it in stride and was just like, "Oh well."
Being involved in all this from a young age will definitely help him out down the road if he sticks with it. Figuring out the lay of land is one of the hardest things about our community and it takes time.
Oh definitely! I remember going to my first AWP in Chicago—I’d gone during the first year of my MFA at Mason—and feeling so overwhelmed.
I know the feeling.
The world was so “other” to me. It was a world I wanted to be a part of and yet I was outside of it. So that first AWP I spent a lot of the time hanging out with the other folks from Mason. It’s very different to go to AWP now. Over time, as you continued to interact with the community, it’s easier to walk down the aisles and say hello to editors, writers, and other people you know. It can take a little while, but in time you start to feel comfortable and that you're part of it.
Is there anything specific that helped you get more comfortable?
It sort of happens organically. You talk to people at conferences, readings, etc., and you remember them and they remember you. The next thing you know, you’re friending them on Facebook or Twitter. You’ve got a connection. All those connections and interactions build on each other as time goes on and before you know it you feel like you've found a home.
Another part of this is knowledge and growth. For many years I sent stuff out to literary journals, magazines, websites, whatever and was just hoping they’d publish my work. Back then they sent paper slips. So for me the rejections literally piled up. But after a while I began to get the acceptances and then all of a sudden people were coming to me and asking if I had a story I could submit. So was a really interesting turn. And it just sort of… happened. That’s not to say I still don’t get rejections—because I do. But through this process you find your place in the community and find who you are as a writer. Once you do, it’s easier to be an active participant in the community and feel like you’re included in it.
Yeah, there’s so much more to being a writer than being published. Even if you’re not getting published you can still interact, learn, and add value to the community.
There’s a lot of people who think in terms of quantity first, rather than quality. If they just keep writing and sending stuff out as quickly as possible, they’ll get published. They’re so focused on getting the acceptance that they don’t take the time to pay full attention to the writing itself. It’s not about relentlessly sending out anything you write. Get your craft down. Figure out what you’re writing. The publication(s) will come.
Did you always know you wanted to write mysteries?
When I was growing up mysteries and crime novels were what I loved. But then when I went for my MFA and began thinking about myself as a writer I thought I needed to write something “important,” something literary. Many MFA programs champion literary fiction over genre fiction to point where a lot of them specifically state in their syllabi, "No genre fiction." But saying, "This is what I really love and this is what I want to write..." led me to greater success. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about because I’m reading Ben Percy’s craft book, Thrill Me, right now.
That’s a great craft book. When he had come to Fall for the Book, after he’d written The Dead Lands, he’d mentioned it was going to drop and I immediately put it on my calendar. How are you liking it?
I’m liking it a lot. I picked it up when it first came out, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it until now. I’m thinking about using it to teach a class this fall that’s all about writing suspense. But before I assign it, I need to read it. It’s so interesting because he had the same journey I did. He loved to read fantasy, science fiction, horror, and so on. But when he went to get his MFA he was like no, no, I need to write ______. But then he started to realize that these weird divisions people set up are artificial. They're all parts of trends.
Absolutely. The boundary between the two aren’t as rigid as people believe.
What we think of as realistic fiction—Percy talks about this too—and what they’re teaching at the MFA level is all part of a very recent trend. When you go back to people like Hawthorne or H.G. Wells, the fantastic and the supernatural were always there. Genre has been there from the beginning. Only recently has there been some levels of prejudice against it. But like you said, it’s breaking down.
I once heard Julianna Baggott put it like this: Writing is like this big geographical area. Maybe you’ve got people who’re more literary over here and then people who are more genre-inclined over there. But the really interesting stuff is being done at the boarders.
Did you figure out what you wanted to write while you were getting your MFA or after?
A little of both. I think what people get out of an MFA isn’t what they would typically expect. Many people think they’re going to end up with a book that will be published immediately and that they’re going to get a mentor who's going to lead them through the publication process. That’s not necessarily the case. What you do get out of an MFA program is a better idea of what you like to write, a writing routine, an understanding of what you need to write your best, a community of peers who can give you feedback that you trust, and a community you want to support. To this day, I continue to send work to folks I was in the MFA with—Tara included, of course. Having people who are going to give their honest opinions and perspectives to help you reach your potential as a writer—and your story’s potential—is what it’s all about.
Do you and Tara swap work often?
We do swap. But how often depends on our schedules. We both get so busy. I also try to hold off on asking for feedback until I can no longer work out the kinks myself. Again, it’s about giving yourself enough time with the work. The funny thing about constantly workshopping in the MFA is you don’t always get the time you need with a story. A lot of the time when you turn something in for workshop you already know what needs to be worked on. Once you get outside of that MFA schedule and get the chance to really work these things out on your own it changes the whole process. It’s a much slower process though.
Yeah the slower pace is something I noticed almost immediately. When I was going through the program I felt like I was constantly sprinting. So to an extent it’s nicer, but it’s also been an adjustment. Especially since life doesn’t always cooperate. How do you juggle work, family life, and writing? How does that go?
I’ve got this electronic to-do list on my phone and the first thing on it every day is “write.” But a lot of the time I go days without checking off that box. During the summer I try to get a lot done because during the school year the courses and the students take priority. But there has to be a balance and... I think back to Dash when he was learning to walk. It was such a struggle—as you can imagine. And when he took one step Tara and I were like:
And then when he took two steps we were like:
And eventually he got where he needed to go. That’s stood with me a lot. I think the regularity of writing is more important than the other daily writing measurements people use (e.g. number pages, time, words, etc.). I’ve got friends who say they need to write an hour a day or write 500 words a day. With my schedule I can’t stick to that. What I can do is check in on my writing as much as possible. Whether I’m writing a scene, revising a story, taking notes on a future scene, or just thinking about a story. All of that is forward progress. All those things help you keep the story in the back of you mind and eventually—just like Dash—it’s going to get you where you need to go. It’s only when you stop moving that things begin to stall. You can be writing even when you’re not at the computer. I can’t stress that enough.
That’s a great approach and a good note to end on. Before we go though, I was wondering if there's a book you’re looking forward to reading this year?
The Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman. I actually read an advanced copy of it and it’s fantastic. But I’m going to be re-reading it this summer because I’m planning to teach it in my “Women of Mystery” class. I like to include something contemporary to show what crime writers today are doing in the genre. So I’m looking forward to reading it and teaching it because it does some fascinating stuff to capture the era.
About Art Taylor
Art Taylor won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. He’s the author of On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, two Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction. His work has also appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, and he edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University, and he has contributed frequently to the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter.
