A Look Back: Author Interview: Dayne Sherman

Every so often we like to keep readers on those toes by interviewing a guest author. This week we interviewed Dayne Sherman, author of the novel Zion. He is refreshingly honest and open about his writing, life, and views, which makes him all the more interesting to interview.

1. Where do you live currently and how does it influence your writing?

Ponchatoula, Louisiana. It’s just north of the two lakes and Manchac swamp from New Orleans. Baxter Parish, a facsimile of my native Tangipahoa Parish, is where all my work is set. Sherman’s have been in Ponchatoula over 100 years. The parish has been and still is exceedingly violent. In the early part of the twentieth century we were called “Bloody Tangipahoa.” The place is full of tension and has many different factions that make up the place. Plus we have two interstates that crisscross, and it’s as if everything is transitory, forever moving and unstable.

2. What is your most recently published or almost published book and how long did it take you to write it?

Zion is a Southern mystery novel, a whodunit. The book took me seven years to write. It was released on October 30, 2014.

3. How many hours a day do you spend writing and what helps you to get into the writing mood?

I’m a binge writer. Though I am more or less constantly taking notes — I work as a reference librarian at a university library — I seem to do my writing in big chunks at night, on weekends, and on holidays. For example, I wrote seven stories in seven days two summers ago, most of it while my wife was driving. I might crank out twenty pages in a day. I like pacing by setting page goals or project goals and doing the initial draft quickly. Then I can take as long as I want in editing and rewriting.

4. Who are your literary heroes?

Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Tim Gautreaux, Wendell Berry, Ernest Gaines, Lewis Nordan, Albert Camus, Will D. Campbell, William Stafford, Edward Abbey, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Larry Brown, and Harry Crews. Mostly Southern writers.

5. What advice would you give struggling writers?

Write like the house is on fire and lower your standards. That’s what the great poet William Stafford said, lower your standards. It comes from a medieval jousting idea which really means to prepare for battle, as I understand it. Get the work on the page and out of your head so you can have something to work with. Get into a group and share work. And last, make your own luck. Whether this means networking for an agent or going the indie self-publishing route, don’t wait for a knock on your door. You knock on doors.

6. What is the strangest thing a fan or fellow writer has asked you?

A woman asked to sit on my lap at a book signing. Kind of strange. I said, “No! I’m married.”

7. What is your favorite book and why?

No Country for Old Men and Gilead. I say these two books because they influenced me the most after writing Welcome to the Fallen Paradise, which was published in 2004. Cormac McCarthy and Marilynne Robinson deserve the Nobel Prize. They changed everything about my writing and greatly contributed to Zion. The final book I’ll mention is the late Will D. Campbell’s memoir Brother to a Dragonfly. That book changed my life when I was 24 years old.

8. Where do you get your inspiration?

Childhood and folktales. I draw almost everything from the well of childhood, a very miserable childhood growing up in Louisiana. I’m just an amateur folklorist and collect oral tales and study folk culture. So, my fiction is both semi-autobiographical and the retelling of folktales in some kind of chemical mix. Beyond these two factors, I have a lot of hobbies that I mine for fiction.

9. What is the worst critique your work has received and how did you move on from it?

I’ve had some bad ones. The worst probably came from Zion. Several literary agents said it was too dark. But I think they missed the whole point and perhaps need to quit reading manuscripts allegedly written by Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and try reading some literature. I suspect agent after agent never read Shakespeare, assuming they can read at all.

10. How do you think the possible success of your writing will affect you and those around you?

Maybe my wife can retire from teaching. She’s been at it for 26 years. That would be tremendous. And maybe we could buy a small farm.

11. What is the weirdest dream you have had?

Let me redirect. I’ve only written one piece of work that came from a dream, my short story “Chemistry.” It was published in the Louisiana Review and then anthologized.

Basically, it’s the image of one of my old friends — who has had a hard time with work and has been laid off — turns up at my door kind of haggard-looking. As the dream and the story unfold, we end up going to buy a hunting dog and it becomes a disaster. I don’t want to give away too much about “Chemistry,” but it is one of the most heinous cases of deceit ever and it seems to move readers. I wrote the story the day after the dream. A nightmare really.

12. What’s one thing you want people to take from your writing?

I’m just trying to write a good story.

photo credit to: http://www.daynesherman.com/biobook.html