Mini-interview responses from Jerry Mathes, author of Shipwrecks and Other Stories.
EWN: Your short story collection, Shipwrecks and Other Stories, was published in 2017. What story within the collection had the earliest publication history outside of being in the collection, and what was that history?
JM: “Where the Grass Meets the Dirt” was published earlier than the rest. It appeared in the Talking River Review in 2003.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
JM: The publisher, Kimberly Verhines, at SFA University Press, had published my collection of essays, so when the story collection was ready I queried her and she took it.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as an author? Primary form to work with, or something you write when an idea hits, or …?
JM: I write short stories in tandem with other genres. I guess it depends on the questions or the situations I want to explore. In some stories, fiction allows me to stand off to the side of an event in my life I want to suss out, but don’t want to be constrained by fact or fidelity to history. For instance, the title story, “Shipwrecks,” is an amalgam of true events and fiction, populated with characters that are composites of people I knew and characters completely fabricated because the story couldn’t be contained in an essay. On the other hand, “Birth of the Hippo” is completely imagined.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
JM: I read a lot: novels, nonfiction (histories, biographies, art, science et al.), essays, scripts, poems, and I follow certain book reviewers. Short stories add the perfect texture to my reading life, much like varied spices add complexity and richness to one’s eating life.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
JM: I plan on reading a story a day from all the stacks of lit journals I’ve just unpacked that I haven’t had a chance to read. I was surprised at how many I’d collected along the way. I’ll pick a journal at random and see what it offers. I’ll also be working on a short story, but that’s not because it’s May, but because it’s what I do.
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
From Jerry Mathes:
I am a writer. I am a filmmaker. I am an artist. I am a dad. I am a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar. I was named the Outstanding Humanities Graduate at Lewis-Clark State College and the Outstanding Graduate Writer at East Carolina University. I have been a Helicopter Rappeller and fought wildfire for too long. I have worked as a martial arts instructor, an armor crewman, a construction worker, hotel auditor, car salesman, repo-man, delivery guy, cable guy, went logging, worked in forestry, crewed on several types of fishing vessels, and even haunted the oil fields as a minion of Mordor.
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