KMWR: I’d love to know the origin of "Thou Art the Thing Itself." What was it like writing the first draft?
JCH: It is, in fact, a chapter from a novel I wrote, retelling the Dracula myth. I had been reading about Hungary and Transylvania, you know, looking for stuff to inform the story. I was collecting names for characters, and I saw the name of this king, Béla the Wisent, and I knew it had to be in the book. So, I imagined the king needing to cross this territory, and having heard of this Krizum guy’s reputation, he decided to send tribute, just to head off any trouble. Then I put these emissaries on the road, and I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen. I just wanted to get Béla’s name in the story. Well, for a long time the emissaries just talked. Ultimately, of course, I had to go back and cut most of that out. I just didn’t know what was going to happen. And then that “thing” came down the mountain. Now I’d love to say I invented this character, dreamed him up, wrote his dialogue, but that is not what happened. This guy just showed up in the story, fully realized. I don’t know where he came from. But I’m glad he came.
KMWR: I loved the contrasting textures in your prose: the ash, dust, mist, and chalk versus the gold, fur, blood, sword points, and wolves' teeth. These details built up a large, ancient world in a short space, and with these textures painted us a story about the hardness of greed and the ephemeral desires of mortals. I'm not sure if there is a question here, but I admired how this story delved into historical times without bogging us down in heavy context. Is this a new genre you are exploring?
JCH: Two things: I studied the literary minimalists and wrote a book about Frederick Barthelme. I like the idea of concision. The fewest possible words and all that Strunk and White stuff. On the other hand, I also write poetry. I like to think that those two elements work together to inform my prose. Of course, I also like to think I’m writing literary works that have room for genre elements. As I often put it in my query letters, I’m writing character-based fiction where the characters some times get away from me and start killing people and doing other non-literary fiction stuff. I don’t suggest saying that in your queries.
KMWR: Do you think you will expand on this story? I love it as it is (obviously!), but had some readers wonder if you would add more to this world.
JCH: Like I said, this is a chapter from a book. It has two narratives: one is a version of Dracula, from about 100,000 BC up to the climax of the novel. The other follows a group of college students who decide to start a religion. To make money. The two lines converge in the mid-1960s in northern California. And, predictably, things go badly, especially for the students.
KMWR: What is your ideal writing session, and what do you like to have nearby as you write? JCH: I’m best in the morning. An hour or so after coffee. Ideally, I want to sit in the chair and write. That’s not every day. I have trouble sitting down to do it. This kind of ties in with the next question.
KMWR: What kind of habits do you have with writing--good and bad? JCH: When I was teaching, I got up an hour early every day and wrote. That was a great motivator because I had no other time to write. I’m lazy. I can’t write after working. That one hour a day was like a gun to my head: now or never, boy. And so I did it. Incidentally, the best piece of writing advice I ever heard was “two pages a day.” Rough or smooth. Two. More if possible, but two for sure. In a year you could have 700 pages. Of course, what you’re going to have are 250 pages that have been worked over like a punching bag.
KMWR: What have you been reading recently that you would recommend?
JCH: I have eclectic tastes. I just read all the Slow Horses books by Mick Herron. I’m reading biographies of Charles Olson and William Blake. And I’m really looking forward to Pynchon’s new book in October. But here are some things I’d recommend: Lester Lies Down, by James Ladd Thomas
Like Human, by Janet Goldberg
The Sound of Rabbits, by Janice Deal
Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow
KMWR: Can you describe how your writing life has evolved over your career?
JCH: In the fifth grade, I asked my teacher if I could write stories with the spelling words instead of just writing sentences with them. She agreed on the condition that I read the stories aloud to the class. My 007-inspired stories were often bogged down by kitchen appliances or woodworking tools or whatever was in the spelling book that week. In high school I started writing poetry. Girls, you know. I kept writing poetry through college and my military service. Toward the end of my time in the Army, I started writing a novel about the stockade where I worked. That became my first book. I kept on with poetry but would step back and work on that Army book every once in a while. Finally, I finished it and published it and wrote another. And then another and so on. I still write the occasional poem, but I like novel writing the best. The satisfactions are fewer and slower in coming that poetry writing, but what are you gonna do?
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John Calvin Hughes has published in numerous magazines and journals, including Dead Mule, Southern Indiana Review, Autumn Sky Poetry, The Timberline Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and Mississippi Review. His publications include a critical study, The Novels and Short Stories of Frederick Barthelme (The Edwin Mellen Press); two poetry chapbooks, The Shape of Our Luck (Sargent Press) and Cul-de-sac Agonistes (Black Bomb Books); a full-length poetry collection, Music from a Farther Room (Aldrich Press); and four novels, Twilight of the Lesser Gods (CreateSpace), Killing Rush (Second Wind Publishing), The Lost Gospel of Darnell Rabren (Bowen Press Books), and The Boys (Regal House). His newest novel, The Green Man, will be released in the summer of 2025. Nominated for a Pushcart in 2015, he is also the winner of the Ilse and Hans Juergensen Poetry Contest and The Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He lives and works in Florida.