10 Questions for Charles Swift
- By Sarah Lofstrom
Alan pulled up in his new car, watching his father hunched over near the curb, grateful the old man had some pants on. His father was sitting on a stack of boxes put out for the garbage truck, looking at a yel¬lowed copy of the local newspaper, making sure no one could get near the boxes before they got hauled off." -From "Boxes" Summer 2018 (Volume 59 Issue 2)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The White Knight Versus the Black Knight. I was about eight-years-old. Cranked it out on my parents’ ancient Underwood typewriter by typing in each quadrant of a page, four pages thick with three sheets of carbon paper in between (no photocopiers in the mid-sixties), then cutting the pages and stapling them into a sixteen-page book that I could distribute among my fan base. Plenty of combat, a hero’s quest, major twist at the end. Grandma said it was too violent.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
I guess I just can’t narrow it down. Everything I read influences me in ways I’m aware of and other ways I don’t pretend to know. I can’t read a book or watch a film or view a painting or listen to a song without reading it as a story. I enjoy the experience but part of my enjoyment is analyzing how it works together and trying to understand why the artist made the choices he or she made. It’s just the way my mind works. And all those stories influence my writing.
What other professions have you worked in?
Printing shop: worked the furnace, melting down the metal and cleaning out the dross; ran a press a couple of times; actually did some genuine typesetting by hand (you know, uppercase and lowercase). University administrator. Worked a summer for a Manhattan law firm before I quit law school. Freelance copywriter. Major software company: copywriter; manager of the copywriters; manager of the promotional group; product marketing manager. Left corporate America to teach high school students. Now, college professor—and loving it.
What did you want to be when you were young?
I had a speech impediment when I was a kid, but the doctor couldn’t find any physical cause. He finally asked my mother, Is he the youngest child in the family? Yes, he is. Youngest child in the neighborhood? Why, yes. Does everyone tend to speak down to him, changing their pronunciation, talking, in effect, a kind of “baby talk.” How’d you know? Well, that’s the problem. He speaks the way people speak to him. Get everyone to speak normally to the boy and he’ll grow out of the speech impediment. Oh, and get him to read out loud fifteen minutes a day to practice his speech.
Instead of just having me read from books we had around the house, or from the “See Dick. See Jane.” books the school board inflicted on me, my mother bought a special book for me to do my daily reading. It wasn’t a children’s book, but a book of quotations from some of the world’s great authors: The Joy of Words: Selections of literature expressing beauty, humor, history, wisdom, or inspiration…which are a joy to read and read again. I remember reading out loud—as a kid in first or second grade—the words of Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare. I still have that book, and I am still in awe of my mother’s insight. She didn’t have a college education, but she knew her son.
Now, I don’t know if that’s what did it, or if it was something else. Most likely a combination. All I know is that from a very early age, I wanted to be a writer. There were times I also wanted to be a firefighter or a knight or a doctor, but I always wanted to be a writer.
What inspired you to write this piece?
How people learn to cope with life once dementia interrupts it. How a person who struggles with it may become confused with things from the past and has to find ways to deal with those objects—and those people. How words are medicine.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
In a real sense, this is much like the question about writers and works that influence my writing. I can’t imagine a place I’ve been that hasn’t influenced my writing. Though I haven’t lived in Texas for decades, growing up there is in my bones, mainly because of family; “Boxes” is set there. However, there are other places I’ve not spent as much time that have had a tremendous influence on me. I lived in Manhattan for just over a year when I attended law school but feel as though I’m returning home whenever I visit. And, of course, when I’m talking about places I’m talking about people, about food, about ways of navigating life.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
It depends on what I’m working on and what stage I’m at in the process. There are times when I feel the need for silence, times when I want music but no words, and times when anything goes. Anything but country music. Not for me.
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
My wife. She is a wonderful reader for my work. But it’s not an early read. I don’t keep track of drafts, but it’s well into the process before I’m at the point where I ask her to read it. When I do, her help is priceless.
If you could work in another art form what would it be?
Music. Guitar, piano, or full orchestra. Words or no words. To move people through music. Music feels like something someone brought from a better world and left here. Naturally, it’s another form of storytelling. Everything is, isn’t it?
What are you reading right now?
I have a habit of delaying finishing books that I love, so I have a story left in George Saunders’ collection, Tenth of December. Just started The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes. Rhodes started out wanting a career as a novelist and he’s a fine writer. It’s nice for my mental health to relive those Obama White House years. James Wood’s Upstate. I’m enjoying reading the critic as novelist. I read The New Yorker each week—the writing is just too good not to. Plus I also subscribe to two or three literary magazines that I love to read; I’m a committed believer in supporting them. It just makes sense for our community.
CHARLES SWIFT is a writer and professor who lives with his wife in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. His first novel is The Newman Resident.
