Ross McMeekin's writing has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Storyglossia, The Rumpus, Fractured West, Monkeybicycle, and Necessary Fiction.
He is the assistant fiction editor at Hunger Mountain and has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives in his hometown, Seattle.
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Ross McMeekin interview with Meg Tuite
In your first story, “What To Do When Nothing Can Be Done,” there is a relationship between two strangers that remains tentative yet has an intensity building throughout the story. Was there something that sparked the idea for this story and how did you work the structure of the piece?
The Hiram Chittenden Locks are within walking distance of where I live now and a short drive from where I grew up. It’s a familiar place; I’ve been there probably a hundred times to watch the salmon run up the ladders and the boats chug through the locks. Last fall, lightning struck somewhere in the locks and messed up the electronics or something, so the larger of the two locks was under repair and completely emptied. It was blustery still when I went down to check out what happened. I was the only one around, except for a guy who seemed like a guard. My subconscious took it from there. This story was initially structured a lot differently, mostly because it was twice as long and fit with a really long ramp, a boring flashback scene, and loads of extraneous details. Thankfully I have a few great readers who help me discover things about my stories. In this case, they helped me discover that about fifty percent of what I’d written was putting them to sleep. The rest was the story, structure and all.
“Something For Later,” deals with trust issues between another tentative couple, though, this definitely has an entirely different feel to it. Tell us about your inspiration for this story?
To be honest, I don’t remember. I only read People magazine in the doctor’s office or in line at the grocery store. I have never needed to use a burger with force. But I do often grill, drink beer, and watch the Mariners lose 1-0. Once again, my subconscious takes what little I give it and, out of it, makes something interesting.
What are you reading at this time?
A flash fiction chapbook, Wild Life, by Kathy Fish; Jim Shepard’s story collection, You Think That’s Bad; Gina Ochsner’s story collection, People I Wanted To Be. I’m enjoying all of them. They’re teaching me.
Who were the writers that had the biggest influence on you and your writing?
I was introduced to Pinckney Benedict’s writing just as I was becoming serious about my own. In an interview I heard somewhere, Tobias Wolff mentions that sometimes stories hit us so hard they become a part of our memory and almost seem like our own. I feel that way about many of Benedict’s stories. I have bought and then given away more copies of Town Smokes than I can count. Lorrie Moore’s short story collection, Birds of America, is one that I return to about once a year. It consistently makes me feel bad about my own writing. Always something to learn. It’s just so damn good. Each story stands on it’s own and all the stories together form a complex, cohesive unit. That’s tough to pull off. The last writer is David Jauss. I had the good fortune of working with him in my last MFA semester. At last year’s AWP conference in D.C., I was with some friends at an off-site lit journal reading in a loud, crowded bar that looked like it could end up being a terrible place to have to do any sort of performance art, much less a poetry/prose reading. David went last – after everybody was sauced – and thirty seconds into his reading you could hear a pin drop. He held the room for the entire story, which could have been five minutes, could have been fifteen, could have been an hour. It was one of those. Afterwards, one of my friends said she couldn’t bear to go up and talk to him the story was so beautiful. She felt she might burst into tears. Yeah. One of my friends.
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