Student Spotlight: John Christopher Nelson

Interview

What do you write? 
Any­thing and every­thing I find time for. I’m cur­rent­ly on a seventh draft of my first—so far—novel length work. But I also write cre­ative non­fic­tion, flash fiction, and short fiction. If you dig far enough back (don’t), you can find some bad poetry of mine online. A mentor from my under­grad, who’d read both my poetry and my prose, told me my strengths were with the latter, not the former, and to focus all of my cre­ative energy on prose instead of divid­ing my focus. This was among some of the better advice I’ve received. So, no more John Christo­pher Nelson poems. 

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?
I adore every­thing Annie Proulx has written. Even her cook­books. She is mag­nif­i­cent and every line of her prose is per­fec­tion. Meeting her at a recent reading / Q&A, during which she signed my copy of her latest novel, was one of the only times in my life during which I’ve been truly star struck. When I read Proulx, it pushes me to improve my writing. The tone, sen­si­bil­i­ty, and atmos­phere of Nat­u­ral­ism in her work are all com­po­nents I strive to incor­po­rate in my stories.

Why did you choose Stonecoast?
I orig­i­nal­ly applied to Stonecoast because the program offered a popular fiction option, which is inter­est­ing because I ended up choos­ing the fiction genre track. There was so much enthu­si­asm on the other end of the phone when I received my accep­tance call, I knew imme­di­ate­ly that Stonecoast would be a good fit for me and for my writing.

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?
Among my five res­i­den­cies, there are too many lovely moments to name or number. But, above all else, I appre­ci­ate the memory of the open mic when I read one of Brady Kamphenkel’s poems, and he read an excerpt from one of my short stories. That, and rooming with him for three of my five res­i­den­cies, includ­ing Dingle, Ireland. I gained a lot from my expe­ri­ence at Stonecoast, includ­ing so many friends I love dearly, but I’ve found a life­long best friend in Brady.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?
Con­tin­u­ing to write feels too obvious, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind. I want to remain active­ly engaged with the world around me, in the lives of those who are impor­tant to me, in the lives of people who are new to me, and in the writing world. Any oppor­tu­ni­ty I have to help someone else, whether it be reading their work and giving them feed­back, giving some­body a ride from the airport or a place to sleep for the night when they’re in town, spot­ting someone money when they’re between bills, or helping a stranger in some way. I guess that sounds kind of vague and touchy-feely, but making the deci­sion to get sober has made me think about my role in the lives of others. I want to make mean­ing­ful, kind choices that put others before me and balance out my pre­vi­ous self­ish­ness. Also, I’m nowhere near fin­ished with getting tattooed.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?
Hop­scotch by Julio Cortázar. The bril­liance with which every word of every line is com­posed is aston­ish­ing and awe-inspir­ing to me, in as true a sense as I inter­pret the word “awe.” There is simply no other novel like it. Not even close.

Featured Work

Hum

There are no dog days in the Coachel­la Valley. There is relent­less heat. Coarse and dry, it begins in April and lasts through Novem­ber. This was the end of August, when dog days were con­clud­ing elsewhere.

I had not seen you since Good Friday, when I can­celed our plans for Easter.

I waited on the side­walk – high nineties at ten at night – for half an hour in antic­i­pa­tion of your arrival. From Santa Monica, it was a three-hour drive for you. I was sweat­ing through the shirt I pur­chased that afternoon.

You parked a few houses down, and emerged from the many shadows of the unlit street. Per­sim­mon hair, red cotton dress, and pale legs lit out from the dark at dif­fer­ent volumes. Neither of us spoke in the thick night, cicadas whirring around us.

We hugged for a length of time that would sound like an exag­ger­a­tion, squeez­ing each other as though we knew one of us was about to die, or was already dead.

The sun may have risen and set again. I do not know.

Tonight, too long after you drove to the desert to see me, we have not spoken in nearly three years.

You told me once, early on, when I took you for granted in a dif­fer­ent way than I took you for granted at the end, that you loved me so much you could break into a million pieces. I judged you for saying so. I laughed at the text message.

But I under­stand now.

I didn’t know it then, but holding you in front of 73133 Guadalupe Avenue in Palm Desert, a chorus of bugs replac­ing what might have been the hum of street­lights in a dif­fer­ent res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood, was the moment.

Pieces fall away from the whole each time I remem­ber sharing the street and the dark and the heat with you.

John Christo­pher Nelson’s youth was split between ninety-four acres of chap­ar­ral in East County San Diego and a defunct mining town in the Nevada high desert. He is a grad­u­ate of the Stonecoast MFA in Cre­ative Writing, where he has served a variety of roles on the Stonecoast Review. He earned his BA in Amer­i­can Lit­er­a­ture from UCLA, where he was exec­u­tive editor of West­wind. His work is forth­com­ing in The New Guard and has appeared in Chiron Review, Able Muse, Indicia, Stone House: A Lit­er­ary Anthol­o­gy, The Matador Review, and Paper Tape Mag­a­zine. He cur­rent­ly lives in West Seattle.