Q&A with 2016 Thomas Wolfe Lecturer Jill McCorkle

North Carolina short story writer and novelist Jill McCorkle will be on campus to receive the 2016 Thomas Wolfe Prize and to deliver the annual Thomas Wolfe Lecture on Tuesday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Genome Sciences Auditorium. 

The Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture honor one of UNC's most notable alumni, novelist Thomas Clayton Wolfe.

The Daily Tar Heel: What does receiving the Thomas Wolfe Prize mean to you personally?

Jill McCorkle: It feels like coming home. I was an undergrad at UNC — I graduated in 1980 — and the whole focus of my time there was being a student in that creative writing department. It really shaped my whole writing life and all that has followed.

DTH: What has been your favorite moment in your writing career thus far and why?

JM: Oh my. There are so many moments because I really see it as a series of steps. This certainly is one, but when I look back and think about what would have been the very earliest step, it was getting a story published there in Cellar Door. And as an undergrad, that was my goal and direction, and then it got in and of course then the goal and direction shifted a little bit more to going to a graduate writing program, and … I’m not someone who has ever allowed myself to stare at the top of the mountain while I’m climbing. I think I have looked at my career in small increments and felt very fortunate … so the milestones of each and every publication have really been important. And I feel the journey continues, you know? I hope I never feel that I’ve really gotten where I’m going because I think it’s about the journey. But certainly getting this award and being there at UNC for it would be way up on that list.

DTH: Which work or collection of yours are you most proud of?

JM: You know, it’s so funny, I tend to always say the work that’s closest at hand, and my last novel, "Life After Life," was many years in the making and so I feel very close to it and very proud of it. I think otherwise … I’ve had story collections, but I think more in terms of individual stories, there’s a story called “Intervention,” for instance, that for me really marked a shift and very different direction in my work. And another, “Magic Words,” that did the same sort of thing. I think a lot of times I’m working on stories because I so admire the structure and I find it much more challenging than I do a novel. So I’m always practicing the short story. And then it really does feed what I’m working on. So, "Life After Life," and there’s a part of me that wants to say the novel I’m working on right now. But it's superstitious to say that.

DTH: How did you initially get into writing?

JM: I had always written as a kid, it was just a form of self-entertainment. I had no idea that it was something you could pursue as a grown-up person. And then I was an undergrad at UNC and this was long ago where drop-add was actually used by physically walking around the gymnasium, print-out cards, and there was a beginning creative writing class. And I got one of those cards thinking, "How hard can it be?" because I do this anyway. And of course it was quite hard and demanding and the best thing I ever did. It really changed the whole direction of my time at UNC.

DTH: Who or what are some of your major literary inspirations?

JM: I think certainly the lineage of what’s come out of the South. Southern literature has always been an inspiration. I had never read Eudora Welty, for instance, until I was a student at UNC and I recognized so much and it also allowed me to realize that, "Oh! I can write about the place where I grew up and the kind of town I recognize." And then I started reading with a whole new eye for what I recognized. And so I’m very drawn to people like Welty, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote and Timothy Williams. So, many, many Southerners factor in there.

DTH: What advice do you have for aspiring writers and novelists?

JM: I think the best advice I can give is to just do it. But really, the more you write, the more you write. Whether something physical or a musical instrument, I really do believe that the better tuned-in you are, even if you have a day that’s not successful, there will be something there. Even if all that’s there is you’re a little bit closer to where you needed to be. So my advice is to just write. Don’t think too much until it’s time to look at what’s there and revise. 

I love revision, so I encourage people to learn to love revision because I think that’s the real art. And obviously the best advice I can give is to read as much as possible. To find those writers you connect with on the page and read it for pleasure and then read it again to see how it’s put together.

DTH: How would you say UNC has helped advance your writing career?

JM: The undergrad writing program there has always been really strong. I’ve worked with Max Steele, and then Lee Smith, both great inspirations to me. And Lee, of course, remains so and a very dear friend, and then I worked with Louis Rubin. I worked with Louis basically (for) two consecutive years, I was in the honors group under him and he’s the person who told me I needed to go to a graduate program. And I went to Hollins College, which is a program he had actually started. And then he started the publishing house of Algonquin, and so he then became my publisher. So I can say that my UNC roots, as I said in the beginning, you know, really are instrumental to everything I have done, because Louis Rubin really paved that road for me.

DTH: What will be the subject of the lecture that you will deliver on Tuesday evening?

JM: You know, I’m really going to focus on home — images of home. I think that that is such a strong and important part of Thomas Wolfe’s work. Starting with "Look Homeward, Angel" up to "You Can’t Go Home Again," I think his personal influence, the influence of his hometown on his work, is invaluable, and I think that holds true for many writers. And so it’s just a topic I’m very interested in, both as a writer and a teacher. Just the value of and the effect of those earliest memories.  

@madmrael

swerve@dailytarheel.com