Q) What pleases you about the way your essay turned out?  Are there any ways in which you feel it fell short of your original goal?

A) My original intent was to describe the landscape around Musselshell Work  Center in the four seasons.  But by and by the essay developed into a  bridge between a previous piece on life in the Big Woods and a forthcoming one.   I'm very happy with it.

Q)  How did your essay develop,  both in your initial thinking about it and in the revision process?  What happened in writing it that you didn't expect would happen?

A) I'm always amazed at memory and how one thing reminds us of something
else  (see above).  I'd forgotten about Clyde Berdine,  but writing about him was a hoot.

Q)  If you write in other genres  (poetry,  fiction,  playwriting,  literary criticism, etc.),
how does your experience writing in creative nonfiction depend upon or depart from your other kinds of writing?

A)  I've only recently begun writing nonfiction.  Before that I wrote poetry, and I still
depend upon the music and language of poetry to drive my sentences.  Rhythm is
everything.

Q)  Give some of your reflections about creative nonfiction as an emerging genre in American literature.  Where do you see it going in the next several years,  or even
farther down the line?

A)  In the same way that the short story was "rediscovered" a few years ago,  I hope
 the personal essay will continue to be popular.  It is unique in that it can combine
elements of fiction with poetry to tell a true story,  even if the story didn't happen
precisely that way. I feel I've found my home.

Q)  What are the specific literary techniques you attempt to use as a creative nonfiction writer?  For example, do you attempt to write scenes?  Do you employ dialogue?  Do you employ specific detail?  How,  and why?  What advice might you offer to young people interested in writing?

A) I guess I combine scenes with specific detail.  I'm willing to stop the
narrative to describe a bird song or to describe how to dig a fire line.  I have to be
careful though or the specific detail will become a training manual,  which is not
what I want.  I have no idea how dialogue works,  so I tend not to use it.  It's a cliche,  I know,  but you have to write what you know.  You might not think an experience is important  at the time,  but who knows later on?  I worked two seasons in the local green pea harvest,  which is incredibly dull and mindless work. But now I'm thinking of an essay talking about that and the history of migrant work in this area.