Prince Valiant
An Interview
with author Robin Hemley

Robin Hemley’s piece Prince Valiant invites readers into his childhood.  In just 750 words, he shows us the giraffes in his bathtub, how to eat peas wearing a Halloween mask, the neighbor’s apartment fire and cockroaches in his breakfast cereal.  “I think I captured what it felt like to be a child, accepting of everything,” Hemley explains.

Hemley’s personal feelings about writing are much less simple than the innocent child’s voice in Prince Valiant.  He says, “Most writers, including myself, are dogged by self-doubt.  I overcome this by trying to adjust my attitude about my writing, by allowing myself to fail and seeing what I’m writing as an experiment, as an exercise.  Often, too, I’m frustrated by not being able to see the ending or the next paragraph or the next page of a piece.  But I think that frustration is actually a necessary component of the creative process.  Often, when I’m about to give up in frustration, the solution presents itself.  It’s as though my conscious mind has surrendered to my subconscious where real creativity lies.”

“As for impatience,” he continues, “we have to not be too eager to finish something or, horrors, to send it out for publication before it’s ready.  It might just be accepted for publication, and then twenty years from now you’ll have to hunt down all existing copies and burn them.  We live in a culture that seeks instant gratification, and writers are susceptible to this, too.”

His advice to young writers:  “I think it’s crucial for writers to try to write every day and to read widely.  Most importantly, one shouldn’t postpone writing—thinking that you’re going to write when you find the time.  As with anything you love, you have to make the time and make it your priority.”

—Sarah Klingle