By Rebecca Schwab

Erin Tocknell, graduate of the WVU MFA program, was kind enough to answer our questions about her recently published collection of essays titled Confederate Streets from Benu Press. She will be sharing the bill with our beloved Kevin Oderman on February 10th at 7:30 pm for a reading from her new book in the Robinson Reading Room of the Wise Library.

What would you say is the most helpful thing you walked away from the WVU MFA program with?

How to make a piece of writing happen, beginning to end. Before I came to WVU, I was living in Kalispell, Montana and trying to lead the idyllic writer’s life – a non-taxing 9-5 job with my mornings devoted to reading and writing, but I could never get more than 500 words into a good idea before it fizzled out. Through my lit and writing classes at WVU, I learned all sorts of different ways to structure an essay, and I found that thinking about framework immediately after getting an idea was a great entry for me.
I also learned how to stare out my window and think meaningful thoughts while listening to Performance Today. Very useful.

What is your fondest memory from WVU?

I loved writing on winter mornings. I had this tiny attic apartment with sub-functional baseboard heaters and an incredible view of Morgantown. I loved getting up in the dark, shuffling around on those cold floors, making a pot of coffee, turning on some classical music or bluegrass, and writing. I had a nice little perch at my kitchen table where I could write and watch the city coming to life. I still write in the mornings, but I have to leave for work by about 7:45, so I can’t settle in the way I could in grad school.
Being around the friends I made is also a wonderful memory, and good classes, and football games, and the way you could walk into the Blue Moose and find an English grad student at every table – really, the entire environment at WVU is so dynamic and lovely. But my fondest memory would have to be those dark, cold mornings when the writing really clicked.

Your collection of essays, Confederate Streets, just came out. What were some of your biggest motivations and inspirations for this collection?

I took a course in college called “Reading the Built Landscape” that opened my eyes to the notion of analyzing place by looking at how a neighborhood, city, park, school, etc. is designed. I also think about the relative nature of time a lot.( Probably more often than is healthy, actually.) So, driving around my hometown after college, I got to thinking about my own personal history in Nashville and how that played up against the larger history of the city. I couldn’t get too far into that train of thought without race issues coming up – i.e. “When I started Kindergarten in the early 80s, we were closer in time to the Civil Rights Movement than I now am to Kindergarten.”
Then, at WVU, I got to do some research on busing as part of Ethel Smith’s Civil Rights Literature class and the whole project pretty much took off from there.

What advice do you have for current MFA students at WVU, specifically, those MFAs who would like to publish non-fiction collections of their own?

Do whatever you have to do to put your writing first. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to write every day – but when you know you have something good, get it down on paper without delay. Undergrads will not perish if they get their rhetorical analysis papers back on Friday instead of Wednesday; allow yourself the time to write even when that is not the deadline that’s staring you in the face.
As far as publishing a collection or anything – connect. Connect with journals, stay connected to the folks you’re in the program with. I kind of enjoy getting rejection letters because nothing can be rejected if it’s languishing in your hard drive. I’m getting my collection published because Renee Nicholson (MFA ‘08) sent me a link for a contest.
Keep plugging away. Reach out. Good things will happen.

What do you envision in terms of future projects?

I’m still interested in America’s cultural landscapes, and I’ve gotten to thinking about what we build up around the natural world; how Americans define and are defined by some concept of wilderness. I get to indulge my loves of the outdoors, historical research, and people-watching. Also, I’m really hoping the research process will, at some point, require an RV. Writing is fun.