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Fred McGavran
served as an officer in the Navy. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he
practices law in Cincinnati, Ohio. He won the 2007 Writers Digest Short
Story Contest in the horror category, the 2004 John Reid/Tom Howard
Contest, and the 2003 Raymond Carver Award from Humboldt State
University. His stories have appeared in Pearl Magazine, Rosebud,
Gray's Sporting Journal, Dreams & Visions, Storyglossia, Third
Order, and other literary magazines and e-zines.
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Interview
with Fred McGavran
The
Short Review:
How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?
Fred McGavran: These stories were written over about 15 years.
TSR:
Did you
have a collection in mind when you were writing them?
FM: I always had hopes.
TSR:
How did
you choose which stories to include and in what order?
FM: I chose The Butterfly Collector
as the lead story and title for the collection because the story won
the Raymond Carver Award from Humboldt State University, and a number
of people told me that it moved them. I chose Lillian because it was written in the same voice. Others were chosen because people liked them (Two Cures for Phantom Limb, A Friend of Bill Gillen) and to show that I could write about a broad range of characters and situations (A Gracious Voice, The Historian) and from different points of view (The Beautician). I put them in the current order to move from semi-serious (The Butterfly Collector) to the dark (The Deer) to end hopefully (The Annunciation of Charles Spears).
TSR:
What
does the word "story"
mean to you?
FM: A coherent short fiction with believable characters where something happens to intrigue the reader.
TSR:
Do you have a reader in mind when you write stories?
FM:
Myself, my wife Liz, our daughters Sarah and Marian, and a number of friends who have encouraged me.
TSR: Is
there
anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection,
anything at all?
FM: What did you like and why? What didn’t you like, and why?
TSR:
How does
it feel knowing that people are buying your book?
FM: Great.
TSR:
What are you working on now?
FM: A story
about a crystal wand, inspired by a crystal wand my wife just bought. I
also have a second collection that I am sending to publishers.
TSR:
What are
the three most recent short story collections you've read?
FM: A Friend of Kafka and other Stories, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Passions, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Shadowplay, an anthology that contains one of my horror stories.
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