AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Spotlight TV Interview with Logan Crawford regarding Town and Country: Voices from the Mid-Ohio Valley 

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Literary Titan

September 14, 2024 

Author Interview - Carl Parsons 

Town and Country: Voices from the Mid-Ohio Valley is a collection of short stories centered around life in a Midwestern small town. What inspired you to write this collection?  

The ten stories in Town and Country were written and published in various journals over a number of years starting in 2019. So the collection developed gradually, but the stories were inspired by the locale and people where I grew up. I’ve turned the town of Parkersburg, WV, and the nearby rural communities of Lubeck, Washington, and New England Ridge into the fictional Parkeston and Locust Hill, respectively. Faulkner had his Yoknapatawpha County; Thomas Hardy had Wessex; I have Locust Hill.

 Is there anything from your own life included in your stories? 

 Very much so. In addition to the locale, the character of Livia in “The Postmistress” is based on one of my aunts—my father’s sister. She did indeed operate the local post office from her parlor and was famous for her feisty personality. Also, the general store featured in the companion stories “Disorder” and “Penny Candy” was real, with cats in the front window and penny candy in jars. Along with my schoolmates, I waited there for the school bus to come and take us to the high school on the far side of Parkersburg.

Is there one story that stands out for you? One that was especially enjoyable to craft? 

Oh yes, that would be “Penny Candy.” I intended it to contain a tribute to the people of the Mid-Ohio Valley—actually the entire collection is that. But I put the words of the tribute in the mouth of Pastor Beattie as he tries to comfort the distraught Lorna Crandall, who continues to be haunted by the ghost of her son killed in Vietnam. Pastor Beattie tells her, “There’s good people here in Locust Hill, as you yourself just said. So many angels, all in their own way. As good as any I’ve seen in this world. I can say that for certain.” And I hope the people who read Town and Country will see that too. 

Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?  

You can, but I’m not so certain about the “soon” part. I’m working on a sci-fi-paranormal-inspirational story that requires quite a lot of research. The protagonist is a chemical engineer who replaces the deceased head of research in a chemical laboratory. The deceased chemist, famous for his invention of rejuvenating tires (i.e. regrown their treads), urges his successor from the Afterlife to turn his talents to medical discoveries rather than industrial ones. To complete the novel I just need to come up with a plausible explanation of the Afterlife and a plausible cure for cancer. No problem! The working title is The Covalence of Love. 

SPOTLIGHT ON WRITERS

 – CARL PARSONS

SPOTLIGHT ON WRITERS

CARL PARSONS

1. Where, do you hail from?

I was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and later lived in nearby Lubeck, a mostly rural community. I believe it is the only spot named Lubeck in the United States and is pronounced as though it had not lost the umlaut possessed by the famous German city. Most of my stories are set in that area, the Mid-Ohio Valley (MOV) of West Virginia. In those stories Lubeck and its surroundings are called Locust Hill, while Parkersburg becomes the town of Parkeston. Although the stories are entirely fictional, many of the elements in them are quite real. For example, when I was in high school, I used to catch the school bus at the general store where the characters in the story Disorder gather to gossip.

People may also know this area from Mark Ruffalo’s 2019 movie Dark Waters. My family lived just three miles from the DuPont plant featured in that film. Downwind, unfortunately. And if that movie is all people know about the MOV, then they very likely have a negative impression. But if you know the people, you know they can be wonderful. Just consider what a brave and determined man Wilbur Earl Tennant was to take on a major corporation as he did—and not just in the movie.

1. What is the greatest thing about the place you call home?

I need to give two answers. First, I now live in Kodak, Tennessee (another town with a unique name), about 25 miles from Knoxville and adjacent to Sevierville, hometown of Dolly Parton. As you may know, this is one of the top tourist destinations in the country. From my second story window, I can see the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, no more than 20 miles away. And that, by itself, is great.

However, as wonderful as Tennessee is, if you were born in West Virginia, that’s where your heart remains. Like many of my characters, I left the state when I was young to find work, but you never forget. And when you meet other wayfaring West Virginians, they always say the same thing about our diaspora: If there was work there, I’d still be there.

1. What turns you on creatively?

Problems. And fortunately for writers, the world is full of them. When I encounter a problem that I think might lead to an interesting story, I begin writing with a verbal sketchbook. In it I force myself to write out the problem in as much detail as I can. With the problem comes the protagonist—that is, the person experiencing the problem—as well as the antagonist, the person causing the problem, whether intentionally or not. Then come all the supporting characters. In the sketchbook I list them all, like the dramatis personae at the beginning of a play. And I devote several paragraphs to each one: What does this character look like, talk like, act like? I try to give each of them a unique, discernable voice—the shrillness of Annaliese calling to her son Eddy in Disorder or the painful recollections of Buck Whitaker in The Hermits of Locust Hill.

After a while, something magical happens: the characters themselves begin to interact, have conversations, and gradually work out the plot, which I then divide into sections or chapters and fit to the pyramid diagram of a plot: rise of action, climax, fall of action, and resolution. When you think about it, longer scenes follow that same pattern. And so does real life!

1. What is your favorite word, and can you use it in a poetic sentence?

Velutinous. When I was much younger, I wrote a lot of poetry. One day when I was a student at West Virginia University, there was an exhibition of photographs from what was then the Soviet Union. (Yes, I’m that old!) In one of the photos, a babushka is brushing the long blonde hair of a very young girl and working it into braids. When I got back to my room, I could still see that picture, and gradually a poem began to form around it:

Wrinkled hands smooth the supple hair,

twisting it into ropes of Russian sun-

light, brushing memories in her fair

and ancient eyes, closed when sighs are done.

But all the time Tonya squirms and wiggles,

her head impatient with hands, certain but old,

whose movements weave the plaits and ripples

into girl’s velutinous gold.

A few weeks later, I read that poem in a coffee house in Morgantown, one that allowed such things. I’ve loved the word “velutinous” ever since.

1. What is your pet peeve?

Literary magazines that impose non-literary requirements on submissions. Reading some of the submission pages for these publications, one finds such narrowly defined interests that it’s clear the publication will never survive. (It’s also clear from the frequent grammatical errors that these are not people you would want to edit your story.) Obviously, editors-publishers can largely do whatever they want with their publications, but the overriding concern in literature should be the exploration of the human condition, not the imposition of political agendas. Fortunately, there is an easy solution for writers who feel the way I do—just submit to Spillwords Press instead.

1. What defines Carl Parsons?

I would say my bio supports the definition of “versatility.” Although I taught literature and composition, especially argument, for many years—I spent many more, over thirty, working in manufacturing as a Labor Relations Manager, Operations Manager, Plant Manager, and finally Engineering Manager. God gave us brains with two sides, quantitative and qualitative, and intended that we use both. And that’s what I’ve tried to do.

Oh, The Tangled Web We Weave

Posted by Literary_Titan, July 10, 2023

Carl Parsons Author Interview

Trios: Death, Deceit, and Politics is a gripping exploration of a family’s treacherous labyrinth of deceit, a veteran’s struggle with trauma, and one woman’s relentless pursuit of truth amidst political corruption. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The immediate inspiration was the general tenor of current American politics, which seems hopelessly embroiled in accusations and counteraccusations, court proceedings, anonymous sources, whistleblowers, and the like. A truly bipartisan brew of political poison.

The more distant literary inspiration, however, was a novel that I’ve always admired—Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, Warren’s 1946 novel about Louisiana Governor Huey Long. I suppose every state in the nation has had at least one (more likely a lot more than one) political family that turned to corruption to enhance its political power. I am intrigued by just how this rise to power and subsequent fall takes place.

Your characters are intriguing and well-developed. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

My original thought was to have no truly honorable characters, not even the protagonist—in this case, Rita Collins. Clearly, none of the immediate members of the Collins family are honorable—certainly not Dolf, who aspires to become governor of Pennsylvania at any cost; not his wife Marla, who recognizes the corruption but enjoys its benefits in the form of her lobbyist-paid vacations, sports car, and luxurious tan; and not their son Brian, who aspired to be just like his father. Then there is the Machiavellian character Mark Garret presiding over the entire sordid affair.

And so, I didn’t intend to let Rita escape either. But I’ve found that a magical thing often happens in the process of writing a story—namely, the characters take over. And when they do, it’s because they have a different understanding of just what turns the plot this way instead of that and just where its jagged edges are located. They start talking back, saying, “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t say that. That’s not my voice. What you’ve written is not really my story. Rewrite it this way.” And I do. So, Rita became the truth-seeker (as befits a journalist) who attempts to expose deceit instead of allowing it to rule her. And in this endeavor, she is inspired by the USAF veteran Kurt Sillinger.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The tangled web theme most of all. Once deceit begins it requires additional acts of deceit to maintain and/or capitalize on the original deceit. Soon deceit becomes the norm for those who practice it—not  a desperate final response but a first response. I’m afraid that’s what has happened in much of American politics at all levels. We’ve never had so much access to information and so little assurance of its veracity.

But the novel shows that truth-seekers still exist and can triumph over deceit.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

I’m now about two-thirds of the way through the first draft of a dystopian novel set in the not-so-distant future. The working title is SHANTYBOAT: AMERICAN DYSTOPIA. Where I grew up in the Mid-Ohio Valley, people who were down on their luck often turned to living in makeshift shantyboats along the Little Kanawha River. I am using the shantyboat in this novel as a symbol of individualism and resistance to the forced conformity and economic depravations that the future world of this novel explores.

I’ve found that most dystopian novels focus greatly on world-building and the author’s world-view projections. Think of the novels of Ayn Rand or Margaret Atwood, for example. Too often, I believe, the characters populating these novels are unrealistic, little more than mouthpieces for the author’s viewpoint. In this novel I’m trying to keep the focus on what the characters themselves experience and how they react as realistic human beings to social tragedy, rather than representatives of an ideology. At least, that’s my intention. Early 2024 is probably the best estimate for publication.