Robert Vivian
Robert Vivian is the author of The Tall Grass Trilogy: The Mover Of Bones, Lamb Bright Saviors, and Another Burning Kingdom, in addition to the novel Water And Abandon. He’s also written two books of meditative essays, Cold Snap As Yearning and The Least Cricket Of Evening. Several of his plays have been produced in New York City and his monologues have been published in the Best Monologues series. His essays, poems, and stories have been published in Harper’s, Georgia Review, Creative Nonfiction, Alaska Quarterly, Ecotone, and dozens of other journals. He teaches at Alma College in Michigan and serves on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program. He has taught several times at various universities in Turkey, especially in Samsun, Turkey. He’s currently at work on a collection of dervish essays called Mystery My Country.
Please describe your creative process. Are you an early bird or night owl?
Just to be totally attentive to whatever lines come in the course of the day or night, faithful to these jottings each and every time whether they lead to fuller utterance or not. I like to write out dervish essays in longhand and then transcribe after a day or two early in the morning before dawn. Then, in the summer, I go fly fishing almost every day, which restores wonder and beauty—and humility.
What are you reading now?
Finished Allen Wheelis’s The Listener, which is really powerful. Lots of Neruda, Mary Ruefle, Rumi—lots and lots.
What’s on your list of all-time favorites?
Hope Against Hope by N. Mandelstam, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, The New Life by Orhan Pamuk, plays of Tennessee Williams, plays of Strindberg, especially Easter, Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, Rumi again.
Robert Vivian is the first recipient of the Timberline Prize, established for excellence in writing as a contributor to The Timberline Review. He will be teaching two classes at the 2015 Willamette Writers Conference. Please see class listings under Willamette Writers Conference.