Rich Marcello is a poet, musician, and creative writing teacher, and is the author
of three critically acclaimed novels. The first, The Color of Home, was published in 2013 by Langdon Street Press,
and melds together honest generative dialogue, poetic sensory detail, and
“unforgettable characters who seem to know the complete song catalog of Lennon
or Cohen.” The second, The Big Wide Calm, was published in 2014,
also by Langdon Street Press. The US Review of Books stated, “Marcello’s novel
has a lot going for it. Well-written, thought-provoking, and filled with flawed
characters, it meets all of the basic requirements of best-of-show in the
literary fiction category.” The third, The
Beauty of the Fall, will be published in 2016. Faulkner Award Winner Mark
Spencer commented, “Few novels are as intelligent and relevant as The Beauty of the Fall. Almost none is
as eloquent, compelling, heartbreaking, and ultimately, uplifting.”
You came to writing
after a career in high-tech. Can you
tell us a little about becoming a working writer? What inspired the transition? And how did you approach learning the craft?
In a way, I’ve always
been a writer. I’ve written songs for over thirty years and poetry, as
well. When I was in college, I was
writing short stories and even had the resident novelist at Notre Dame offer to
mentor me. But I was broke and in debt at the time, so I made a decision to go
into hi-tech.
About five years ago,
after a lot of soul-searching, I realized I’d accomplished what I wanted to in
hi-tech and decided to come back to writing.
For the first couple of years, I took as many classes as I could to help
perfect my craft. I also was fortunate
to be mentored by Mark Spencer, who won the Faulkner Award a number of years
ago. I’ve probably learned the most about writing a novel through my
interactions with him.
You are a musician as
well as a novelist. Do the two creative
impulses come from the same place? In what ways do composing and playing music
compliment your work as a storyteller? How conscious are you of sound on the
page?
I do think the creative
impulses come from the same place though they manifest themselves in different
ways. For me, music is more of short-form
medium. Creativity in a song is about
the riff, the verse, the chorus, the bridge, the clever lyric. The novel is
more of a long-form medium. There, creativity is about the story, the
character, the plot turn, and the voice
of the POV character or the narrator.
In general, I believe
the best fiction is sensual, so I’m aware of sound on the page in addition to
all of the other senses. I try to work
as many senses as I can into any given scene.
Your second novel, The Big Wide Calm, is a coming of age
story about a young musician searching for both the music within and her place
in the world. What were some of your
formative experiences as an artist, and how did you draw on them in creating your
protagonist and her story?
When I was younger, I
put out a number of albums and wrote about fifty songs. Mostly, what carried through to TBWC was the
process of creating a song. When the protagonist, Paige Plant, writes a song in
the book, she uses a process similar to the one I used when I wrote my songs.
Most writers begin as
avid readers. Which authors particularly
inspire you? Are there writers you consider teachers? Who are you currently
reading?
I love to read and am
constantly doing so. When I was younger,
I was particularly drawn to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Don Delillo, Milan Kundera, Kurt Vonnegut,
Thomas Pynchon, and Walker Percy. I consider all of them teachers. More recently, I’ve loved novels by Lauren
Groff, Jonathan Franzen, Alexandra Kleeman, Jessamyn Hope, Elena Ferrante,
Jenni Fagan, Jennifer Offill, and Peter Heller.
Could you describe your
typical writing day?
I write for five or six
hours in the morning. I get up around
five and go right to work. I’m one of those writers who believes in the idea of
a fictive dream, so in a way I like to go immediately from one kind of dreaming
(during sleep) to another (writing fiction in the morning). I also believe that
it’s important to write every day, so for the most part, I write seven days a
week.
You have two published
novels, The Color of Home, and The Big Wide Calm, and a third novel is
on the way. How do you compare the
experience of writing your third novel with writing your first? Are there
things that come more easily? Does your approach change with the material?
In general, things comes
easier now. I find that my first draft
of any given scene is much closer to the final product than when I started
writing years ago. With that said, my third novel, The Beauty of the Fall, is longer than the first two, and it
incorporates some dense technology into the narrative, so it has its own
challenges. It seems that the more I
learn my craft, the more I take on bigger and more difficult topics in my
books. That way, each new book is a challenge in its own right.
How do you handle
research?
I either travel to the
location, or I research on the Internet. For example, my fourth novel, The Latecomers, is set in Sweden and
Santa Fe. I’m planning trips to both locations to help me properly place the
novel.
You write poetry as well
as novels. Do the skills of a poet help in writing prose? How does writing narrative inspire you as a poet?
Writing poetry helps in
two ways. First, it helps me write concise sentences that do a lot of work.
Second, sometimes I’ll spend an hour on a sentence to make sure it’s poetic
enough. I find that placing a poetic sentence here and there in the narrative
significantly enhances the reading experience.
Writing narrative inspires me as poet mostly
from the perspectives of ideas and stories. I ask myself what idea I want to
get across or what story I want to tell in the poem. When I’m done with a
piece, I check what I produced against what I intended to produce. I’ve found
that using this process hones the emotional content of the poems down to its
essence.
You teach fiction
workshops and classes. How do you approach teaching creative writing? How does teaching novel or short story
writing support your own work?
I like to combine short
lectures with workshops on student’s individual pieces. I find that combination works best. The
lectures are important because they give the students the necessary tools to
create good fiction. The workshops are important because so much of writing is
about rewriting a piece to show a more sensual and detailed picture of what
happened.
What was the best advice
you ever received about writing?
To write the first pass
of any scene quickly with the goal of capturing all of the critical emotions,
then to rewrite the scene over and over again until you get it right.
Writing is solitary. How
do you feed your creative work? What
role, if any, does community play in sustaining and nurturing you as an artist?
Yes, it is solitary. I
feed my work by connecting with other writers, by teaching, and by spending
time with loved ones, including my two Newfoundlands, Ani and Shaman. One of
the things I would recommend to every writer is to get a dog or two. They
really help with being alone all the time.
Overall, community is
very important to me. In fact, the main theme of The Beauty of the Fall is how to create and sustain community in
our world. There are many ways to
connect in a given community, but I’m mostly trying to connect through the arts
these days.
Can you talk a little
about any upcoming projects?
I hope to have The Beauty of the Fall out in 2016. I’ve also started work on my fourth novel, The Latecomers. If all goes well, that will be out in 2018.
What encouragement or
direction would you give aspiring writers?
First, to learn their
craft fully. Many writers I work with have good ideas, but they haven’t put in
the time to learn how to write a novel well. Second, to be patient. It takes years
to learn how to write a good story. Third, to define success not by financial
gain, but by creating a piece of art that makes a difference to at least one
other person in the world.
Please join SBWC and Rich Marcello
for a reading and discussion
at our upcoming
Bridging Writers Series
Monday, November 2, 2015,
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Thayer Memorial Library, Lancaster, MA.
For more information contact us at 7bridgewriterscollaborative@gmail.com
