The DePauw: Could you talk about when you were a student writer a little bit, and how that has influenced you?
Bonnie Jo Campbell: I was a student writer a little later than most people. I studied philosophy and mathematics as an undergraduate. But I always liked to write, I always liked it very much, but I only studied writing when I was about thirty-three years old I took my first writing class. I did take one college writing class. I had a really mean teacher - I don’t think he thought he was mean, he had that attitude that, “I just have to be tough because it’s a tough writing world” - but he told me I epitomized all that was wrong with writing today. So I didn’t think I was cut out for writing, so I studied everything else. So when I was 33 I was in a mathematics Ph.D program, and I started thinking I wanted to give writing another try. I took a leave of absence from the program and took a writing course, and I was just lucky enough to have a really good writing teacher. She really encouraged me said, “let’s give it a try.” So I enrolled in the MFA program and graduated when I was about thirty-six.
TDP: Where did you study these various subjects?
BJC: My undergraduate is from University of Chicago. I also got another degree in math education at Western Michigan, and then I was also in this Ph. D program there. I just went across the campus to take a writing class, so yeah it was crazy. I got all these teaching certifications, I used to joke and say I could start my own charter school. I could teach math, teach English.
TDP: What is it that brings you to this liberal arts setting?
BJC: This such a great school and it’s such an honor to be asked to do something like this. I teach part-time because I’m a very slow writer and I’ve been afraid to take a full time position anywhere as a full time professor. I am always honored when somebody wants to invite me to just come for one semester is such an honor. [DePauw is] physically beautiful, people are very nice, and the English department is fun. I have fourteen students, I only teach one class and they’re all bright and shiny and smart. I’m having a great time
TDP: What is the topic of your course? Did you get to decide?
BJC: It’s a workshop course with a topic which is a little different, I hadn’t taught one of these before. Usually it’s just a literature course or a generic workshop course. So this is fun to have both. I’ve been accused of writing rural noir. Isn’t that a funny topic? So you think of noir as like, that kind of film of dark shadows and stuff. But that’s usually an urban thing and so there are certain writers in America who are writing these rural, dark dangerous stories from the countryside. I wanted to explore this genre, so when they invited me here I said let’s explore it let’s call the class rural noir, then I can figure out, along with the students, what that is. I like the idea of learning with students because there’s nothing worse, as a student, than taking a stale class where the professor is just going through the motions so I figure if we’re all learning together, that makes it fun.
TDP: So are places like Greencastle an inspiration to these types of stories?
BJC: Greencastle is kind of an interesting place because it’s got the University right here at its heart but it becomes like many of the places that I write about right outside the gates of the University because there are problems with drugs, problems with unemployment and other issues going on right outside the University gates so I guess I feel at home here. I come from a town where there’s a lot of trouble.
TDP: In this topic of rural noir, what kind of content are you getting from your students?
BJC: Oh the students are writing great stories, they’re a lot of fun. Now, we’re reading rural noir for the subject matter of the course, but I’ve told the students not to write in that style if it doesn’t feel natural. It’s so hard to write a story at all so it’s really important for students to be interested in the stories that they’re writing. And I've been surprised that a lot of them have been writing rural noir stories. A lot of them have been about troubled families and a lot of them have experience with troubled families and troubled neighborhoods. I am very interested in things that touch on farm life and a lot of the students have a connection to farm life. I am interested in farming and I think it’s important to write about it before it goes away.
TDP: So if you’ve been impressed with the students so far, do you have any general feelings about the English department?
BJC: They’ve been very nice to me. It’s always difficult to come into a new situation and the faculty members are very busy and yet they've made time to help me out in every way. Especially the secretary of the English department, Annie, is so great. They’ve been helpful with making sure that I feel at home. And I live just at the edge of campus which is nice. I take a lot of exercise classes because I’m away from home and I don’t have to go visit my mother. I do miss my husband terribly, but I am taking a yoga class.
TDP: What are some techniques you’ve been trying to share with your students?
BJC: Every story has its own rules. That's the good news. I mean, in general, the principles of good writing are to write in scenes, to write fiction that makes us really feel that we are experiencing the world. But that can happen through so many different ways. For some students, they write fiction almost like a play with pure dialogue - the way Hemingway often wrote. For other writers, they indulge in lush descriptions, and that can work too. Every story is its own animal and I almost wish there were rules, but I don’t wish there were rules because that's what's so great and good fiction can take so many different forms. The students are all about the same age with many of the same college experiences, they all have very different personalities that create very different fiction. It's as different as what you’d see if you picked up a literary journal. I have all English majors except I have one Computer Science major and he’s holding his own. He’s doing ok.
TDP: Do you have any words of advice or inspiration to anyone looking to write?
BJC: Yes, they should write for the newspaper. Really, because writing for a newspaper teaches you to write on a deadline, it teaches you to stop screwing around and it also reminds you that you have an audience and it reminds you to think about what your audience will find interesting. A well constructed newspaper story is a beautiful thing. Writing for a newspaper, first of all, it’s a way to get read. A lot of us fiction writers never get read. We all have interesting stories to tell and we are the only ones who can tell our stories. I would like it if everyone was writing stories. Not just English majors, but people across the University, sharing stories is one of the greatest pleasures of life.
