Chris Huff
Oyster River Pages: What do you think is the best way to improve writing and/or artistic skills?
Chris Huff: This is an important question, and there are as many answers as there are people. It’s crucial to seek out truly valuable instruction from experts whom you respect, who are doing what you wish to be doing, and who can get to know you. Pay to be near them if you need to (money or time) whether it’s a class, conference, or apprenticeship. There’s an unhealthy pride some take in not getting real instruction, but I think everyone benefits from it. A YouTube instructional video cannot do the same as someone who knows you personally and gets where you’re trying to go with your writing. Her or his advice will have nuance, purpose, and will be tailored to you personally. Coupled with that, it is helpful to find people who believe in you as a writer. The unicorn, if you can find one, is both highly skilled and believes in your abilities and aspirations as a writer. Of course, if they aren’t available now, keep writing while you’re seeking them out, but in terms of elevating your skillset, there is no quicker path.
I’ve had the good fortune of meeting writer and playwright Julie Amparano Garcia. I cannot adequately articulate her profound influence over my life and the life of my writing. I’ve never met someone who was so intuitive––she seems to know what I need to hear and understand along with what literary or instructional work will benefit me in the present moment. I’m eternally grateful for her support and influence. I wouldn’t be the writer I am if I didn’t meet her.
ORP: Who do you consider to be your creative ancestors and contemporaries for your art and/or writing? How does your creative work converse with theirs?
CH: I spent three years in Iowa, just to be close to the Writers’ Workshop––that’s how much respect I have for it. I feel like in a lot of ways I was reborn out of the culture that’s in Iowa City and the great writers I met and read while I lived in the Midwest. I learned about them in classes or met them in person, culminating with writer Lee Cole. He attended the Workshop, and I won the lottery by getting to take a class of his during the few years he was there. Lee introduced me to other writers who have affected me greatly such as Lucia Berlin, who wasn’t widely celebrated until about eleven years after she died. She left behind compassionate, heartbreakingly raw, and funny stories about characters on the fringes of life. Breece D’J Pancake is another writer he exposed me to, and Pancake’s writing was also largely discovered posthumously. He died extremely young, at the age of twenty-six, and was in remarkable pain. Of course, I wish he and Berlin were still alive and didn’t hurt so much, and at the same time, I’m thankful they wrote and left us their precious stories. Reading them reminds me the goal of a writer is not to be celebrated––the mission is to make relentlessly beautiful work.
I can relate to Larry Brown in both his personal story and to his writing style. He pursued writing later in life, while working as a firefighter, and with very little guidance. He wrote tons of material on his own, and then took a writing class at the University of Mississippi where he received some direction, and it really elevated his career. He began writing about the same age I did, and to see how his writing evolved is beyond inspiring.
In comparison, they are on another level. I’m happy to study and soak everything in, and I know I’m affected positively in the process. I read or listen to them sometimes and think “Damn! I’ll never be this good.” Yet somehow that same thought is inspiring. Life is easier knowing writers of their caliber forged and are forging ahead, building the roads, and putting up guideposts for the rest of us.
ORP: What books have you read more than once in your life?
CH: The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. My mother gave me the book many years before I opened it. Because it was a parent's recommendation, I disregarded it at first, but when I did read it, the book cut me open and transformed the way I think and the way I write. Conroy was so unabashedly open in the way he wrote and the way he spoke. Reading this book gave me permission to be who I am and to speak and write in a way that is unguarded and honest. I’ve progressed in my understanding of the craft and evolved as a writer since I first read it, and even as I now mark up the book with criticism, it remains atop my list of greatest novels. The lesson is that for me the most important aspect of a story is its heart. The heart and spirit of a novel can overcome its shortcomings. Conroy put together such a masterpiece in writing about a broken family who also loved one another severely. He opened up about complicated family love along with cultural complexity back then, and I can’t imagine someone coming close to his raw honesty even today.
The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones. I’m fixated on this collection of short stories and keep returning to them. Thom Jones had a lot of problems and such a difficult but fascinating backstory. His father, a professional boxer, abandoned his family when he was young, and later committed suicide when he was a teenager. Thom Jones also suffered severe brain trauma boxing in the Marines and developed epilepsy as a result. He had addictions and other problems I suspect were connected to his brain injuries. Along with having a uniquely painful and unusual background, he wrote this tremendous collection. He used the unique strangeness he experienced during his life and made powerful, painful, and bizarrely funny stories. I’ve gone through stages while reading his work. A friend of mine initially gave me a copy of it at the boxing gym we both trained at in central Phoenix. I no longer even watch contact sports, but I was a huge boxing and football fan. Since then, my father died. He suffered a lot of physical injuries (including brain trauma) in football, eventually playing for Notre Dame, and then playing professionally. It’s tough for me to piece some of those things together at times or to talk with anyone about it, but I can read this collection about characters with lives much stranger than mine and somehow get a sense of understanding and escape. Jones also makes me laugh.
ORP: What does vulnerability mean to you as an artist and/or writer?
CH: Vulnerability is a place to play and get comfortable. I think the more consistently a writer can write from a place of vulnerability, the more it sets the stage for powerful, emotive writing. Not everything that comes from this place will remain in the final draft, but even more the reason to make this a part of your natural process—to find the gold. It’s important to know that just like in life there can be internal fear and pressure to “wear a mask” in our writing. I try to remain conscious of this and to remember that most of us became writers for the opposite reason: to free us from typical social confines, to discover and present unique sensitivities that are alive within us, and to keep them alive.
