Southern Writers Magazine SW March 2018 PDF MASTER.compressed | Page 7

William Walsh
A Briefcase Full of Ideas
by Chris Pepple
W
hat do you do if you have ideas for a collection
of poetry or for a novel without having a plan of
how to turn those thoughts into a completed
manuscript? Just ask William Walsh, published author
and director of the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at
Reinhardt University in Georgia. “Writers often have a
briefcase full of ideas. We are ready to write, but we need
guidance on how to get started on or how to finish a book. I
have been in that place in my life,” he admits.
Walsh remembers a time when he didn’t even feel
qualified to consider writing as a career. He struggled in
school in his early years, not realizing that his undiagnosed
dyslexia was holding him back. “I had mas-
sive amounts of trouble with grade school,
and no matter how hard I tried or studied, I
simply could not make good grades. To be
a writer, I thought you had to be smart and
successful in school, but it wasn’t until I
was in the 7th grade and had a teacher who
asked us write poems and short stories that
things just connected, and I went crazy wild
writing all sorts of things. My teacher liked
what I wrote, and I got praised for it. It was
one of the few things in school I had ever
been praised for, and as result, I kept doing
it.”
Walsh became a lifelong learner of the
craft, recognizing that inspiration can often come from
others we connect with. Walsh began his writing career as
a poet, but he later added literary interviews to his list of
passions. “That was completely by accident, truthfully. I
went to a literary symposium at the University of Georgia
that was orchestrated by the then editor of The Georgia
Review, Stanley Lindberg. I went there for the weekend to
hear writers lecture and listen to them read their work, and
I got to meet a few of them. I didn’t have much money, but
I bought one book in particular, and I bought it because
it was one of the least expensive paperback, but it looked
interesting nonetheless. It was called The Heart of a
Distant Forest by Philip Lee Williams.
“The following December I was able to meet him in
Athens where I interviewed him for my college literary
magazine. That Christmas, my girlfriend at the time gave
me a tape recorder and said, ‘This is for the rest of your in-
terviews,’ which I hadn’t
even thought of doing.
She saw something I had
not. From there I decided
to interview a couple of
other writers. Soon, I had
a handful of interviews under my belt. Then I asked James
Dickey. Dickey said yes, and I went down to his house in
South Carolina, in Columbia, and I interviewed him.”
Walsh eventually published Speak So I Shall Know
Thee: Interviews with Southern Writers. His other books
include The Boomerang Mattress; Haircuts for the Dead;
The Ordinary Life of a Sculptor; The
Conscience of My Other Being; Under
the Rock Umbrella: Contemporary
American Poets from 1951-1977; and
David Bottoms: Critical Essays and
Interviews. His next books to be released
are Fly Fishing in Times Square and The
Pig Rider.
Walsh is grateful for the inspiration he
received from others during his career.
But he also knows that inspiration alone
doesn’t lead to a great manuscript. “All
of us as writers need an experienced
editorial eye to help us take our work to
the next level. It can take years to get to
Point A from Point B working on your
own. Working with professional writers can give you the
tools to write better and write faster.”
Through his career as the director of the creative
writing master’s program at Reinhardt University, Walsh
combines his experience in writing with his desire
to guide others through the process of completing a
manuscript. “Sometimes writers need to identify the point
in their careers when they need to seek mentoring in order
to boost their writing skills and deepen their understanding
of the publishing world. Being mentored by a writer in
your genre can help you eliminate the career mistakes they
have already made and learned from. That’s one of the
greatest benefits a professional writing program can offer.”
Walsh still has a briefcase full of ideas, but he learned
well from his years of reading, interviewing and studying
how to get those ideas into books for his readers. n
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