“The Cello in the Cell” is as intricate as it is haunting. We often hear stories of incarcerated people and those on death row but seldom any that touch on their intimate thoughts as this story does. What can you tell us about the inspiration behind the words?
The first time I had the concept for the story was eight years ago on a walk to the chow hall in Stillwater prison. It was only a thought experiment, and my original drafts were in third person. But then more years went by. I became closer to people serving life sentences and more and more distant to people I had once known in society. Then when I revised it last fall, the whole language of the story changed when I put it in the form of a letter. It became more real. I was writing directly about my own isolation and the isolation of people I care about. It was no longer about music. The plot became secondary to this larger theme of what it’s like to be alone in prison.
For some the language of music comes easily, for others it is more of a struggle. The old man in the tuxedo struck me as a master linguist reaching out to his students in the hopes of redemption for their crimes. Why do you think he agreed to perform day after day for the prisoners?
Why would someone choose to teach meditation to prisoners on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons? Why would a visual artist visit a prison art room every Tuesday afternoon to talk to prisoners about their paintings, and discuss art and philosophy? Why would professional writers walk into a prison to teach writing on their weekday evenings? Or choose to mentor by mail and work with the same incarcerated writer for over five years?
The story needed a character invested in the wellbeing of the prisoners, but I didn’t realize it until the story was done and the cello player already had those qualities. (Though he was limited on what he could do by the system he worked under.) I think my mind naturally created the character because of all the volunteers that have helped me and so many others both now and during different seasons of my incarceration. Each volunteer might have their own reasons why working with incarcerated people is meaningful but maybe fundamentally it has to do with prisoners being humans, and like the rest of humanity, there is a need for them to be emotionally healthy and to develop both intellectually and artistically.
Music is also an inspiration, an escort from laughter to tears, from anger to joy and all stops in between. What bands or musicians tickle your inspiration? Do you have any favorite songs?
I love mellow music with lots of minor chords. Two songs I could put on repeat and listen to into eternity: “Clear Blue Eyes” by The Velvet Underground and the classic “Fade into You” by Mazzy Star. Recently, I’ve enjoyed listening to the new music of Bridgette Calls Me Baby, Big Thief, Cactus Blossoms, Trampled by Turtles, Lucinda Williams, and Angel Olsen.
This is your first professional publication. Where do you hope to go with your writing from here?
In November, an anthology I coedited titled American Precarity: Parables of Exclusion will be released. It was a three-and-a-half-year project that many people were involved with. My next long-term project is to turn a novella I wrote into a novel, and I plan on beginning that phase of writing when I’m released. In the meantime, I have several short stories I’m revising that continue dealing with incarceration in a speculative manner.
