Good morning, everyone!
I hope everyone is still enjoying September and all the seasonal changes that come with it.
Today, I've got an interview with author Niles Reddick to share, and it's a good one! Niles will also be on our podcast this Friday for a chat with Draco that you won't want to miss.
Niles is a professor emeritus at the University of Memphis, and he's written countless short stories and novels. His newest collection, Who’s Going to Pray for Me Now (2024), has been released by Big Table Publishing, and simultaneously his novella, Forgiven (2024), has just been released by Impspired Publishing in England. If Not For You was released in 2023 by Big Table Publishing. Reading the Coffee Grounds and Other Stories was released in August 2018 and has been nominated for the Story Prize, an IPPY, and a PEN-Malamud. His collection Road Kill Art and Other Oddities was a finalist for an Eppie award, and his novel Lead Me Home was a national finalist for a ForeWord Award, a finalist in the Georgia Author of the Year award, and a nominee for an IPPY award. His novel Drifting Too Far From the Shore was nominated for a Foreword Award, a Pen-Faulkner award, and a Pulitzer. His work has appeared in 21 anthologies and has been featured in over 500 literary magazines and journals.
To check out Niles's latest collection, Who's Going to Pray for Me Now, click here.
Now, let's get right into it! Please enjoy the following interview with Niles Reddick.
BOOKMARKED: How long have you been writing now, and what initially made you realize you wanted to write stories?
I began to dabble with writing as an undergraduate student at Valdosta State University in Georgia, where I grew up. It was awful, but even then, I told stories in the dorm to friends who loved them. I didn't truly write those stories until later. When I finally finished up graduate school at Florida State, I had written three unpublished novels. They were bad, too. But the point was that I was writing, I was getting better, and I knew I'd get there at some point.
I think when my first story, "Road Kill Art," was published in the early 1990s, I felt like I'd hit the big time. That story was inspired by one of my aunts who really did collect road kill and make art. She was incredible, and she was not happy when I released my first collection titled that. When I told her I made her famous, I think she forgave me. That collection didn't come until several years later, and I was speaking in Cookeville at a writer's conference and met Elaine Fowler Palencia, who encouraged me put together a collection.
What is your background with the Southern U.S., and what about this region inspires you to write stories set here?
I grew up in Southern Georgia, lived in Northwest Georgia, lived in Tallahassee, Florida, and three different areas of Tennessee (middle, West, and now East). I think initially I was truly a Southern writer, writing mostly "what I knew," but learning more, traveling more, and forming circles of writing friends... that changed. I still write some Southern stories, but I have written stories centered in New York, California, the Midwest, and so on.
I take a lot of notes when I am traveling and know I will write something about those places. I've always been fascinated by the unique, the different, and have focused a lot of description and detail on those things. It could be something as strange as having pulled up to a traffic light, looked over, and saw an overweight guy smoking with one hand, drinking a Coke in the other hand, and steering his Oldsmobile with his gut. I put that in a story. It could be something unique or different I learn from a show, like a UFO encounter.
I know you write both novels and short stories/flash fiction. Which is your favorite to write and why?
I do enjoy both genres, but I've also done novellas and some creative nonfiction. I think short fiction is where I've accomplished the most success, with nearly 600 publications. That's a lot, and generally I do about a story a week. Except, this week, I haven't written a thing and am beating myself up. Novels or novellas take a lot of time, maybe a year from beginning to publication, but it's an incredible accomplishment to see it in print. I hope to do another novel or novella within the year, as soon as I find the "story."
The last one, Forgiven, came out a couple of months ago and is a pretty interesting story about a guy who goes to prison, where he has a conversion experience. (He's in jail with Ted Bundy, of all people.) It's literary, but also a Christian story, and I was so fortunate to have gotten to know Donna Fargo, the Grammy award-winning singer from the 1970s, who read it and wrote a blurb for the cover! I had done an interview with her and an article about her on the 50th anniversary of "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" that was picked up by three magazines. Also, my new short fiction collection, Who's Going to Pray for Me Now, titled so for the lead story, was just released by Big Table Publishing in Boston/San Francisco. It's a good collection, too.
Tell me about a few of your favorite short stories you've written! What are they about, and where can people find them?
Well, if you just Google "Niles Reddick," many of them will pop up. I don't know if I have favorites. I think some did very well, like "Cool, Damp Cloth," a story that was published by The Saturday Evening Post, one of the oldest pubs in the country all the way back to Benjamin Franklin!
I'll go off script here, but the editor wanted another story I submitted titled "For The Cheesecake" that a magazine in L.A. had just picked up. I told her I had two stories just as good as that one, and she said, "Well, send them to me on Monday." So, I had the whole weekend to write two! Ha! I just didn't want to close that door or lose an opportunity. Turned out, "Cool, Damp Cloth," which I set in Denver, was a great story. Anyway, those are favorites, not because they are the best, but because of where they landed.
My "Road Kill" piece will always be one of my favorites, and one I based on my wife's family titled "The Ministry" will always be a favorite. It's one of the few I wrote in one day, sent it out, and it was picked up the same day. It's about my wife's sweet grandmother, who died in East Tennessee. To save money, the family hauled her to Georgia in a cardboard box, and somewhere along the way, they found out she was naked in the box and worried they'd have a wreck, especially in Atlanta, and Grandma would tumble out onto the interstate.
I have had five Pushcart nominations, which is one of the highest prizes one can win for a story. So, I love all of those, but I have had some others nominated for Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, and so on.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Keep writing and don't give up. Keep finding ways to improve. No one is perfect, and no writer is perfect. Get in a group so you can get support and prepare for all kinds of rejections. I don't get all mad and upset about them -- well, not usually anyway -- but use them as motivation to try and try again and continue to submit. To me, they are fuel to do more, to do better, to keep trying.
Is there anything you'd like to say to your supporters and fans?
Oh, I don't know about fans, but there are a lot of people out there who follow me, who do read my stories, who do comment on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, or LinkedIn. I read all the comments, and I typically try to comment back to folks. My wife has the awful job of being my sounding board, my first editor. I read them all out loud to her, and she offers her opinion. Sometimes I agree with her, and sometimes I don't, but reading it aloud helps me tremendously to find mistakes and edit.
I deeply appreciate all of the support. I hope to write until I can't. Dolly Parton said she hopes to perform and fall over on stage dead one day, doing what she loves. The same is true for me. I hope to write until the end. If I could have done something else in life, I would have liked to be a performer, an actor, maybe, or a singer, but I wasn't good at either. I always hoped a film company would buy a story or novella and turn it into a film, and I could play a part, but no one has called yet. There's always hope!
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Thanks again to Niles for a wonderful interview! And remember to check out our podcast this Friday for a more in-depth discussion with Niles about his illustrious career.
You can check out Niles's website at nilesreddick.com.
Stay safe, everyone, and thanks for reading!
Allison Chudina
Editorial Assistant
Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc.
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