We recently had the chance to connect with Steve Wiegenstein and have shared our conversation below.
Steve, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. Have you ever been glad you didn’t act fast?
I didn’t start writing my first novel until I was in my fifties. I’m sure to some people, that would look like an unconscionable delay. But I’ve never regretted it. As Edgar says in King Lear, ripeness is all. Some ideas take longer to mature than others, Once I had a clear idea of the project ahead of me, I’ve been working on it steadily for nearly twenty years, through five novels. and I’ve never looked back.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a novelist and short story writer, living in Missouri. I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks and have always drawn on that landscape for my ideas and settings. The Ozarks is a region particularly prone to stereotypes and preconceptions, so I see my work as providing a useful counterbalance to those tendencies. I don’t exactly write “about” the Ozarks; I write about the human heart. But the setting is important to me as a place that deserves more careful portrayal.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
When I was a kid, I had chores to do, of course, but after the chores were finished my time was my own. We had a hammock out in the yard, and on warm days I would take a book out, lie in the hammock, and read. I am astonished today thinking about the books I read! Anything that I read about or heard that was “great,” I tackled. Reading is still the most enlarging and empowering experience a young person can undertake. I can’t say that I completely understood all the various classics I read during those years, but I was introduced to them, and to the sense of limitless possibility they brought.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
I was fired from one of the first jobs I ever held, and justifiably. I had exaggerated my abilities in order to get the job, and it soon became apparent that I wasn’t up to the task. That experience taught me a painful lesson, which was that I should never make claims I can’t back up. To this day, if I agree to take on a task, I will break my back to make sure it gets done. The feeling of having let someone down is not something I have ever cared to repeat.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. How do you differentiate between fads and real foundational shifts?
I think it’s hard at first, and I don’t criticize authors who follow ideas that to seem to me trendy or temporary fads. In my line of work, these fads often take the form of technical challenges involving point of view or perspective. I’ll tell this story from the point of view of the family dog, for example, or I’ll make the main character someone who’s already dead when the story begins. I enjoy these kind of challenges, and sometimes they result in great insights. But I have to judge them in light of the larger task, which is to enlarge the reader’s understanding. Is it advancing their understanding or getting in the way? That’s how I differentiate.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
As an author, I’m used to delayed gratification. Once I’ve finished a book, it’ll take a year or more to get it through the editing and pre-publication process, Ever since the mid-2000s, I’ve been working on a long-term project: a series of novels that conveys life in rural America through the travails of one small village in the Missouri Ozarks and the family at its center. That project finishes next year with the publication of the fifth and final novel. So now my goal is to launch a new beginning, a novel that picks up that theme with a new set of characters and a present-day timeframe, and bring my thinking up to date. Will it pay off in seven to ten years? I hope so.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stevewiegenstein.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wiegensteinsteve
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevewiegensteinauthor
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV2k5MM6MEvbtJgk6jsW1YA
Image Credits
Randall Hyman
