BCC Shines A Light On: Dave Nash
BCC Shines a Light On:
Dave Nash
Name of the piece published by BCC:
When/where was it originally published:
Midwestern Heat (Issue 1) Spring 2023 now defunct.
Tell us more about your piece!
● What is the background of the piece?
I joined Becky Tuch’s Lit Mag Reading Club and the first piece I loved was If It’s My Time by Sylvia Chan which appeared in the Cincinnati Review (print only). Chan’s piece is about the foster care to prison pipeline. It’s touching because it’s driven through her relationship with her foster brother who goes to prison while she contemplates going to grad school. It’s heartbreaking to empathize with the two trajectories of these lives. I had read other academic lit mags, but in the LMRC was the first time I went over pieces in depth with other writers. I found just preparing for it to be helpful.
● What led you to write it?
Everytime I bring up the Chan piece it tears the scab off, but I didn’t know what to do about it as a writer, as a human. I came across this Toni Morrison quote imploring her students to stop writing about their mom or their girlfriend, (i.e. things they think they know) because they don’t know anything and start writing about things they really don’t know about like a waitress in Mexico.
● What’s your process?
To begin I feel I need to find a seam. There’s an idea, but I need an opening to get me going. I found myself watching Raekwon’s Incarcerated Scarfaces on YouTube. I was back in 1995 and discovering how my New York and impression of Staten Island is white and black compared to Rae’s New York and his Shaolin. So that’s the perspective. Charles is entering a Wu Tang video and there's 36 chambers of death.
It’s style too. Rae’s style is grimy and profound. He’s a black belt of breath control, word shaping, and storytelling. I read that the beat was intended for the GZA but Rae wrote his piece first, so I felt like I could borrow and channel.
Like I had to look up Wallabees, I had to get some facts on prison life. I went to the The Marshal Project’s website and found more than I needed.
How did you feel when it was first published and how have your thoughts or feelings on the piece changed from then to now?
I felt like lit mags should publish more pieces like this. But once it was out, I felt like I said my piece. I wanted to explore love and loneliness in other veins. For the amount of words, I put in ten times the work, there was more to the process, and it was emotionally exhausting.
Having this republished is reinvigorating. Every time I get an acceptance I feel that I tricked the editor and got lucky. But BCC is different. I’m fired up to write in this vein again.
Is there a specific message you would like readers to take away from reading this piece?
Express yourself in the face of life’s injustices and pain.
What else would you like to tell readers about your writing? (Doesn’t have to refer only to your BCC piece)
I hope that my work speaks for itself, but answering these questions was a blast and I thank BCC.
Readers might not know the help and encouragement I receive from writer groups. I mentioned the LMRC, I’m indebted to the team at Five South Magazine and joining SmokeLong Fitness has boosted my game.
Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc)
There’s a Pied Piper hip-hop inspired flash at SoFloPoJo (see The Sound of Music). And a whimsical flash inspired by a comical piece in the Cincinnati Review at Persimmon Lit.
