BCC Shines A Light On: Stuart Phillips

BCC Shines a Light On: Stuart Phillips

Name of the piece published by BCC: One outta four ain’t bad

When/where was it originally published: Originally published in O-Dark-Thirty Review, Winter 2020.

Tell us more about your piece! What is the background of the piece? What led you to write it? What’s your process? This piece was originally a scene in the Great Southern Novel I started while doing my MFA. The novel features a young Delta lawyer who is both haunted, and smothered, by the memories of his father. I decided this scene had enough arc to stand alone, so I revised it into a short story. In revising it, I tried to apply a lesson I learned in a workshop with Chinelo Okparanta: “The beginning and the ending should be in conversation with each other.” To me, that meant having the specter of death hovering over the opening and the close, then working that theme throughout the piece without making it morbid or maudlin.

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 had just read a draft of this passage at my MFA, and Jerri Bell, one of the editors of O-Dark-Thirty, came to me at lunch and said she wanted it for the Veterans Writing Project. It was my first non-academic publication, and I was seized by the simultaneous feeling of relief that someone wanted to publish my work and fear that it wasn’t good enough to be published. Or even be read. That feeling hasn’t changed. But I like this story, partly because it distills a lot of what my writing is about—family disfunction as a motivating force plus the sense of place as a character. Also, I got to use the word “ochre.”

Is there a specific message you would like readers to take away from reading this piece? Obligation is its own reward. I know the dynamics of family and place are not unique to Mississippi, but we’re renowned for dwelling at that crossroads. Still, I hope that a reader from Minnesota or Colorado or Bangladesh will see slices of their own family in this (the function and the disfunction) and realize that the real obligation is to yourself. In this story, Will stepped up when the rest of the family failed. And even though it’s gratifying for Will to know his father appreciates it in some measure, the only true satisfaction is within himself. He did what he felt was the right thing, and that must be enough. Also, I wrapped all this in the smothering quilt of the Delta, but I hope people walk away able to draw parallels to their own postage stamp of soil, where the intertwining of expectations is different, but similar.

What else would you like to tell readers about your writing? (Doesn’t have to refer only to your BCC piece) Even in the sad moments, there is nobility. I try to be unflinching in recognizing this and try to communicate it in a way that’s accessible. To me, writing that’s unreadable is useless.

Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc) I post most of my stuff on my website at stuartphillips.work and post pretty pictures on Instagram @deltawriter12. Also, I write a craft column for Reckon Review.