Spring Break
Things I've learned, with Prof. Tristan Davies
Issue date: 12/6/07
In addition to being a Senior Lecturer in the Writing Seminars Department, Tristan Davies is a published author. Anticipating the release of his upcoming book, Forecast, Davies talked to the News-Letter about his journey as an aspiring writer and those who helped him along the way.
News-Letter (NL): Was there a major turning point - a book, a poem, a person - that inspired you at a young age to pursue writing?
Davies (TD): This is a funny answer, because I remember when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came out, the original Roald Dahl, and I remember my mother ordered it and it came in the mail - the first edition, hardcover. I had always followed Roald Dahl books, and I remember cutting and unwrapping the box, and it was the first time I'd ever had a hardcover book that had just come out, and maybe that was the moment. I mean, I guess I'm a geek because I still get excited when the Amazon.com box comes, and there's all the packaging and the shrink wrap piece of cardboard. So maybe that was it; I was about eight or nine. And also, I remember I went to an exhibit of American painting around the exact same time, back then the museum was really just a gallery. They had stuff from the Met and I remember seeing these paintings - and painting was something that was foreign and distant - and suddenly seeing all these American paintings and the American sensibility of these landscapes. It inspired me.
NL: It was inspiring in a generally creative sense?
TD: Yeah, I think so. Well, for the longest time I thought I was going to be the greatest American abstract expressionist painter of my generation. Until I realized that no one had been painting abstract expressionism for about 30 years, so that kind of dashed my hopes.
NL: Who were the your most memorable professors at Brown?
TD: There were a lot. There was a guy named Viktor Terras, was Estonian, a critic, and did Russian stuff, Duncan Smith, who did German, Dora Levy did Chinese. Then there was John Hocks, who was a fiction writer, who was really mean to me. I think if I'm ever nice as a teacher, it's me remembering how mean to me John Hocks was.
News-Letter (NL): Was there a major turning point - a book, a poem, a person - that inspired you at a young age to pursue writing?
Davies (TD): This is a funny answer, because I remember when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came out, the original Roald Dahl, and I remember my mother ordered it and it came in the mail - the first edition, hardcover. I had always followed Roald Dahl books, and I remember cutting and unwrapping the box, and it was the first time I'd ever had a hardcover book that had just come out, and maybe that was the moment. I mean, I guess I'm a geek because I still get excited when the Amazon.com box comes, and there's all the packaging and the shrink wrap piece of cardboard. So maybe that was it; I was about eight or nine. And also, I remember I went to an exhibit of American painting around the exact same time, back then the museum was really just a gallery. They had stuff from the Met and I remember seeing these paintings - and painting was something that was foreign and distant - and suddenly seeing all these American paintings and the American sensibility of these landscapes. It inspired me.
NL: It was inspiring in a generally creative sense?
TD: Yeah, I think so. Well, for the longest time I thought I was going to be the greatest American abstract expressionist painter of my generation. Until I realized that no one had been painting abstract expressionism for about 30 years, so that kind of dashed my hopes.
NL: Who were the your most memorable professors at Brown?
TD: There were a lot. There was a guy named Viktor Terras, was Estonian, a critic, and did Russian stuff, Duncan Smith, who did German, Dora Levy did Chinese. Then there was John Hocks, who was a fiction writer, who was really mean to me. I think if I'm ever nice as a teacher, it's me remembering how mean to me John Hocks was.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Steve Davies
posted 7/30/09 @ 7:34 PM EST
John Hawkes -- not Hocks
I went to Brown around the same time as Tristan -- I was one or two years ahead of him. (We met at the newspaper office.) He must have been one precocious kid. (Continued…)
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