“Here we are,” she thought. “With the world on fire and all of us so desperate to feel something, anything, that we keep falling through the beds of a million well-known strangers straight to the end of the world.”
Just like that, with a bang, Daniel W. Wright is back with a collection of short stories all set in St. Louis, Missouri, entitled Tales From the Riverbank.
Wright, a self-described son of a bluesman and hopeless romantic and poet by trade, gives us a rare treat with his prose. Tales is gritty, relatable, realistically heartbreaking, and occasionally even funny, as it winds along, giving us brief yet impactful looks into the lives of its characters.
With the release of this new book, I got to sit down with Daniel, for the first time in six years, to discuss the book, life, poetry, and what’s next for the St. Louis writer.
Link: I can’t believe it’s been since pre-pandemic times since we sat down for an interview! What have you been up to?
Daniel W. Wright: Writing as much as I can. When the pandemic hit, I was kind of happy because I didn’t have to deal with people and I could focus on writing. I worked my ass off for 18 months, between various projects of my own and with friends. For the first time since high school, I had the time to really sit down and get to it.
Link: Would you say that personal life experiences played a part in this short story collection?
DWW: Yes. It started out as a potential novel called Seasons in the Abyss, but the novel itself felt directionless. But there was still some good stuff. So I took the stuff I liked and started turning those into short stories. I wanted something that would be for myself the way The Dubliners was for James Joyce. A sort of weird love letter to a city. I wanted something that would be true to life. Like post-modern Raymond Carver. Something I’d be proud of at the end of the day.
Link: If any, what kind of message about STL do you hope readers take away from the book?
DWW: I don’t know if there really is one, aside from wanting to capture a moment in time. When I wrote some of these stories, I was really in love with the city, especially in the mid-to-late 2010s.
Link: I can really feel that vibe from the book. It really conveys that era of the city.
DWW: Outside of Joyce, I wanted to capture the city in the way that Jack Micheline did in his short stories and poems about New York. There was a sort of working class aesthetic that I was really drawn to.
Link: Yes, I absolutely get what you mean, that gritty realism. There’s a real poetry to some of these stories. Speaking of poetry, I hear you’ve also got a new poetry release
DWW: Yes, I have my fifth full-length collection out this year called The Unheard Music.
Link: I noticed your style has changed a bit from the gritty poetry of Rodeo of the Soul, how do you feel your writing has evolved since?
DWW: I feel like I’m not so beholden to my idols as much anymore and I’ve much more found my voice. I’m still very proud of my previous works, but I feel like From Obscurity to Oblivion: Collected Poems 2008-2017 really bookmarked the end of an era for my writing. It’s kind of like shedding a skin. Or if you’re a Time Lord, a regeneration. My travels and experiences on tours really formed who I became and where I went next. I didn’t want to keep writing about drinking and getting messed up. The more I wrote, the more I realized I was evolving. At my core, I’m still the same, but I’m not trying to be Bukowski-lite anymore.
Link: I can really tell the difference in your works. It’s so cool when you can see the growth in a writer through their work. That’s all I’ve got, for now. Thank you so much for sitting down with me again. I always enjoy our interviews.
DWW: Thank you!
You can find Tales From the Riverbank and The Unheard Music for sale on Amazon and you can find Daniel W. Wright behind the counter at Dunaway Books in St. Louis, Missouri.
