One of the greatest beauties of my opinion, is there's no passport needed to take you places you want to go or never knew even existed.

Hi, I'm Holly Jackson, the host of Books by the River, and I'm here to navigate the conversation of those who draw the maps for some of the most interesting journeys that are bound in a book.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Major funding for Books by the River is brought to you by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

This program is supported by South Carolina Humanities, a not for profit organization inspiring, engaging, and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture, and heritage.

SC Humanities receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Democracy demands wisdom.

Additional funding for Books by the River is provided by Visit Beaufort, Port Royal and Sea Islands and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USC Beaufort.

Holly> And today, we have the privilege to talk with Michael Farris Smith, who is talking about book number eight.

Wow, that's a lot under your belt.

Michael> It is a lot.

You know, I think if ten, 12 years ago, somebody would tell me that was the story, I'd have been pretty relieved and pretty happy.

Holly> Oh, yeah?

Michael> Because it's, you know, it's hard to get going, and then you kind of wonder if you can hang around.

So it's good to still be hanging around.

Holly> Yes.

All right, let's back up a little.

Tell me, who is Michael Farris Smith?

Let's get to know you.

Michael> Well, I'm a preacher's kid from, South Mississippi.

I think you can fill in probably a lot of blanks with that moving around kind of, household.

I grew up in the community that I grew up in, but one thing that happened to me later on was after I kind of got out of college, is I took off, I think I had a little bit of wanderlust and, went and lived in several places, you know, across the States.

But the big thing that happened to me is I went and lived abroad for about three years, living in Geneva, Switzerland, and, Paris, France a little bit, and then having the opportunity to really travel and meet a lot of different people and really step back from the world that I had grown up into.

And the habits that I'd known.

And I think the attitudes and even the ideologies that I'd been familiar with up to that point, you know, it's kind of cliché to say that kind of experience changes you, but it really did, because the other thing that happened during those years was I started reading for the first time for entertainment to fill up the hours, you know, because I had language gaps and I saw people reading in the cafes and reading in the parks and reading on the train.

So I started doing, you know, the same thing.

This was before we all had that little electronic gadget in our hand to draw our attention.

And so those years away from Mississippi and away from the South and living abroad really, I think it's what led me to try to be a writer, because when that experience was over, I was about 30 years old and I was coming back and I thought, well, I think I'm going to try, try to write.

And I had absolutely no idea what that really meant.

But that was the beginnings of it.

Holly>Well - Michael> in a very small nutshell.

Holly> Yeah, but already off of that, I already have a list in my head of things I want to ask, you know, I've seen and I've heard you referenced that preacher's kid early on in your introduction.

Is it because you feel that you're so much different from how that, upbringing was, or that has to be like a defining moment for you, since it's always brought up?

Michael> Yeah, I don't really know.

I think, I've probably thought about it more as I've become a writer than I ever thought I would, because I get asked a lot of times like, what are your, you know, influences?

And quite honestly, I feel like my first influences were the Bible stories.

Like, I can remember, as a kid, I had a Bible with illustrations in it.

So when you had Moses parting the Red sea, you had an illustration to go with it.

And I can remember being a kid, I can remember my imagination really being fired by those stories.

Because the Bible stories, they're very short and concise, but they are filled with incredible images, like Daniel in the lion's den, the burning bush, you know, parting the Red sea, and all those stories have compacted into them things like failure and redemption and hope and temptation and just it goes on and on and on.

So those were the first stories I knew.

And that was my first introduction to story telling that I really remember.

So I think when I started reading much more seriously later in life, I think the things that kind of triggered my imagination as a kid with those stories kind of came back to life, and I think that's why I've been also kind of drawn to the darker side of things and more kind of, I think emotional and I think spiritual kind of things that I have in my work and the writers that I admire as well.

So, you know, you never know, what a story out of, you know, the Book of Job might do for you one day.

Holly> Sure.

All right.

So when you talk about that, moving off for I think you said three years, right?

For probably small town Mississippi, the church folk back home were thinking, what is he doing?

Michael> Yeah, yeah.

I mean, truly, like, one of the things that was, a little bit of a challenge for me and really scared me was when I came back, because I'd been gone from Mississippi for, I don't know, more than just those three years I'd been really gone for.

I mean, it was probably close to a decade at that point.

When I came back to this little home town, my friends had done things during that time like get married, have children, get jobs, buy houses like semblance of like a real life or what you're supposed to do.

And here I was, showing back up with a duffel bag over my arm, sleeping on a buddy's couch, and really wondering if what I'd chosen to do to try to become a writer and try to become an artist, and even try to just figure out what that meant.

It felt like I was, well, it was a big risk and I felt very strange and nobody really understood it.

I mean, try explaining that to somebody now.

I mean, even now when you meet somebody you don't know and they ask you what you do and you say, well, I'm a writer, you're bound to get some strange looks like I don't I don't think people just quite get it sometimes.

And I think that goes for any artistic, you know, medium.

Not just that, but there was a lot of that.

So I felt very alone.

I felt like I was standing on the edge of something that was going to either be, great or tragic in some way.

Like, this could be a really bad move.

Just because of what we're always taught about what you're supposed to be doing certain periods of your life, you know, turning 30 and I didn't have a real job and didn't have a real career.

You know?

I think, people can't quite understand that.

People around me I don't think could quite understand that.

But I also didn't really care.

It's what I wanted to do.

And that's <laughs> at the end of the day, that's the only thing that matters.

Holly> Did you have that need to have the approval of those around you back home?

Michael> No.

Holly> How do you think you didn't have that?

I mean, you think you were just born that way?

Or did you have to kind of teach yourself not to care?

Like maybe you thought you might were supposed to?

Michael> That's a really good question.

I think I've related a lot of how I've approached things over the years is growing up, I was an athlete, and playing ball was really all I cared about.

And I only envisioned myself ever like, playing major league shortstop, you know?

But, but in small towns, you play every sport because, you know, everybody's gotta play to fill out all the teams.

But I was very competitive.

As a ballplayer, as an athlete.

Like, I was one of those people who hated losing way more than I liked winning.

And I think, there is a difference between that.

So I think my competitive nature has fueled me and helped me through that because you have to be to the point where when you're one on one with somebody, you're out and exposed in front of a crowd, like, you've got to just be willing to do and not think about it.

And I think that attitude and that competitive nature has helped me as an artist, because I've been willing to do and not really think about it too hard just for the sheer desire and need and necessity of wanting to do it.

Holly> Whenever you were in that world of sports, did you have that artistic side?

Did you know it was there?

Or, does it really become discovered by you in that travel time?

Michael> I think I always felt a little a little different and like the kind of things I was interested in.

One thing I knew I could do as a high school student and even in college, is I could write a paper without a whole lot of effort.

You know?

That wasn't really me thinking of myself as an artist, but I was always like, very influenced by, like, music and, quite honestly, I was a good storyteller, a liar.

A lot of people called it back then.

So that certainly has a lot to do with being creative.

You know, being an artist or being a writer never crossed my mind back in, in those days, people talk about, yeah, I knew I wanted to be a writer or actor when I was ten years old, and that's just alien to me.

Everybody comes to it from a different place.

I'm just happy I finally did come around to the place.

Holly> So once that that time came, we're talking age what?

Was that around 30?

Michael> 29, 30, yeah.

Holly> Okay.

That's a little bit later than the ages I hear people typically say.

Michael> Yeah.

Holly> So did you feel like you had a lot of catching up to do?

Michael> Yeah, and I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do.

And I also went into it headstrong like there's no plan B for this thing.

So if you're going to do it, you need to get into it and you need to get serious, like now.

So I actually enrolled in a writing program at the University of Southern Mississippi because I thought, you know, I could just kind of go about my business and do it myself.

But, it would help to learn from people who actually know what they're doing and go study with some published writers and listen and learn about the craft.

So I did that, and that was a three year program, and that really kickstarted the whole thing for me.

And it also taught me the seriousness of it, too.

The writers there at the time, were really, taught you the lesson of, perseverance and practice and, consistency because all those things have to exist if you're going to get anywhere in anything.

But I think, especially as an artist, because you it's so easy to just, you know, fluff it off and, not do it, you know, or to feel doubt and let the doubt, you know, take you down, which that never goes away.

I mean, I still have doubt now.

I think everybody riding around trying to do anything creative has doubt, no matter who they are.

So I wanted to expedite the process because again, like I thought, this is not going to be a whim, this is going to be I'm going to do it or I'm going to I'm going to be miserable because I fail, or, I'm going to find some success in it.

But I'm not going to sit around and be miserable because I've always wondered what would have happened, you know?

Holly> And that goes back to that whole I hate to lose, okay to win, but really hate to lose.

Michael> Yeah.

Absolutely.

Holly> So you talked about the doubt coming in.

At what point in the writing process do you see that flare up the most?

Michael> Every morning about 830 when I'm walking into my studio.

<laughs> I think it flares up the most in between.

When I'm working in, when I'm working on something, when I have a novel going or, you know, been doing scripts some the past couple of years when I'm in the throes of it, when I'm in the middle of it, when I know every day, like, I can feel the propulsion of it and the energy of it, it tends to flake away then.

It's like now that I've just finished something and I don't know necessarily what is next, that's when I really have to learn to beat it back and beat it down, because you immediately start wondering, well, I feel like it's good like, I dig it, I'm excited about it.

And I've been told other people are excited about it, but still, you don't don't know.

And you also, I think a little bit of you wonders if that's it, if there's anything left in the tank, you know?

Which is why over the years too, I've also tried after I get to the end of a project, I'm really I'm really drained from it.

So I haven't beat myself up about not going back and starting something new like until it comes along.

It may be a few weeks, it may be a few months I don't know, but I'm going to wait around till that idea comes and I'm not going to push it, and I'm not going to feel guilt over not necessarilly writing a thousand words a day like I do when I'm in the middle of something, you know?

Holly> Do you think fear and doubt are just part of the job and it'll never go away?

Michael> Oh, yeah.

Holly> As much as you fight it?

Michael> Absolutely.

And I have found comfort in knowing everybody feels that.

But because I've always read and watched a lot of interviews with other writers, actors, musicians, and to hear someone like, <sighs> you know, I mean, I saw a clip of an interview with, Al Pacino from some years ago where he was talking about just having a all those demons of doubt.

He has to fight every time he goes back to work.

And I'm like, okay, Holly> I can relate.

Michael> I can relate, and it walks around within all of us.

I think what you have to do is you can't let it win.

And I think staying in motion is the thing that keeps it at bay, hopefully, because I'm really trying to stay in motion.

Holly> All right.

You talked about this 8:30 thing.

Is this really exactly a schedule of 8:30?

Wake up, go in and just pound the pavement in terms of that keyboard?

Michael> Yeah, there's a habit I got into some years ago when my daughters were young.

I, I realized if this is ever going to happen, I've got to get more consistent.

Because at that time, I really, I really wasn't.

So I got in the habit of taking the girls to school or daycare, and then I found a little place outside of my house where I could go work, and I was teaching full time then, also.

So we get up in the morning, I get the girls out of the house, I drop them off, and I go right to my little space.

And if it was 45 minutes, 30 minutes, I would go there and I would just work that morning before I then had to go to school and be a professor and teach and keep office hours.

And then at 3:30, 4:00, go pick up the girls and become daddy again.

And then you go home and there's, you know, the wife and dinner and children and family and everything that goes on.

And when I started doing that, I started noticing the work, even in those small increments, like start to pile up.

And I started to feel better, quite honestly, throughout the course of the day because I had done it already.

So I don't teach anymore.

It's been a few years, but still, I have maintained that habit because if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

So, I also like doing it in the morning before the rest of the world gets in the way.

Before you get distracted by something.

Holly> All the emails and phone calls, start coming in.

Michael> Exactly.

Or at 10:00, you have a flat tire.

If I have a flat tire and I'm planning to work that afternoon, I'm not going to work that afternoon.

My whole day is just thrown off, you know?

So I really love that earlier in the morning, when the world is still kind of quiet to go in and and get to work then.

And then, I think, too, the other thing I like about it is it kind of floats around with me and stays with me the rest of the day, to where I think my subconscious kind of gets ready for the next morning, you know?

Holly> Do you ever get off track and say, I've got to write this down?

This thought's just bugging me.

I'm scared I won't remember in the morning?

Michael> Oh yeah, absolutely.

I learned to do that a long time ago.

Like, if you have a thought or have even just a bit of dialog that you think could really change the dynamic of what's going on to write it down.

I mean, you could look at my phone and you probably see like very, very rough, almost outlines for the last 4 or 5 novels I've written, just because I do that now, like if I have a thought or have anything, I immediately, write it down because no matter what you wake up in the middle of the night, you say, that's a fantastic idea.

There's no way I'm going to forget that.

And then you wake up in the morning and it's gone.

It's just completely gone.

And there's no way to hold on it.

So yeah, I do, I definitely write things down.

Holly> All right.

For those who haven't read your books, how would you describe your writing style?

Michael> Oh, man.

Well, I'll just kind of gather maybe what other people have said about it.

Well, I think my writing style is influenced by the writers who really influenced me, which is Tami Way, Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, William Gay.

And the reason I love those writers is there's a lyricism to their writing and to their work.

And I think there's, also, at the same time, an economy to it.

And also those are writers to me who are willing to really get into the nitty gritty of who we are and the spirit and the soul of all and all those things.

I, I also think gospel music, going back to my upbringing, had a lot to do with the way I write now, because I was always around gospel music.

My mom played the piano, and I think the lyricism of music, I think is something that shows up in the way I write sentences, not on purpose.

I don't sit there and try to think, well, let's make this lyrical.

It's just the way the language comes out of me, which is a combination of the influence I think of gospel music for a long time, because from the time you can - when you're a preacher's kid, from the time you can stand upright, they put you in the choir and you're just there.

Holly> <laughs> Right.

Michael> And then those writers too, who I think, prose writers, but have a very poetic nature about the way they write and construct sentences.

Holly> Now, in terms of reading now, what style do you read?

Michael> What style do I read?

I had quite honestly, I do a lot of rereading.

I'm hesitant to read anything from beginning to end when I'm working on something, because I'm fearful that I'm going to start to mimic the voice or adapt to cadence.

Or even maybe like kind of be influenced by the idea of what's going on.

So I reread a lot of my favorite writers, and by that I mean, like, not from start to finish, like I just pick up a book off my shelf and I open it up and I read- Holly> See where you land and read a few pages?

Michael> Exactly, and keep the language flowing through me.

Keep, just the images flowing through me, you know, without messing with what I have going on in my own head.

Holly> Right.

All right.

Tell us about your latest book.

Michael> Lay Your Armor Down is my eighth novel.

It lives in the Mississippi landscape, just like all but two of my others.

It's a little bit of a connection to Salvage This World, the seventh novel.

I had something kind of serendipitous happen with my novels The Fighter and Blackwood, where someone showed up in Blackwood who had crossed through The Fighter almost accidentally.

And I really like the way that felt.

So with Salvage This World and now, Lay Your Armor Down, I think Lay Your Armor Down is a standalone novel, but it has a couple of Easter eggs there from, from Salvage This World.

It's a novel that lives kind of on the, the edge of a south Mississippi landscape where hurricanes have gotten worse and worse, and we see this every time we do have a bad storm, especially in smaller places.

Fewer people come back.

So there's this notion of it's somewhat of an not fully abandoned landscape, but it's getting there.

And the people who stay there still navigate and live in and, and have some type of strange hope that this isn't the way it's always going to be.

Holly> I imagine you growing up in Mississippi, you probably went through some hurricanes as well.

I'm going through in my head trying to think of I told you my dad's from Pascagoula.

I was trying to think of the one that he - Camille.

Michael> Camille was the one that, you know, I think I was maybe seven.

I think it was '77 with Camille.

But, yeah, that was the one I remember my family and grandparents and all talking about, and then, of course, Katrina, the anniversary of Katrina, 19th, I think.

Holly> 2005, I belive.

Michael> We just happened somewhere right around the 19th or 20th anniversary of Katrina, which is hard to believe, but.

Yeah, just and, you just kind of sit around and hope that it's not going to be as bad again.

But I also get the feeling that we're just kind of waiting.

Holly> Right.

All right.

Let's talk about your family.

Is it required reading to read dad's work?

Michael> No, it's not.

Well, it is for mom.

<laughs> You know, the way I work, I don't I don't like showing anybody anything until I'm completely done with a novel.

Holly> Okay.

Michael> I don't show it to my agent, I don't show it to my editor.

I'm not someone who, like, say, here's 50 pages what do you think?

Because I feel like that's going to do me no good.

Holly> Do you feel like you're an editor as well?

You're editing along the way a lot?

Michael> Yeah, absolutely.

I think the way I work in the kind of the increments that I work, I have a ability to self edit as I go, but I don't want anybody to tell me I like this.

I don't like that when I'm in the middle of it because I feel like, again, I have a vision of what I'm trying to do, but when I do get finished, my wife is my first reader along with my agent then.

So yeah, it is required reading if you want to call it that.

My children are coming to it.

They know it.

They know it well enough.

But daddy never beats them over the head with his book.

Holly> I'm sure they're living these characters, right?

Michael> Yeah.

They know, they know.

They understand what it's all about.

Holly> Perfect.

Well, our time has come to a close, but I appreciate the conversation.

This has been really interesting.

And, thanks a lot for coming here to Beaufort, South Carolina for Books by the River.

And thank you, everyone for joining us here on Books by the River.

We do love having you around, and we certainly understand that you have a choice when it comes to what you watch for your news and entertainment and the fact that you picked this today really means a lot to us.

We'll see you next time.

I'm Holly Jackson, thanks for joining us.

Michael> This passage is from Lay Your Armour Down.

A star blown sky above the winding road that led from the house, the road badly patched and bumpy.

And she stumbled twice, but caught herself both times, cursing the uneven ground in quick insults before returning again to the hairy conversations of her lost world.

She wandered from the road and into a field, where she pushed through the knee high grass, where searching eyes busied with the hunt, stopped and stared in the direction of her shuffling and the wind pushed at her wild hair and slushed through the wild grass.

And on the other side of the field she entered into the woods where the moon glow gave shadows to the trees, and where she held out her hands and touched the trunks as she moved through the forest.

The wind shook leaves from the limbs, and they fell around her in swirls of decay as she stepped across the leaf strewn earth, she stopped and looked around as whatever confused purpose that had been there to guide her slipped off into the dark and left her alone.

There was wind, and there were the calls of the night.

And between the black tree limbs there were stars and moon.

She leaned her back against a tree and hugged herself, and as if suddenly cold, she shivered, and then she began to cry.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Major funding for Books by the River is brought to you by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

This program is supported by South Carolina Humanities, a not for profit organization inspiring, engaging, and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture, and heritage.

SC Humanities receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Democracy demands wisdom.

Additional funding for Books by the River is provided by Visit Beaufort, Port Royal and Sea Islands and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USC Beaufort.

♪ ♪