Kyle Minor

Kyle Minor is the author of In the Devil's Territory, a collection of short fiction, and co-editor of The Other Chekhov. His work appears in The Southern Review, Surreal South, Best American Mystery Stories 2008, and Random House's Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers.

From Minor's Q & A with Claire Sanderson of Virginia Tech's Collegiate Times:

CT: Does most of your inspiration come from your personal life?

KM: Some of the things I write are based on things that happen that I directly observe, and some of the stories are completely made up. And I think it would be difficult for someone who didn’t know me to know which was which — I hope.

Some of the stories were generated in response to other works of literature. One is “The Navy Man,” and it’s an adaptation of a Chekhov story using my setting and my characters, and shifting the point of view from the point of view of a man involved to the point of view of a woman involved in an affair. So a lot of my writing is inspired by other writers, like Andre Dubus, by Katherine Anne Porter, by Chekhov — the great 19th century Russian writer — those are very much the influences on that book.

Now, for the book that I’m doing now, it’s a bit different and has new influences, I’m not really beholden to those writers forever, but I certainly had them in mind when I was working on that book.

CT: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

KM: I didn’t know when I was younger that I wanted to be a writer. In fact, I tried lots of other things.

I worked at a radio station, I was very briefly a preacher, and I was briefly involved with publishing. I have always been interested in stories, but I began to become engaged with literature, disillusioned with religion, and I began to read.

And my gateway drug was...[read on]

Learn more about Kyle Minor and his work at his website and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Kyle Minor.

--Marshal Zeringue