Kate Wisel
A word with
Interview by
I wrote a story about getting my ears pierced.
L.A. Hawbaker
Kate Wisel recounts an early writing experience, a vignette-style piece of fiction published by her school newspaper in fourth grade. “There was also a gun, diamonds, a character about to get shot... and then she got her ears pierced.”
Wisel pauses for a moment. “I think I was trying to talk about something that frightened me. Trying to translate my experience. I continue to do that.” Since that fourth grade story, Wisel has gone on to become an award-winning author. Originally from Boston, she's now in Chicago. She’s been published in Gulf Coast, Tin House, and New Ohio Review and served as the Carol Houck fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her linked story collection, Driving in Cars with Homeless Men, won the 2019 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Wisel is now adapting the collection for a miniseries pilot with Bad Wolf and Pearl Street Productions. Here, Wisel shares her thoughts about writing, developing a craft, finding a literary voice, and the importance of creating a writing community.
H
ow did you start your writing career?
I dropped out of [Emerson College]. Then I took a creative writing night class. The teacher was an angel, Jenn De Leon. An actual angel. She saw me, really looked at me. She recognized that I wanted to write stories and encouraged me to come to Guatemala with her for a writing workshop. She encouraged me to go back to school, which I did [to UMass Boston]. She told me about all these literary magazines that I should submit to... she’s been in my life ever since. My trajectory would not be the same without her. 59
