William Henry Lewis spent a vital part of his younger life in the Shepherd Park neighborhood of Washington.
Since then, he’s completed his graduate studies at the University of Virginia, winning the Balch Prize for Best Short Story each year he was there, and taught at a number of colleges, including Colgate, where he is now associate professor of English.
He is the author of “In The Arms of Our Elders” (Carolina Wren Press, 1994) and “I Got Somebody in Staunton” (Amistad, 2005) and has won several additional prizes, including a Hurston/Wright Foundation Prize for Short Fiction. This year he was one of four finalists for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.
Q. Tell me your memories of the years you spent in Washington.
A. I had paper routes; I would go through Shepherd Parkdelivering papers in the early morning and [later] collecting from the families. I felt very connected [to the neighborhood], and I was earning money at 12. I was into comic books, and there was a store in Silver Spring. The experience of going over there, from a neighborhood into businesses, that was very interesting for me because it was far away from home and I had a chance to see how people were going to work and living in Silver Spring, which was becoming more and more its own kind of city. I loved Meridian Hill; I loved the fact that the best place to watch the fireworks was a place most people were afraid to go. I liked Rock Creek Park because in the middle of the city, you could walk into these woods and not be anywhere. The idea that you could get on the subway as a kid and ride down to the Mall and walk into museums for free, that was fascinating for me. I was also fascinated by Anacostia because it felt older to me, seemed less developed, but at the same time, it felt very alive. And there were events in places, getting to go hear the Junkyard Band or Chuck Brown, the Soulsearchers.
Q. What role do you think fiction can/should play in effecting social change?
A. I never set out to write anything political, but everything is political.
Art that moves me is art that … made me want to … have a conversation with it. Fiction is still the place where you can imagine and have your imagination do something in a non-threatening way, inside your head, inside your heart. The hope is that it moves you to have a conversation that extends outside your head and … heart.
Q. How important is the Hurston/Wright Foundation to you and for African-American writers?
A. They are very special folks to me. They are trying to make sure that there is a community for strong writing. It’s the only organization that honors black writing in that way. It’s like having family. Recognition like that is the best kind of challenge. You don’t want to embarrass your family.
Q. What do you think about the current debate in black publishing between street fiction and literary fiction?
A. I’m interested in the business angle of those writers who realize the dominant culture is going to buy a book about black people killing other black people. I believe that the market pushes that. I can’t fault those
writers who just want to make a living; what I fault is that the larger culture can’t understand that … [we] have a range of experiences and that they could [all] be authentically black. We don’t have a strong reading culture. One of the things I love about Amistad is that they take risks. They are going to stand behind good fiction.
Q. What do you say to someone who reads novels but avoids short stories?
A. We have to have a few stories ready to hand [them]. It’s like giving a new food to kids: You don’t tell them what it is. You should take them to a reading by someone who reads their short stories well. If that person has a chance to hear Edward P. Jones read, I guarantee they’re going to be moved by it. Storytelling is an oral tradition. The other part is to get people over the hump that short stories do ask a bit more, for the reader to be active, to concentrate, to figure something out.
Q. What were your favorite Washington bookstores?
A. I used to like wandering through Kramerbooks, and I loved the fact that I could get a book and some eats in the same place. Vertigo Books always presented a wide cultural range. Because my wallet was never full, I loved going to Idletime Books in Adams Morgan. [And] I made many trips to the MLK Library.
