Charles is an emerging writer with a poem appearing in Anima Poetry Press, and now with this as his first fiction publication at Eckleburg. He’s currently enrolled in the Creative Writing BA program at ASU, and will have received his degree by the end of 2017.
Eckleburg: What drives, inspires, and feeds your artistic work?
Charles: This is a difficult question to answer, because I’m not entirely sure that I know. I’ve always had a yearning for understanding, I think. My artistic work is most often done in that spirit, manifesting as an attempt to understand some deeply rooted emotional strain or part of myself at that current point in time. The aim for me is really individual growth so that I can be a better father to my children, a better lover to my fiancé, a better human to everyone else, and the best me that I can be for me. As far as inspiration, I really draw most of my inspiration from nature and from love. I’m still learning though, and I have a lot of growing yet to do.
Eckleburg: If you had to arm wrestle a famous writer, poet or artist, either living or dead, who would it be? Why? What would you say to distract your opponent and go for the win?
Charles: After much thought, and a few deleted sentences, I’ve decided that I would arm wrestle Donald Barthelme. I want to thank him for inspiring me, for opening my mind to the capabilities of literary (and even experimental) writing. I’d also love to ask him what many of his stories are about. If not him, than Steinbeck for sure. I’m not sure I could distract Barthelme either, but I think I might try yelling, “Lion!”
Eckleburg: What would you like the world to remember about you and your work?
Charles: Another tough one. I haven’t sat with or thought about this much. My first reaction is to say that I want people to remember all the good things about me, that I was honest, true, that I wrote with passion and loved people. Another part of me says no. That part of me doesn’t want them to remember anything necessarily. My work will do that for them. They need only read it as it aides in their personal growth and development. I suppose, after writing all that, my best (perhaps unsatisfactory) answer would be that I want the world to remember whatever it wants to remember.
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