Author Q&A with Ryan Mattern

Ryan Mattern holds an MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis and a BA in Creative Writing from CSUSB. He is the recipient of the Felix Valdez Award for Undergraduate Fiction. His work has appeared in Crazyhorse, The Santa Clara Review, and Westerly Magazine. He lives in Big Sur, CA.

Tell us about yourself.

I grew up in Southern California in a place called Norco—Horsetown, USA. I think there are more horses there per square foot than any other city in the US. Or maybe they just say that. We didn’t have streetlights or sidewalks, just horse trails. The Jack-in-the-Box had a hitching post, still does, I think. In high school I played in bands, wrote songs about girls. I think that’s when I started taking writing seriously.

I went to California State University, San Bernardino to study Creative Writing. They had an awesome faculty at the time—Jim Brown, Julie Paegle, Kevin Moffett, Juan Delgado, Chad Sweeney—as well as some really talented students. I guess they saw something in me and pushed me to write hard and try for grad school. I applied to a few MFA programs with little luck. But one night while I was hanging out at a coffee shop, waiting for my then-girlfriend now-wife to get off work, I got a phone call from Pam Houston. She said she thought I was a gifted writer, but that I had a dreadful GRE score and that UC Davis was reluctantly offering me admission to their MA program for Creative Writing. It was an immense experience to work with her, Lynn Freed, Yiyun Li, and Lucy Corin.

Now I live in Big Sur, California with my wife and daughter, which is as wild to me a notion as it is in general.

Veer illustrates the complexity of grief. How has your own experience of grief impacted this story?

It’s strange how varied the grieving process can be, given it’s a mainstay in the human experience. I lost my grandmother a few months before my wedding. To say she and I were close would perpetrate the greatest misunderstanding. She essentially raised me the first few years of my life and our codependence only grew as I got older. I’m sure it worked its way into Veer, the not knowing what you should be doing but knowing you need to do something. Feeling totally lost. Wrestling with how to do right by someone who is no longer around to see if you kept your word. The mild self-destruction.

I love this line from Veer, “But it was the expectation of her service—to weep, to join support groups, to pin a ribbon to her shirt, to start a foundation—that made her dream of exile.” Is there a certain amount of pressure or expectation that comes with grief? Why or why not?

There’s definitely an expectation associated with grief. You’re not meant to be visibly okay for a time, and if you are, people think it’s a farce. You’re acting tough to cover it up. Because my grandmother and I were so close—she made no bones about me being the favorite grandchild—and because I was a writer, I was asked to write a eulogy. I think everyone expected for it to be a doozy. It probably was, if not a tad overwritten. 

Do you have experience in law enforcement or a loved one who was in law enforcement? How has that shaped your worldview?

I have LEO friends and Firefighter/First Responder family. It’s definitely shaped my perspective. They’re people I look up to by and large, especially my brother-in-law. He belongs to the breed of people like many LEO and First Responders who train hard, put people first, and are always genuinely trying to do the right thing. 

What is the value of an artist experimenting across mediums? How has it helped your own work?

I think it’s very important for an artist to dabble. I don’t limit myself strictly to writing fiction—I try to follow my mood or whatever is most exciting to me at the moment. I tend to lean into whatever I think will get the job done. Sometimes that’s writing a song or a poem, others it’s sketching or cutting up articles from a hunting magazine to find two lines of dialogue. Sometimes it’s writing the theme song for my daughter’s summer camp troop, Condor Galaxy. I can’t remember if it was Bret Easton Elis or Denis Johnson who said they’re always working on a story, a poem, and a play all at once, that way they never had an excuse not to write. Always having something at hand, irrespective of medium, has definitely helped keep my artistic endeavor an essential element of my life, without all the pressure of having to get this one thing done. 

What is your favorite form of creative expression? Why?

Poetry. It’s very therapeutic for me, an unjunking of my brain. There are no rules or limitations—not that there are in fiction anymore (although I do think there is a fundamental rule in fiction or at least one to which I hold myself: The story must be the point after which nothing is the same). For me, poetry does a better job of mimicking experience. It can subvert the mind’s task of tidying up and indexing. Non sequiturs get to live together on the page miles away from meaning anything, or, sometimes, meaning something incredibly powerful without even the poet’s knowing. I feel less pressure, less confined when writing poetry. 

Where do you draw your inspiration for your creative work?

I’ve always had a pretty active imagination. I’m a millennial who isn’t addicted to his phone because I’m really good at daydreaming. I never thought that trait would be a value added to my life. Writing, for me, is compulsive. It’s something I feel I have to do—not always something I want to do. I would say very little of my own life finds its way into my fiction. I very much believe in the concept of the muse. Much of my stories begin with a line that has appeared in my mind at random, out of nowhere, with no seeming connection to my actual life. Then, I just feel compelled to run it down and see where I’m taken. The payoff for me is the surprise of what happened. Maybe that’s my inspiration. 

Tell us about your service in the US Army.

I joined the Army right after grad school, a little later in life than most. Two of the men I hold in very high regard—my father-in-law and my brother-in-law—are both veterans. I think I just wanted to be more like them. I have been on active duty for ten years and so far it has been great for me and my family. Some of the most intelligent, caring, and hardworking people I have ever met wear the uniform. I feel very privileged to serve. 

Does the structure of army life filter into your writing life? Why or why not?

The Army does an excellent job of instilling the value of discipline and that has certainly trickled into my writing process. I am much more regimented now as a writer than I ever was prior to serving. As a husband and father and full-time Soldier, I don’t have a lot of time to write. So, I have to be very strategic and disciplined about ensuring I make time for my writing. The Army has also made me an early bird. At 35, I’m finding the best stuff comes right at five in the morning, before I’ve let the world in. Much better than staying up and writing past midnight in my opinion. 

What do you think of when you hear, “The Good Life?”

When I was 18, I used to play poker at an Indian casino in Palm Springs. They would bus in all the old-timers from local retirement communities. They lavished in the opportunity to share their stories and age-old wisdom with a young, captive audience. When I think of “The Good Life,” I think of something one of the men wrote on the back of a lunch buffet coupon and handed to me, right before losing with a pair of aces to my triple queens on the river. Recipe for a happy life: (1) Something to do. (2) Something to want. (3) Someone to love. I still have that coupon in a box somewhere.

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Ryan’s flash fiction, Veer, is featured in Issue #16 of The Good Life Review.

Thank you, Ryan, for being a part of our growing literary community and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best!