Author Q&A with David Hutto

David Hutto’s work is forthcoming in Little Old Lady, Bookends Review, and Carmina Magazine, and has recently appeared in Southern Quill and Avalon Literary Journal.  In 2024 his work appeared in Paterson Literary Review, The Hemlock, Brussels Review, Literally Stories, Cable Street, Galway Review, Symphonies of Imagination, Mediterranean Poetry, and Mudfish. His experience as a writer includes a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2003, as well as writers’ retreats in Mérida, Mexico in 2024 and Dublin, Ireland in May 2025. His short fiction, A Boy Who Thinks Quite a Deal, is available in Issue #21.

Tell us about yourself.

It may sound strange, but I can sit and read a foreign language dictionary for an hour and feel entertained and contented. Everything about language compels me, from the fact that it exists at all, to the differences between languages, to the amazing magic of using writing to createpeople and worlds that did not exist before. I grew up on a farm in Georgia, I have lived all over the United States, and spent time in Russia as a student. By this point, I’ve also traveled the world a bit, which I find fantastically stimulating. My interest in language has sparkled through all of it, so that I’vestudied Russian and Spanish well enough to read them, and I have been writing almostas long as I’ve known the alphabet.

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue?

This story began with the leftovers of another story that I eventually hated and threw away. That other story had a few fragments that I liked, the small stories that now appear on the radio in “A Boy Who Thinks Quite a Deal.” I saved those bits without a clue what I’d do with them, and eventually came up with an utterly different story, changing it from adults in New Jersey to a child in Great Britain.

What did you learn (about yourself or craft or life in general) through writing and revising it?

Possibly, I learned more viscerally that some stories, no matter how heartfelt and how hard you work, just end up as trash and aren’t worth saving.

What fuels your desire to write(or engage in other creative outlets)?

Can anyone truly describe that so another person can understand it? I can say that nothing makes me feel as contented, feel as if I belong on the earth, like writing, the actual process of using the words and creating sentences, describing images, discussing ideas. For all the difficulties that being a creative person can bring, I feel lucky to have been born with this in my life, to have a purpose.

What has drawn you to writing fiction and/or what other genres do you write?

I have written quite a few short stories, pushing hard to go in many directions and experiment with what writing can do, as well as writing a good many poems, but above all, I think of myself as a novelist, because a novel is where you really have room to explore what it means to be a human being.

What have been the biggest influences in your writing?

As to other writers, I’ve been directly influenced (in the sense of wanting to imitate them) by Shakespeare, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Isabel Allende, Mark Twain, and of course, by other writers who aren’t coming to mind at the moment. I would also say that art, music, and travel also influence my writing.

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

(1) Feeling contented with who you are, and with how you live and what you do. (2) Having a glass of wine, some chocolate, and a comfortable couch, with something you really love to read.

Thank you, David, 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 with writing and all life’s endeavors!