Time to Connect Episode #70 – Michael Parker – September 2, 2024

Many thanks to the writer Michael Parker. Michael has published eight novels and three short story collections. I highly recommend his most recent novel, I Am the Light of This World, which has rightly been called “heart-wrenching” and a “gut punch of a novel.” Michael’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Southwest Review, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Oxford American, and New England Review. He is the recipient of many awards (including the O. Henry Prize three times), and he was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. Michael taught at the University of Texas and for 30 years in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. After some years in Austin, he is now back in North Carolina (Durham).

In this conversation we speak about Michael’s youth, his novels and stories, similarities between song-writing and fiction, his connection to our mutual friend Will Johnson, many writers, including Jack Kerouac, William Goyen, and Gustave Flaubert, the critical importance of Madame Bovary, the new Gillian Welch David Rawlings record, a Rolling Stones concert in 1975, advice for young writers, and much more. Michael was kind enough to read an excerpt from his novel I Am the Light of This World. Again, many thanks to Michael Parker.

Check out Michael here: https://www.michaelfparker.com/

Time to Connect theme music (“So Long”) by Krajicek & Shafer, from the album Blue Midwestern Dream (Borderline Social Club).