Mary Miller’s debut collection Big World (Hobart 2009), was one of the better books we got our hands on last year. Miller’s prose is clean and charming. Her narrators are flawed and lovable. They struggle with broken families, and low self esteem. They flounder in negative relationships, and tumble through sexual misadventures. The 11 stories that comprise the book are brimming with humor and heartache. We caught up with Miller to ask her a bit about her craft, the South, and what she’s got in store for us next. — Brian Allen Carr

Dark Sky Magazine: Big World is a remarkable collection. Was it a set goal? That is to say, did the collection come about organically or were you working to piece together short stories for a collected theme?

Mary Miller: Thanks very much, Brian. No, the collection wasn’t a set goal, though I guess I knew that I was writing a bunch of stories that went together. The thing is, I don’t know how to write stories in which I’m not the central character, so all of my stories feel pretty similar. This is not to say I’m writing non-fiction, only that the narrator’s responses to whatever situation I’ve put her in are thoughts I’d have and feelings that I’d feel. Though I’ve been told this is a problem, I’m still not sure it is. I don’t write stories well about people I don’t know. How would I know what they’d do, what they’d think? It’s not something you can really research.

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Come Out Swinging!

We’ve been in two bar fights, but the first one was a blur. We heard we fared well. We didn’t wake up with bruises. But beyond that the recollection is nill. The second bar fight was what we always imagined bar fights to be: unchoreographed.

Regardless of how we’ve personally done throwing fists at strangers, we’re always awed by a good bludgeoning in a book. We always like to see tempers flare. Our all-time favorite fight scene comes from chapter 16 of Huckleberry Finn.

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