Welcome Message from Our New Staff Editor, Marshall Moore

You’ve probably heard the curse “May you live in interesting times.” It’s said to be of Chinese provenance although if the wiki is correct, that may not be the case. Wherever the saying originated, it’s been subtly unsettling us since at least the 1940s. And it may never have been as apt as it has become in 2020. There have been intervals of awfulness in my own life (1997 was horrendous, and I’d like to delete 2003-04 altogether) but has any of us ever imagined a year like this one? It is, in every sense of the term, an interesting time to be taking the reins of Falwriting. 

Growing up in a smallish college town in the American South meant I was quite far from any global hubs of literature. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, though. The South’s strong regional identity lends it an equally strong literary tradition. People (from) there know how to tell stories. And one perk of having just joined the North of 50 Club is that I remember when print literary magazines were a thing. You could go to the bookstore and read stories. It was a brilliant way to pass those sweltering North Carolina afternoons, at least until the shopkeepers started clearing their throats and asking if I was going to, you know, buy anything.

I wasn’t just reading horror and fantasy stories in the aisles of Waldenbooks and Central Book & News, I was reading copies of Writer’s Digest and, when I could find it, Publisher’s Weekly. Long before I hit my teens, I knew I was going to be a writer; I knew I was already a writer. With that came the idea of community, something I finally found when I moved to Northern California in 1999. By then, I’d had a few short stories published. Within a year I sold four or five more (one forgets), got a contract for my first novel, and met the editors of the press that went on to accept my next three books. Living in Oakland (San Francisco’s warmer and less foggy neighbor across the bay) meant I’d crash-landed into an actual writing community. Suddenly there were people who not only took my work seriously but… actually liked it? We celebrated each others’ publications, had long dinners with conversations that lasted well into the night (I was the boring one), and went on joint book tours when we had new books out and could. There were beverages and book contracts. I liked this arrangement very much and on some level realized I was having one of those important, indelible experiences I would later use as a benchmark for everything else I did in the writing world. In general, it was amazing.

Naturally, life happened. Dotcom-driven gentrification drove quite a few of us out of the Bay Area. I ricocheted off Portland, lived in Seattle just long enough to conclude it was a great city to visit, and landed in Seoulburbia. To the extent that there was a writing community in Korea, it was based on questions like “Oh, you’re from where again?”, “Who’s buying the next round?”, and “How often do you go to Bangkok?” The bar was set rather low because most of the people I met were always at a bar. To cope, I wrote a novel about becoming invisible when you do something bad. It’s all about subtext.

Now that I’m an orbiting body in the Falmouth solar system, I’m excited by the community that exists here. The faculty genuinely care about providing the students with the best experience we can, about trying to offer the tools and skills and support they’ll need as writers in an increasingly complicated world (I started to use the word “marketplace” but sort of threw up in the back of my mouth and decided to go with something less neoliberal). And there’s a pandemic on, because of course there is, because why wouldn’t there be? I’d say something prophetic like “In the future, 2020 will be looked back upon as a year that lacked both competence and mercy” but I don’t want to jinx us all. Being Southern, I know that’s a risk. It’s a horrible year. It could still get worse. Someone needs to survive. We need work-arounds. Preferably yesterday.

Falwriting is the gateway between the English, Creative Writing & Publishing program and the outside world. It’s our greeting card. And we are busy organizing a new team of editors and writers for the current academic year and generally figuring out how things work. There will be a few new regular features, such as a career-focused set of interviews and profiles on how industry professionals got their first jobs after graduation; and on international writers, publishers, and scholars whose work may be of interest. We’re doing good work here, and I’m going to apply a bit of American ambition to help make sure this British university gets the recognition it deserves for that. I also want Falwriting to become a portal that helps take us away from the viral horror show we’re all living through. When we can’t attend readings and launch parties and gatherings as a community, we must try our best to replicate these things online. And being an American Hongkonger, I know a thing or two about stepping up and getting things done in the face of overwhelming adversity. Welcome to the new academic year. Welcome to the new Falwriting.

Marshall Moore

October 2020