CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Terrance Wedin

Rappahannock Review Nonfiction Editors: “NHL 96” centers around the relationship between the narrator and his father, though it is never explicitly addressed; what led you to leave the central theme of the piece implicit?

Terrance Wedin: I think what you’re describing is probably more of an aesthetic/style choice than anything. Gordon Lish’s ideas about writing prose have always captivated and fascinated me (even if I fail at executing them), and his idea about rotating the ‘object’ of a story and looking at it from all these different angles, rather than kind of naming the ‘object’ is firmly planted in my head. So, if the story is about the father/son relationship I’m going to try and say as much as I can by showing that through the actions, observations, without ever explicitly spelling it out for the reader. Just keep turning the ‘object’ around and around. I assume the reader is usually a much smarter person than I am, so I trust them to get it.

RR: The piece is quite short, only three pages long- how did you decide what to include, or what to cut, in such a short piece?

TW: I just tried to be faithful to what our family life looked like and felt like at that time and in that space. Trying to remember what was in that living room, mostly. This was a piece I’d wanted to write for a very long time. It is such a singular snapshot about one of the only real ‘happy’ moments I got to spend with my dad. When I close my eyes, I can see the three of us sitting on the carpet together, controllers in hand. I knew it didn’t need to be too long. I just had to capture that snapshot that has lived in my head for thirty years.

Last Christmas, my brother gifted me an in-the-box copy of NHL 96 for SNES. In a protective case and everything. It’s displayed on my bookshelf right now.

RR: Many details of the narrative are filtered through the narrator’s father. Was there any difficulty in focusing so much on one character structurally, and if so, how?

TW: My dad was the lens through which I experienced so much of that time period. I was just thinking about him in the nineties, trying to remember what he was like back then, trying to remember that moment playing video games. I rely on the idea of consecution (another Lish idea) a lot in my writing. Moving forward, by looking backward. Letting the previous sentence guide me. That probably sounds like some mystical bullshit. Maybe it is. But I start looking for patterns, repetition and that’s when structure begins taking shape for me. Writing this way gives the story a kind of logic derived from the inside, allowing his character to emerge organically through accumulated details rather than forced development. For better or worse, that’s how it makes sense to me.

RR: Much of your other work focuses on experiences that come later in life; was looking back at a childhood experience more or less difficult?

TW: It’s all difficult. You gotta try dismantling your sense of self to write anything worth a shit.

RR: What was your favorite NHL 96 team to play?

TW: Florida Panthers. My favorite player was John Vanbiesbrouck, the undersized, ultra-athletic, American goalie. But I’ve been a die-hard Columbus Blue Jackets fan for the past decade. Olivier, Danforth, Kuraly. I’m always a fan of the fourth line plugs. They’ve got a gritty team this year that could surprise some people.