Description

This tape is labeled “Q&A Undergrad Class SDSU." It opens with Bumpus discussing how “a story’s direction can change.” Bumpus answers questions related to his process and how long a story takes to complete. Bumpus says he works on one story until finished, but one exception was after a bout of pneumonia when there was “a great rush” of first drafts that he wrote “as fast as I could.” A question about the use of country and western music elicits a discussion about regional writing. To another question Bumpus answers that he does not have an “audience in mind.” Asked if he has not been tempted to write something for money, Bumpus says that even if he does try to write for the popular market, the story evolves away from popular “preconceived notions.” For a question about which writers influenced him, Bumpus lists Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Nelson Algren. There is a discussion about why Bumpus depicts sex as he does. McCaffery and Bumpus discuss teaching writing. Bumpus talks about influencing peoples’ subconscious minds, animals in his work, and religion. The question “what parts of Things in Place were hallucinations" elicits a discussion of the use of what one student calls “fantastic elements in “contemporary fiction.” Bumpus talks about his involvement with characters.