A Brief Q&A with Author Evan James Sheldon
An excerpt of Sheldon's novel, You Can Trace Us Back to Adam, appears in the Winter 2022 collection of Online Exclusives.
West Trade Review: How did your piece come to be and what do you want our readers/audience to know about your work?
Evan James Sheldon: This is from a novel I'm working on by the same title. I originally wrote what I thought was a short story about two guys doing some drugs in an abandoned railroad car in the woods. The narrator kind of came alive and I just wanted to know how these two people ended up in that situation and what happened after. So, I've been following this thread for quite a while, working around that original situation. This piece developed after understanding more of what I was attempting with in that railroad car. I write a lot about small towns, addiction, and religion because that is what I know. My father was a southern baptist pastor growing up and so was my grandfather on my mom's side. I'm interested in folks awash in that worldview but who don't quite fit in or buy it all.
WTR: What was the last book, story, poem, work of art that moved you?
EJS: I think about Revenge by Yoko Ogawa at least once a week. It's a linked short story collection and the bits that connect the stories are so strange. It's dark and weird and so good. When I finished I was left with a sense of interconnectedness of seemingly random events that was surprising and very satisfying.
WTR: Anything you’d like to say to our readers/audience?
EJS: Just that I hope you enjoy this excerpt. If you like southern gothic lit then this might be for you. I hope to bring you the whole novel someday.
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©2022 West Trade Review
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Evan James Sheldon 's work has appeared in the American Literary Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Maine Review, and New World Writing, among other journals. He is the Features Editor for F(r)iction and the Editorial Director for Brink Literacy Project. You can find him online at www.evanjamessheldon.com.
