An interview with Caitlin Horrocks

Fiction faculty member Caitlin Horrocks was recently interviewed for LitHub about her new short story collection, Life Among the Terranauts. Read an excerpt of the interview below:

JC: You’ve noted that once you told a former writing instructor you were writing about “People held hostage by the circumstances of their lives.” Are you still inspired by that perspective?

CH:  I suppose I am, but the more I’ve thought about the line, the more meaningless it is. I mean, who isn’t held hostage by the circumstances of their lives? Even when those circumstances are favorable, we’re so shaped by them that they affect our sense of what is and isn’t possible or desirable in life. Even when someone’s material circumstances would allow them to safely pursue a different kind of life, their circumstances might keep them from recognizing that or wanting to.

As a parent, I’m terrifyingly aware of how responsible I am for shaping my child’s sense of what is normal, or desirable, or achievable. Maybe one difference between the stories I was writing when I first said that, and more recent stories, is that those earlier protagonists were struggling to survive, to jump to the next rock in the river and not drown. Currently I’m interested in how people decide what direction to leap in, what blend of imagination or desperation prompts someone to either try to cross the river, or to stay put. Do we stay or go, and how do we imagine what might come next?

Read the interview in its entirety here: https://lithub.com/caitlin-horrocks-on-life-in-michigan-the-love-of-sleep-and-novels-vs-short-stories/