{"id":363,"date":"2013-09-30T14:03:44","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T18:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/?p=363"},"modified":"2014-01-15T09:50:07","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T14:50:07","slug":"teeing-up-with-tom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/2013\/09\/30\/teeing-up-with-tom\/","title":{"rendered":"Teeing up with Tom"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of our alumni interview installment, we chatted with\u00a0Notre Dame alum, Tom Coyne (1999)\u00a0about his latest projects, golf, advice for students, and other exciting news in his life.\u00a0 Here’s what he had to say.<\/p>\n

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\"Coyneireland11-1024x682\"<\/a>Briefly describe your most recent project.<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I have a few new projects in the works.\u00a0 I recently placed an essay on writing, “How to Write a Bad Book,” in Notre Dame Magazine, which was a real \"the<\/a>thrill since it’s a magazine I’ve been reading for any number of years now.\u00a0 Notre Dame is fortunate to have a community magazine that is still publishing essays and thoughtful content on a large scale, and in a handsome magazine.\u00a0 I’m also working on a new project for Sports Illustrated called “The Dream Tee.”\u00a0\u00a0 I basically got tired of tracking down all my own golf dreams (or perhaps I’ve run out of them), so I wanted to do a story where I’m making someone else’s dream happen.\u00a0 I’m asking for submissions from readers for their dream foursome — if you could golf with any three people, who would it be? — and I’m writing a feature about the experience of arranging and playing the foursome for an SI issue in June.\u00a0 And I’ve started a new golf book with Simon & Schuster.\u00a0 We are still very much in the planning stage, and we are going back and forth between a few ideas that might be a good follow-up to A Course Called Ireland.\u00a0 Book will be out in 2015, fingers crossed.<\/div>\n
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I notice you write a lot about\u00a0golf.\u00a0 Is there\u00a0a background story behind how that inspired your work?\u00a0 What other influences inspire your\u00a0writing?\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/strong>I didn’t set out to be a golf writer–if that’s what I consider myself.\u00a0 It was sort of an accident that grew out of workshop.\u00a0 I spent most of my time in the MFA at ND writing fiction that I thought sounded important or impressive, trying to win the approval of my peers with stuff that sounded smart and vague and foreign enough to fit in the New Yorker.\u00a0 It was all crap.\u00a0 It wasn’t until I started writing about things closer to me–things I really cared about, and knew something about, that I found some confidence and a voice.\u00a0 I started writing a short story about a caddy, since I had grown up caddying.\u00a0 The story grew into another, which grew into chapters, which turned into a novel that I submitted as my thesis.\u00a0 That thesis, A Gentleman’s Game, was my first book and was made into a movie.\u00a0 Offers came in to write for golf magazines, and to do another golf title.\u00a0 So I was a golf writer, without really planning to be one.\u00a0 But fiction is my love and my training, and if I’ve had any success in writing about golf, I believe it comes from the fact that I approach it as a writer who cares about craft, and not a golfer who cares about where the ball goes.\u00a0 But golf has been very good to me.\u00a0 Golfers buy books.\u00a0 Or at least people buy books for them as gifts.\u00a0 Father’s Day keeps the lights on.<\/p>\n

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How did you decide you wanted to become a writer?
\n<\/span><\/strong>I loved to write from a very young age.\u00a0 I hate it when people start with that, because it makes me wonder if I started early enough, or if I’m some pretender among child writing prodigies.\u00a0 But I did write stories when I was a kid — I’d take words out of the dictionary and try to fit them into a story.\u00a0 The stories made no sense, but I remember reading them to family or to the class and loving the approval that came from that.\u00a0 So I was an approval-seeker from a young age, and since I had more success with my writing than my peers, it seemed the best way to keep the approval coming.\u00a0 I never really considered writing as a career until later in college, when I was publishing stuff in various campus outlets.\u00a0 Again, more approval, and I started to think that maybe I could actually do this forever.\u00a0 I went to graduate school as the first step in figuring out if that was possible.\u00a0 The encouragement I got there suggested that it was.\u00a0 Then I gave myself a year to peddle the novel I had written and see if I could make it.\u00a0 We sold it pretty quickly, and suddenly I was a writer.\u00a0 So I guess I didn’t really want to be a writer until I was, when I finally felt safe to want the writing life.<\/p>\n

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What advice would you give to writers at the MFA level who are interested in pursuing a career in writing?<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Get handy with that laptop of yours.\u00a0 It seems to me that more writers are breaking into the book world via blogs and readership that they have built online.\u00a0 This is a world that I know little to nothing about, but as publishers become more reluctant to take a chance on new writers (it’s hard to sell a book without being able to guarantee some sort of sales numbers behind it nowadays), then the internet allows you to build a readership so that you aren’t such a risk to very risk-averse publishers.\u00a0 The first thing an agent might ask you is if you have a blog, and how many followers you have.\u00a0 It kind of sucks, but it’s also a tool that writers didn’t have fifteen years ago–the chance to build their own readership without the help of a publisher.\u00a0 So I would get my stuff up everywhere and anywhere online, and rehab houses for your day job.\u00a0 Get some exercise in your day gig so that you are eager to write after the whistle blows–exhausted body can make for a very loose and interesting mind.\u00a0 People who want to get into writing and take copy-editing jobs — I can’t imagine how they write after reading someone else’s stuff all day.<\/div>\n
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Who helped or developed your style throughout your writing career?<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Valerie Sayers.\u00a0 She pointed it out to me when I was writing sentimental slop — my Achilles in grad school — and encouraged me when I had found something that sounded genuine.\u00a0 I read her books — such lovely sentences — and I wanted to write those sentences.\u00a0 I never did, but writers like Valerie (and Tim O’Brien, Walker Percy, Raymond Carver) made me really fall in love with sentences, and really pay attention to my own.\u00a0 I started to write with my goal being to write one good sentence, no matter what kind of mess surrounded that sentence.\u00a0 And that changed a lot of things for me.<\/div>\n
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Did you have a favorite memory of your time in ND’s MFA program?<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I\u00a0 loved it when we had our end of semester class at Valerie’s house.\u00a0 We would drink wine and talk about books, and I really enjoyed getting a sort of behind the scenes look at a working writer’s life.\u00a0 The crowded bookshelves, the dog with a cool name, the filmmaker husband wondering what we were up to downstairs.\u00a0 The bookstore basketball tournament was also a fond memory.\u00a0 We would field a team of MFAs — rather, we would sacrifice ourselves in the name of fun and athletic pursuit.\u00a0 Our team was called “Tell Em Willy Sent Ya,” as an homage to our fearless leader O’Rourke.\u00a0 We never won a game.\u00a0 I don’t think we actually scored a point, but it was a lot of laughs.\u00a0 We had a good deal of esprit de corps in the program.\u00a0 It was a nice time.<\/div>\n
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What is your life like currently, or since receiving your MFA?\"course_called_ireland-pb\"<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
My life is currently a blend of teaching, writing, and trips to the drugstore for diapers.\u00a0 We have two little ones and I’m on the tenure-track at St. Joseph’s University here in Philadelphia, so the empty days of nothing to do but write are a distant memory.\u00a0 It’s not a bad thing.\u00a0 I find that I’m actually a lot more disciplined and productive now, because I have to be.\u00a0 If I have two hours to write, I write for two hours, versus the twelve hours to write that I used to have, when I would find excuses to fill so many free hours with errands and chores and golf.\u00a0 We had a baby this past summer, but I also sold three stories and a book — not sure how that happened, but it did.\u00a0 I just kind of try to do the next thing that’s in front of me.\u00a0 I write every day, but that writing isn’t always of the creative sort.\u00a0 My working schedule is more project-based now.\u00a0 When I’m working on something, my work gets a lot of attention.\u00a0 When I have downtime or I’m developing an idea, I spend more time with my family or focusing on my work at school.\u00a0 I still spend a good amount of time promoting my books — A Course Called Ireland is being re-released this spring, so I’m writing a new introduction for that, and I still get invited to golf tournaments and conferences to sign books, so old work still keeps me busy.\u00a0 But my focus is on the next book and trying to follow up ACCI.\u00a0 My editor at S&S is very supportive and patient.\u00a0 It’s a good situation, but if anyone has any ideas for a great nonfiction golf book, please send them my way.<\/div>\n
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What does your creative writing process look like?<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
I used to not be able to write in crowded or noisy places.\u00a0 I don’t know what has changed, but those are my favorite places now.\u00a0 Perhaps because I feel like I can hide in a crowded coffee shop.\u00a0 I have an office at home and an office at school, but people come looking for me in both, so if I have time to write, I head to our corner coffee shop and work for a few hours.\u00a0 And I don’t even drink coffee, which most writers would find strange I’m sure.\u00a0 I used to write very early and very late in the day.\u00a0 Those days are gone.\u00a0 With little kids, I’m a zombie in the morning and after 9pm.\u00a0 So I write when I can — the hours aren’t my choosing anymore.\u00a0 And that’s perfectly fine.\u00a0 I used to waste a lot of time and energy trying to find an ideal setting, schedule, circumstance for a writing session, and hold myself to it out of some act of artistic honor or something.\u00a0 Now I write when my kids aren’t crying.\u00a0 And that’s plenty of time.<\/div>\n
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Have you had any life changing moments lately?<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
This is an easy one.\u00a0 Caroline Grace Coyne, born June 27, 2013.\u00a0 Children are the greatest blessing for any number of reasons, not least of which is the perspective they give you on your life.<\/div>\n
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You can\u00a0take a look at\u00a0Tom’s book, A Course Called Ireland <\/em>here<\/a>.\u00a0 And for even\u00a0more Tom news check out his awesome\u00a0blog: http:\/\/www.tomcoyne.com\/<\/a><\/div>\n

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Cheers!<\/div>\n
Julia ’15<\/div>\n
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As part of our alumni interview installment, we chatted with\u00a0Notre Dame alum, Tom Coyne (1999)\u00a0about his latest projects, golf, advice for students, and other exciting news in his life.\u00a0 Here’s what he had to say. Briefly describe your most recent project. I have a few new projects in the works.\u00a0 I recently placed an essay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25397,25395],"tags":[25423,12696,25399,3934],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-interviews","category-writer-updates","tag-alumni-interviews","tag-golf","tag-nd-creative-writing-mfa","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/mfa-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}