Andrew Hudgins and his wife Erin McGraw met at the Yaddo Artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. Now both teach at The Ohio State University. McGraw received her MFA at Indiana State University, and her two most recent
books are “Better Food for a Better World,” which will be published next spring, and “The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard.” Her works has also been featured in The Atlantic Monthly, Good Housekeeping, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, and Image Magazine. Hudgins received his MA from the University of Alabama and his MFA from the University of Iowa. His collections of poems and stories have been finalists in The National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize, and “After the Lost War: A Narrative” received the Poets’ Prize. He is currently Humanities Distinguished Professor of English at Ohio State.—Interview conducted and biography compiled by Amanda Tindall, Assistant Editor.
When did you get to know Greg Wolfe and begin writing for Image Magazine?
McGraw: I had published my first book before I ever met Greg. I was writing a lot of stories about Catholicism, and I was not finding the world’s easiest market. When I heard that this guy had showed up on the scene and was putting together a magazine about religion and the arts, I thought ‘Wow, this sounds like a guy who’d be interested in what I’m doing and just someone who I’d want to know. He’s gotta share some interests with me.’ So I wrote to him asking if he’d like to see my work before the magazine even existed, when it was still in its prototype form, and he said, ‘woah, you’re a little ahead of the gun here.’ But we got into a correspondence and then when the magazine was looking for work, I sent him things, and we became friends.
As you’re writing, where do you see the intersection of art and religion?
McGraw: Well, first of all, my patron saint on this, which would be true for a lot of writers is Flannery O’Conner, would be very clear about how the real artist must never attempt to bend the truth in order to fit some preconceived mold of what religion wants or requires of us. Our first responsibility is to the truth, always. I think that’s about a billion percent true and is ignored much too much. That’s really important. It’s easy to find good writing that is comforting for a day. And that’s not something that I’m very interested in reading or writing. I’m interested in reading and writing things that might make me uncomfortable, but that illuminates things and makes me think.
Who are some of your biggest influences as a writer?
Hudgins: It varies widely from what I’m thinking about at any particular moment: Robert Frost, Shakespeare, John Milton, Chaucer a lot, the King James Bible, Robert Lowell, Emily Dickinson — I don’t think I’m not sure I’m necessarily influenced by her, but I sure have spent a lot of time thinking about her — and William Butler Yates, all those biggies. And lately I’ve been thinking more and more about Wallace Stevens.
You mentioned the King James Bible, has that influenced you more in terms of style or content of your poetry?
Hudgins: A little bit the content, but mostly the style. Just the awareness of language of the subject matter, and the attitudes behind it, with a sort of neo-platonism, or platonism, is clear as a bell. I grew up hearing that read to me by preachers and by my father, so those are the kinds of rhythms that you’ hit pretty deep. It’s a massive influence on English and American literature.
As you’re writing, how to you go about portraying depravity and the existence of God’s grace, as you do “Communion in the Asylum”?
Hudgins: Well, with that one, I had simply met an episcopal priest who did that as part of his weekly job. He’d go to an asylum and administer communion to these people who were, to some degree, out of it. And I probably made a more out of it than they were for the purposes of that poem. But he did indicate that a lot of them needed help getting the cup to their mouths. So my first thought was ‘Oh my god, that’s horrible.’ And my second thought was, ‘and how is it that much different than the rest of us.’
— Compiled by Amanda Tindall, Assistant Editor
