Novelist Tom McConnell speaks at Wofford
Olin Theatre was dimmed, filled with English Majors and their respective professors, some in suits for the occasion when Dr. Deno Trakas, Professor of English, took the stage to introduce Dr. Thomas McConnell, an English professor from USC Upstate, and the most recent in the Wofford Writers Series.
“Tom is a writer’s writer,” Trakas said. “You will see his skills as an observer of human nature and the physical world.”
After applause, McConnell took to the podium. Geared up in the classic professorly tweed suit, he had come to read from his most recent novel, “The Wooden King.” “The Wooden King” takes place in a Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. McConnell spent a year there and for some time after, heard stories about people who lived through the German occupation.
“I kept hearing these voices of the people who told me these stories, and I had to do something with them,” McConnell said. After collecting many stories, he took to the shelves and read all the books he could find. “I stop counting after 39 books,” he said. He has done extensive reading for background information, scenic details and plot inspiration.
When asked where he started with the story, McConnell said, “I had to have a family to live through this story.”
The novel follows three generations of a poor Czech family, and the protagonist, Victor Trn (Tern), is a history professor who is fired when the Nazis arrive. The claustrophobia of the small apartment he lives in, as well as the intimate conflicts of the family, lead the action while the rest of the war sets the stage.
McConnell, who is in his 20th year at Upstate, is from Gainesville, Georgia. When asked how he ended up a writer, he said, “I grew up in a house full of books. And my parents never censored my reading, they let me have my run of the shelves—whatever was there.”
He added of his parents: “They had both been teachers. These are people who were interested in words…I always liked to lie. I’d tell my neighbor there were bald eagles in our pine trees. And it went from there.”
McConnell always does massive amounts of research for his work. He listens to stories when he can and reads books when those stories are out of reach. “For me, it’s an ongoing process.” McConnell can only read so many books before he has to start writing, he explained. He used the analogy of giving birth to a child. “You can keep preparing all you want, but eventually, it has to come out.”
McConnell has a new work coming along where his characters find themselves on the Silk Road in the 13th century. “Sand and Blood” is the working title.
When asked what his advice for new writers would be, McConnell said, “Read. I don’t have anything earth shattering. Read, and read the good stuff.”
