By Lauren Reitz
Dr. Thomas McConnell talks upbringing, The Wooden King, and advice for aspiring writers
For Dr. Thomas McConnell, growing up in the South meant growing up with a reverence for the past—thanks, in part to living near his grandparents who had lived through the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and WWII.
“The sense of history, and especially southern history, was always present with me,” said the Gainesville, GA native of his upbringing. “My parents never censored my reading. They let me read whatever I wanted to. We watched documentaries, we watched historical films, especially war films—my dad liked those. I do not remember a time when the past was not a fascination and had things to teach me. I don’t know if that makes it natural that I sort of gravitated that way.”
This fascination with history—though not the catalyst for his interest in writing, which he attributes to the southern voice of Asheville author Thomas Wolfe—has undoubtedly influenced Dr. McConnell’s work. This influence can be seen in his 2018 debut novel The Wooden King, where a Czechoslovakian historian is forced to make difficult decisions to protect his family during Nazi occupation in 1939.
Inspiration for The Wooden King came from his travels to the Czech Republic where he taught Czech students and lived in a flat with its own strong ties to the past.
“These were the houses they lived in during the war—these were the windows they looked out of and saw the Germans as they came through,” he said. “Again, history; tangible history.”
It was through this flat that he was able to meet locals who gave important first-hand accounts of the war, which later inspired his novel.
Of one of these conversations in particular, Dr. McConnell shared, with a smile, that “he got out these two little glasses, and he poured this Czech herbal liqueur in there, and he said ‘this will loosen our tongues’. And it did. And he had such wonderful stories to tell. I thought: I’ve got to do something with this. How can I tell this to my American peers?”
Dr. McConnell spent the next twelve years working on his novel, which went on to win the Gold Medal for Best Wartime Fiction published in North America by the Independent Publishers Association in 2018. During that time, when he wasn’t working on his novel, he continued to teach in the English department at USC Upstate, where he just completed his 23rd year.
At Upstate, Dr. McConnell teaches creative writing and literature courses, where his own experience as a writer is invaluable to students. In his various creative writing courses, where students have opportunities to share and critique one another’s work, he offers advice to students through the words of Gustave Flaubert: “Talent is the long patience.”
“You’re not gonna do your best work, and get the best words in the best order down on the page if you’re not patient with yourself,” he elaborated, later adding that this long game is important too, for writers trying to publish their own first novel.
“Be prepared to spend years on the project. Sweat and re-write. When Steinbeck was writing Grapes of Wrath, he said it was like breaking down the engine of a Duesenberg and grinding the gears.”
Dr. McConnell also offers advice to writers experiencing the dreaded writer’s block.
“It’s not any advice that’s original with me, but it’s monologue…I think it’s the kind of thing I wish I’d heard earlier,” he said, reflecting on how writing at times felt overwhelming. “If I had just come up with a character—come up with a voice—and sort of pushed them around on the page, it would have been so much easier.”
As for his overall role in mentoring young writers, Dr. McConnell knows first-hand the impact that a teacher can have—sharing that a notable professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN, gave him a push when he was in his sophomore year.
“I wrote this thing about Alfred the Great, and turned it in, and he goes into class the next time…and he starts reading a piece to the class—and it’s mine. For a kid from a little school, who thought he might want to be a writer and then this happened…the encouragement—that’s what it comes down to.”