Words on the Street: Ian Schimmel

By Johanna Ohm     2/1/12 6:00pm

English Professor Ian Schimmel jokes about the inquisitive looks he receives whenever prompted to show his Rice ID card. As Rice University's "writer-in-residence," his job description is a vaguely romantic title for a job that entails a great deal of work. Schimmel is teaching ENGL 301: Introduction to Fiction Writing, serving as moderator for the literary magazine R2 and writing what he hopes to be his first novel.

"People look at me like, ‘What is this?' whenever I go to the gym. My ID card says ‘writer-in-residence,' and I think a lot of people think it's funny or at least wonder what it is I do."

One thing a writer-in-residence does is give interviews to student reporters. Discussing the process of writing, his past work and career, and offering advice for budding young writers, the "word on the street" for this week is that we have a lot to learn from this citizen wordsmith.

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A graduate with a bachelor's degree in English from Tufts University, Schimmel went on to pursue a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Houston. Although he did not always see himself as pursuing a full-time writing career, he is thrilled to be doing so here at Rice.

"I love my job. It's really a great gig. I get to teach a class, coordinate for R2 and be a full-time writer, which is really rare to find these days," Schimmel said.

Full-time writing sounds intimidating, especially to those of us who complain about writing one paper a week. Schimmel, however, is on the cusp of writing a new novel.

"You start by drinking a lot of coffee," said Schimmel as he described humorously his approach to novel writing, emphasizing that it is a task with high energy requirements. Schimmel also stressed that writing involves a lot of observation and using people in real life as inspiration for fictional characters and stories. His novel-in-progress is about basketball, something he observes frequently.

"I play a lot of basketball. I've even been fortunate to play some games with much more athletic students here on the Rice courts."

Schimmel has learned to take his own advice from his past writing experiences, which have brought him success in the realm of short stories. His story "What is Known" won the 2010 Nelson Algren Short Story Finalist Award. The story is about a small-town cop and his close friend, a corrections officer, whose lives change dramatically after spotting Bigfoot near Sultan, Washington.

Schimmel laughs about the aftermath of gaining small-town fame in Sultan, a town in which he has never been, after the publication of "What is Known." People from Sultan contacted Schimmel about some of the details he had published. Schimmel had read through old PTA meeting notes and Google Image-searched the town in his research about the setting.

"They told me, ‘You got a lot of things right, but you got a lot of things wrong.' I made up a lot of the street names and roads. It's fiction; that's OK to do."

Given his recent success with the short story, it may come as a surprise that Schimmel does not consider himself a great reader.

"I was never a great reader. Some writers read everything they can find, but I find a book I like and read it like 10 times. I suppose I read a lot, but not a lot of variety."

Johanna Ohm is a Duncan College junior and Thresher copy editor. Words on the street is a column exploring literary events in Houston.

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