Linda (Glimmer Train co-editor): How long have you been writing and how long have you been submitting stories to magazines? How many rejections preceded this win?

Scott Anderson: I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t actually start writing stories until five years ago, at the age of twenty-five (the same year I got my driver’s license). It took me the next two years to get into the three-year MFA program at Old Dominion University here in Norfolk, Virginia. I just graduated and just started submitting my work. This win happened pretty fast, but I’ve had dozens of rejections already.

Have you gotten any encouraging messages from editors along the way?

Yes, I have received many small notes, such as “keep submitting!” and “we really enjoyed reading this piece but have decided it isn’t quite right for us…we encourage you to keep submitting.” I keep these notes close by where I write…and revise.

What inspires your stories, this story?

I think the best stories I write are the ones that aren’t about me. What I like about Mamma Idelfa is that she must overcome her own egocentric nature, yet on the surface she is very different from me. “Saints Alive” started as an anecdote my friend Peter Baldassari told me about a plaster saint that kept disappearing. I invented the story around that. Boston’s North End inspired me a great deal, and this story is my tribute to the time I spent there.

Is there a person, a book, a class that has been especially helpful to you in perfecting your craft?

Sheri Reynolds, my thesis advisor, pushed me when my natural laziness and self-doubt were getting the best of me. She’s incredibly devoted to her students. For the last month or so of the program I kept a strict writing schedule with her of three hours a night, and I wrote her an e-mail every night to tell her my progress. Until that last month, I hadn’t really learned what it means to revise.

What do you read?

My wife’s gossip websites. Literary magazines like Glimmer Train. I have a degree in Spanish Literature, and Spain’s literature in particular (from Berceo to Juan Goytisolo) inspires me. Haruki Murakami. Authors whose recent stories I love include Joy Williams, Josip Novakovich, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li. Lately I’ve been reading Alberto Moravia. And since I now teach English Composition, I get to read a ton of essays.

Any advice you have for other aspiring writers?

I feel so weird offering any advice. Never give up.