Interview with Tucker Leighty-Phillips, Author of Maybe This Is What I Deserve
Tucker Leighty-Phillips is the author of Maybe This Is What I Deserve (Split/Lip Press, 2023).
He lives in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Learn more at TuckerLP.net.
Tucker Leighty-Phillips’ debut fiction chapbook, Maybe This Is What I Deserve, won the 2022 Fiction Chapbook Contest judged by Isle McElroy from Split/Lip Press. Maybe This Is What I Deserve releases in June 2023 from Split/Lip Press. He sat down to answer questions about the universe in literature, the rhythm and cadence of his words, and the inspirations behind his stories.
Jacquelyn Scott: Congratulations on your upcoming release, Maybe This Is What I Deserve! What inspired these stories?
Tucker Leighty-Phillips: Thanks! The stories in MTIWID kind of vary in content, but I think the overarching theme of the collection is centered around worthiness—characters who don’t know their own worth, characters who tie their worth to income level, beauty standards, family dynamics. I played with a couple placeholder titles, but eventually settled on Maybe This Is What I Deserve, which felt perfect because so many of these stories are about people (particularly children) who are living an impoverished lifestyle and are trying to make sense of what that means for them as people.
It goes without saying that many of these stories are autobiographical, or semi-autobiographical, and have a traced line between my own grappling with feelings of worthiness; as a poor person, as a person whose body has physically degraded through poverty, and as a person who became trapped in cycles of depression centered around my own feelings of worth through the lens of poverty. But, in these fictional accounts, I try to treat my characters with tenderness—to show them love even when they aren’t offering it to themselves.
Scott: I can't help but notice how beautiful your writing is on the sentence level. It's lyrical, almost musical. How much editing goes into your words?
Leighty-Phillips: I edit quite a bit, but I usually do what I call “pre-drafting”; I start with a phrase I like and tweak it in my mind, sing-song it in the shower or on walks, and start to build from the phrase of origin. I am constantly singing and humming, and I can take turns of phrase and put them to song (for example, I always notice when a name has the same number of syllables and cadence as Eleanor Rigby). I think sometimes that love of cadence and rhythm enters into my writing.
Scott: What do you like best about flash fiction?
Leighty-Phillips: To me, flash fiction is the working class form. When I was working in the service industry, I used to sneak away to the bathroom and read stories on my phone. I was reading Wigleaf constantly—usually when I was supposed to be stocking beer, taking orders, making coffee, etc. Many of the stories I read were offering me reprieve on long, dreary work days. I like to think my stories might be doing that for someone else.
Scott: What do you think flash fiction can convey over longer works?
Leighty-Phillips: Oh, I don’t know. I try not to get too caught up in contrasting or placing forms in competition. A story I write at 999 words isn’t much different from a story that is 1,001. All I can hope is that folks will read a short-short, because I totally get it if they don’t want to read a twenty-five pager of mine.
Scott: How did you decide to order the stories in this collection?
Leighty-Phillips: Sequencing this collection was a doozy! Somehow, I simultaneously took it too seriously and not seriously enough. I am a huge fan of the intentionality of sequencing—I think of albums I love, the way certain songs build into others, the dissonance created by placing works in conversation. But as a reader, I often read out of order; sometimes even opening, flipping to the shortest piece in the collection, and starting there. When I was putting MTIWID together, I noticed that one story opened with “This is how it begins” and another story’s final line had a commentary on endings, so I felt that those two chose themselves as my opener and closer. I received a lot of support from Pedro Ramirez, Split/Lip’s Fiction Editor, in sorting out the middle.
Scott: What do you hope readers take away from this collection?
Leighty-Phillips: I just hope they enjoy it, I can’t ask for much more than that. I tried to offer a unique take on Appalachia and Southern writing, and I hope it does that.
Scott: The cover of Maybe This Is What I Deserve seems so perfect for your collection. How did you feel when you first saw it?
Leighty-Phillips: I loved it! When I first spoke to David Wojciechowski, Split/Lip’s Designer, I mentioned loving these old HBJ covers of Italo Calvino books, and he tried to emulate that. When I first saw the cover with the Eastman Johnson painting, I was thrilled and asked if he’d considered any other pieces of art, and we both looked, but I couldn’t help but feel like The Truants (the name of the painting) was the cover—it spoke to childhood, playfulness, dawdling—I couldn’t help but love it.
Scott: How do you like readers to connect with you?
Leighty-Phillips: I’ve received a few emails and Instagram messages from readers, and those are always really welcome surprises. I love when people reach out, and I usually try to reciprocate by sending a message to an artist who has impacted me. I like the idea of a chain reaction.
Scott: What is your Postcard Prompts project and how can people sign up?
Leighty-Phillips: I don’t know why I call it a project, it’s not really a project. I just have a lot of postcards and love to send them in the mail. At some point during the pandemic, I realized how many postcards I had (mostly from buying bags of them at thrift stores) and wanted a creative use for them. I made a couple posts about sending writing prompts in the mail, and have had a wild number of responses; from friends, acquaintances, total strangers. Some folks send me cards back, which is always really kind. My website has all the details if other folks want to get involved.
Scott: What are you currently reading or working on?
Leighty-Phillips: I wasn’t reading anything for a long time, but I’ve recently finished a couple books; Steven Johnson’s Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, and Emily Hilliard’s Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia. Both were super engaging, well-researched, and a lot of fun to read. I’m not doing a ton of writing at the moment, I have a longer-form thing I’ve been working on. We’ll see how it comes together.
Scott: What is the best piece of writing advice you've received?
Leighty-Phillips: When I was in college, I took a poetry class with GC Waldrep, who would always talk about the universe of poems. He would say “I want to see another poem in this universe” when discussing someone’s work. As a new writer, I had never considered that a poem (or any piece of writing, for that matter) had such boundless nature behind it; that I could create more that accompanied my poem, a new piece that told new stories within that boundlessness. Now, when I write stories, I always examine the universe. I think of my stories not just as standalones, but as doubles and triples. This thought process has helped keep me wondering, and has kept me excited to continue creating. That’s my advice. Go find your universe and thrive within it.
From Split/Lip Press:
Maybe This Is What I Deserve by Tucker Leighty-Phillips
Tucker Leighty-Phillips builds a series of mythologies; of childhood, of Appalachia, of seeing the world through the 3D glasses of poverty. The stories in Maybe This Is What I Deserve dip their toes between sentiment and surrealism—a whirlpool swallows a boy in a family swimming pool, a girl befriends the lice her mother can’t afford to eradicate, a group of children form a secret society in the walls of a fast food play place. Using the logic of childhood across kids and adults alike, Leighty-Phillips builds a world filled with wonder and tells a new story of working-class, rural living.
Get your copy from Split/Lip Press.
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