An Interview with W. A. Polf

W. A. Polf is a retired Senior Vice President from New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, who now lives in North Carolina. His stories have appeared in various publications and have been finalists or semi-finalists in a number of contests. He won second prize in the North Carolina Writers Network’s Doris Betts Short Fiction competition. The story was published in the North Carolina Literary Review Online and was nominated for a Pushcart and for The Best Stories Online. It was also one of the top three best story winners for 2018 by Short Story America and was published in the 2018 edition. The editors of The New Yorker said there was “much to admire” in another of his stories. BookLife Reviews writes of his new book of short stories, Not the Same River: “Polf’s storytelling proves both exquisite and haunting, capturing the pace of life in brisk, striking prose…”

Visit his website www.wapolf.com for more reviews.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

“Not the Same River” is an extract from an epigram by Heraclitus: “No man ever enters the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

I chose the photograph of a gray river winding through a stark green landscape because it captured a central feeling of the stories about the daily struggle to find one’s way through unfamiliar emotional and psychic terrain.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

As with most important things in life, my mother motivated me to love storytelling and to believe I could do it. I published my first story – about three paragraphs long – in a boys’ magazine when I was nine or ten.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

As a Vice President at Columbia University’s medical center in New York City in the 1990s, I oversaw and managed the creation of New York City’s first commercial biotechnology center, designed to facilitate the interchange of scientific and technological discoveries between university biomedical research and commercial pharmaceutical development. This was a pioneering effort in what is now a flourishing biotechnology transfer industry in New York City.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

Creating something that would not have existed except for my imagination and creative effort.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

“Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Help Me Make It Through The Night” by Kris Kristofferson, the Silver-Tongued Devil who is no longer with us.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

I try to create fictional worlds the reader can step into, and imaginary characters they can have a beer with and ask “What the hell’s happening?”

What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?

A story can begin anywhere. I’ve just finished a new story about two people who meet while picking up litter along an Interstate highway.

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

Atmosphere Press succeeds well in opening doors for authors who might otherwise be unable to enter them.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.