Dennis Lawson

Newark

Established
Literature: Fiction

By: Gail Obenreder

“The challenge of the short story is what can make them as rich and rewarding as the best poems: the need to be concise.”

When he writes fiction, Dennis Lawson’s preferred form is the short story, and he has “loved to write [them] since I was a kid.” As an English major at the University of Connecticut, he contributed to the literary journal. Later on, when he felt his fiction was not advancing, he enrolled at Rutgers-Camden to earn an MFA in Creative Writing.

Lawson grew up in a small Connecticut town near New Haven, part of a collection of hamlets known as The Valley. He was an only child until the age of ten, when his twin sisters were born. As a younger writer, Lawson wrote about characters “developing mature relationships for the first time in their lives and the nervousness that comes with that.” But now he focuses on the relationships of older adults, mostly presented in the short-story format which he has been perfecting. Along the way, he has been greatly inspired by minimalist short-story writers such as Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, and Frederick Barthelme.

The first rule of his short stories is “that they should be entertaining,” and Lawson works for the “zippy pace, snappy dialogue, humorous moments, and tension” that keep the reader engaged. He also often incorporates an element of mystery that makes someone turn the pages, a technique that Lawson has drawn from his crime-fiction inspirations. Raymond Chandler, Max Allan Collins, and the legendary mystery writer Dashiell Hammett have all guided him in creating narrators who “often present a masked version of themselves that helps to maintain their relationships.”

excerpt from The Neighborhood Pool:

“As much as Ruth loved swimming and being part of the swim team, she did not have the spirit of a competitor. During races, she frequently stopped and looked out at the other kids to see where they were in their lanes, always with a big smile on her face. Like she was taking in the pleasure of being in the moment, in the race. What I wanted for Ruth was for her to have a nice, pleasant, fun childhood with parents who made her feel loved.”

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A Newark resident, Lawson has lived in the First State since 2002, when he moved here (with his girlfriend, now wife) to earn his MA in English at the University of Delaware. “We liked it here and never left!” Lawson has worked in arts administration (at the Delaware Art Museum and the Newark Arts Alliance), but he’s now a full-time English instructor at Delaware Technical Community College (Wilmington campus).

Though his work is more frequently published these days, and he enjoys giving readings and presentations, in his chosen genre Lawson finds it challenging to “quickly make your readers feel that they know your characters,” so that the writing can “provoke an emotional response without being too obvious about it.” Not surprisingly, for him, “the most rewarding part of writing fiction is surprising the reader.”

For inspiration, Lawson reads contemporary fiction (including Jill McCorkle’s collection Old Crimes and Michael Deagler’s Philadelphia novel Early Sobrieties), and he loves browsing at Wilmington’s Huxley & Hiro bookstore on Market Street. He is also an avid cycle racer, riding his BMX bike at the nationally sanctioned First State BMX track in Milford and noting wryly that “the health benefits accrue whether you win or lose.”

Happy to see the Division’s Fellowship program continue, Lawson believes that “every artist need encouragement at some point in their career . . . a sign that they are on the right track,” and he notes that not every state has this kind of arts program. An Emerging Fellow in 2014, he hopes to use his current Established Fellowship as an incentive to re-work the first draft of “a novel I have been working on for several years. This year is the year!”

 

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