“Their Own Life Force:” An Interview with Deb Olin Unferth

There is a similarity between incarcerated people and animals in the agriculture and food industry. Both are invisible to the general public and sometimes treated as an after-thought. There is a certain level of disposability for both groups, a siphoning away of life. In the case of incarcerated people, there is often very little to integrate them back into society after they have finished their sentences. For animals of the agriculture and food industry, their lives become a means to an end, for our own survival. I sat down with author, Deb Olin Unferth, one afternoon in late October to talk about these similarities, and all that the local literature community has to offer.

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of several books, including Barn 8, Vacation, and Wait Till You See Me Dance: Stories. She also is the author of a graphic novel, I, Parrot. Originally from Chicago, she teaches at the University of Texas at Austin for the Michener Center and the New Writers Project. She also teaches creative writing at the Connally Unit, a prison in South Texas.

Savannah: I heard you are originally from Chicago. What city has a greater creative writing community, Chicago or Austin? 

Deb: Honestly, it has been a long time since I have lived in Chicago, but I will say that I am really surprised and pleased with how big the writing community is in Austin. Austin has so many independent bookstores. It has a world-class literary festival every fall, the Texas Book festival…it kind of takes over downtown for the weekend. It’s usually in early November. Writers come from all over the world. There’s two of the best MFA programs right in the city, and this one right here [Texas State’s MFA program], a half hour away. There’s a bunch of different reading series. I am continually surprised at how vibrant the literary community is.

S: I am too, I would agree with that sentiment. Before I was in the MFA program, I wasn’t really that plugged into the literary community of Austin. Now that I am a part of the literary community, I am realizing it is a lot bigger than I would have ever imagined. Like I think any writer’s community would be, it’s kind of unassuming, like you really have to look for it.

D: Absolutely. But once you’re there, you’re completely overwhelmed by all the events. It’s too much to go to.

S: (laughs) I know.

D: And the kind of independent bookstores there are in Austin, they’re so beautiful. They have many different kinds…the variety is always a good sign. For one thing, you have these super curated ones like Alienated Majesty. It’s curated for weird, experimental stuff and small press and poetry. The booksellers clearly have a big hand in what is available to purchase there, it feels like a voice…and then First Light, it’s more contemporary books and classics–but they also have lots of events there–so it’s a very different energy than Alienated Majesty and they are only a few blocks away from each other. And Book People, that’s a totally different vibe. That’s like a classic, Borders Bookstore or Barnes and Noble or something. The people who work there tend to work there for years and years.

S: I am also a huge fan of Half-Price Books.

D: I am too. But you know, Austin also has this really small independent used bookstore called Livra–I think it’s on Guadalupe–and it’s this one guy who just started collecting books during the pandemic and selling them outside of his house. So it’s small, but it feels super curated. It used to be out of his home; he would post on social media about the books that he had in his possession, and people would come to his house and he would bring boxes of books outside. Because you know, during lockdown, you couldn’t hang out inside. 

S: Wow, that’s really neat! There’s a man who lives in Austin, and he has a business that he runs out of his home called Immortal Performances, and he has a massive collection of LPs, phonographs and gramophones. It’s a lifetime of collecting special interest things. It’s so lovely when someone spends their life collecting something and then is able to share it in some way with the general public. So, this reminds me of that. (Beat) I did notice that you teach creative writing in a prison. This is in the Connally Unit, correct?

D: Yes. So, I am a professor at UT with the Michener Program and the New Writers Project. I teach undergraduate and graduate classes. We have two creative writing programs at UT. Though there are two different application processes, all those classes are combined. It’s just where the funding comes from. Like where the money comes from is separate, so we have two separate programs. And yes, I run a creative writing program out of a maximum security prison in South Texas, in the Connally Unit.

S: What got you into prison teaching?

D: Because it’s awesome. I just love it. My father got very involved in prison advocacy when I was growing up. He would mentor different people who were in prison, and they always needed all different kinds of things. Like, if they were going to get out, they needed to get back in touch with their families, figure out where they were going to live, know how to apply for a job. So, my dad did a lot of mentoring for the previously incarcerated and incarcerated that way.

S: That’s excellent.I really feel like there’s very little programs out there that are designed to help mentor people that are coming out of prison. Is that true, that there isn’t much in the way of helping people become re-integrated into modern society after a prison sentence?

D: It’s hard, yeah, I think it’s really hard. I used to teach at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and they had a prison program that they were just starting, and I taught in it. They had it at a maximum security prison; it was a pilot program. They had only been doing it a year, and they were just trying to see if they could make it work. While I was teaching there, it felt like a mentorship, because they had people working there who had been teaching in prisons for a long time, from Bard College, helping the Wesleyan staff set up the program. So, I learned a lot from just talking to those people. I thought it was great, I loved the experience. Then when I came here, I was actually just going to go teach a workshop at the local jail, Travis County. And then I met with this activist, this formerly incarcerated person who said don’t go to the local jail. They’ve already got so many services there. Go to one of these places that’s like, in the middle of nowhere, and they have really long sentences, and very little programming. So, I asked him to pick a place for me, and this activist picked Connally. I had to keep asking the Connally Unit if I could come teach a creative writing class there for a while; they kept telling me no.

S: Why did they keep telling you no? Was there a reason behind that?

D: It’s just hard to start a new program in a prison. There’s an extensive process you have to go through. Finally, I made it through the process, and I started going. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now, and I have been doing it ever since. 

S: Wow. Incredible. So, I guess before you were at the Connally Unit, they didn’t have their own creative writing class for their inmates.

D: They did not. Oh! And I’ll tell you something else. There is a guy who teaches with me, his name is Eric Hays, he lives at Halifax Ranch. He runs the artist residency there. And the person who pays for this series is Bill Johnson, and he also gives us money every year for the Pen City Writers:the name of my program that teaches creative writing to inmates.

S: Oh wow! That is amazing. It’s so cool that everything is connected like that. Bill Johnson must really care about the literary arts.

D: He also gives money to Black Pearl Books, which is a woman-owned, black-owned bookstore in Austin.

S: Wow, fantastic. Returning to an earlier point in our interview: my thinking is it would be hard to rehabilitate people coming out of the prison system, mostly due to a lack of programming that is dedicated to that end goal. So, on that thinking, the two books that I’ve read by you are I, Parrot and Barn 8. It’s safe to say that you are interested in birds as a subject matter for your writing?

D: That’s so funny that those are the two books you’ve read. Yeah, chickens, mostly. As a vegan, I feel like animals have their own independent life force. I don’t feel like I have any right to take lives. I knew I wanted to write about an animal that was so thoroughly abused that we don’t understand.

S: Right. I feel like this kind of ties into teaching people that are incarcerated, because so often with birds when we domesticate them, they are in cages; they are incarcerated themselves. 

D: Yeah, they’re in cages.

S: So that’s interesting to me. There’s an overlap there, and with your character in I, Parrott, Laker, he is recovering from substance abuse. Substance abuse can be its own kind of cage as well. So, it just interested me that you are interested in birds and the incarcerated, because it feels like they share a similar spiritual space.

D: Totally. I do feel that way. I agree with that spiritual space sentiment. My next book is also engaged in similar concepts.

S: Yeah, what is your next book?

D: It’s called Earth 7, it’s an end-of-the-world love story. Since it’s the end of the world, there’s basically nothing left, and it’s these two women, and they are trying to figure out a way to preserve something.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity