The word “magic” often conjures images of wands and spells, but in English instructor Milton O’Neal Walsh’s book, all the magic is real.
“The Prospect of Magic” begins with the ringmaster of a traveling circus dying outside of Fluker, La. The rest is a collection of stories about how the carnies try to integrate into modern society.
But Walsh never thought of his book as just a carnival story.
“I always thought of the characters as insiders and outsiders, and who’s to say which is which?” Walsh said. “There is a saying that only two stories are ever told: a stranger comes to town and a hero goes on a journey. But it really depends on your point of view. If you’re a hero going on a journey, to everyone else you’re a stranger coming to town.”
Walsh wrote the first story, which is the last chapter of the book, while he was in graduate school at the University of Mississippi.
“Once I started writing those stories, I felt really comfortable there,” Walsh said. “I got really into the characters and spent three years writing nothing but stories that took place in that town.”
In the classroom, Walsh focuses on teaching his students about stories and how they affect people.
“I try to teach them how to read and write good stories,” Walsh said. “By the end of it all, I want my students to realize that what they are doing is participating in a very large and wonderful miracle, not just an assignment.”
Jessica Lowe, English junior, said Walsh was the best professor she has had at the University.
“He challenges his students to think about writing and fiction in unique ways,” Lowe said in an e-mail.
Walsh said he sees writing as a unique experience.
“All writing is, is a bunch of black marks on a page,” Walsh said. “Twenty-six letters is all we’ve got access to, but somehow we arrange those in a particular way and make a person you’ve never met in your life feel something, see something. That’s kind of a miracle.”
“The Prospect of Magic” is an example of that miracle. Walsh mentioned that a major problem with today’s fiction is readers don’t feel anything positive after they finish stories.
“He believes that, in order to write something different, something good, one must figure out first their perspective on life — on the things that go on around us,” Lowe said. “Only then will they have something to set their stories apart.”
 
 
____
Contact Taylor Balkom at [email protected]