Author Wise Offers Writing Advice

Henry Wise spoke in chapel about his winding path in becoming a successful author and lessons learned along the way. He came to MUS at the invitation of Director of Hyde Library Wendy Trenthem, and his visit included a book signing and lunch with students and faculty.
Wise’s murder mystery, Holy City, has been nominated for the Edgar Award for the Best First Novel by an American Author. He is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, where he now teaches English, and the University of Mississippi MFA program.

His writing journey started as a senior in high school when his father gifted him The Bear by William Faulkner. A day sick in bed reading led him to a life of writing and taught him “language doesn’t just deliver the story, it can be a lens through which the world is portrayed,” he said.

“I was amazed what the language did for me – it transported me to the Mississippi Delta. Something about that text changed the way I viewed reading … I didn’t want to be a writer, I just wanted to write. The Bear made me want to put pen to paper almost instinctually.”

Following a move to Taiwan where he taught English for the Taiwan Military Academy, Wise started working on his first book, The Immortals, which did not get published.

That rejection led Wise to the first piece of advice he imparted to the student body. The words came from author Chris Offutt: “He told me, ‘You have to finish your first book because when you write your second book, you’re going to be a better writer, and you won’t know how or why. You’ll just be better.’”

An editor provided the second piece of advice after she had reviewed the first 30 pages of The Immortals. “She said, ‘I think you need to write about home.’”

“What I took from that was maybe I need to look at where I come from, what shaped me, who I am, and really grapple with some of those big questions.”

The final piece of advice Wise gleaned came from author Richard Ford. Wise calls it the best advice he was ever given because it pushed him to be true to himself. “He said, ‘Write about what’s most important to you because that will sustain you.’”

Setting out to write something that was true to his being rather than something he thought people would like allowed him to write an award-nominated novel. “It’s a crime novel on the surface, but it’s exploring what it means to be Southern in today’s South, in a changing world.”

Wise described a “chip on his shoulder” that pushed him to keep going during the four-year process of writing Holy City.

“When I was convinced it wouldn’t be published, I realized I was writing for myself and about my own interests. These characters took me on journeys that were surprising to me. Robert Frost said, ‘No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.’ … Good writing doesn’t come from certainty. It comes from uncertainty.”
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