the coyotes of carthage by steven wright

His sly wit snakes through every page of The Coyotes of Carthage. When Wright applied to the UW’s program, he wrote, “I have the perfect job. He even found time to get a master’s from Johns Hopkins’s writing program while doing a five-year stint as a trial attorney in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. Besides his UW degree, he has a bachelor’s in economics and history and a master’s in environmental economics from Duke as well as a law degree from Washington University. Wright is a towering presence, both intellectually and physically, thanks to his six-foot-two height. He is blessed/cursed with a quick, high-energy brain.” “He works hard and stays up late,” she says. You’re mesmerized with whatever’s on the screen.”Īuthor Lorrie Moore, Wright’s former UW writing instructor, is a bit in awe of him. You’re not really listening to the lyrics. “Part of the way I know I’m doing okay is that you sort of zoom out on the music. “For me, writing is a loud experience,” says Wright, who also lectures in the UW Program in Creative Writing, where he earned his MFA. More often than not, the same song roars over and over and over and over again. Sam Cooke, Aretha, Master KG, Outkast, the Chicks. No less an authority than bestselling legal-thriller writer John Grisham calls Wright “a major new voice.”ĭown in his basement, sitting at a wood desk strewn with papers and empty bottles of unsweetened tea, Wright faces the wall with two screens in front of him (one for research, one for writing). Most nights find Wright, an associate clinical professor at UW Law School, working on his second thriller, a follow-up to his smash debut, The Coyotes of Carthage, a screwball dive into the bleak world of dark-money politics. Punctuation finds its place, and letter by letter a new novel is born. That’s when the creativity of Steven Wright MFA’14 comes tumbling out.

The coyotes of carthage by steven wright