Author Interview: Frank Light

Q&A with the contributors from our latest issue.

More than twenty literary journals and anthologies have published adaptations from Frank Light’s draft memoir Adjust to Dust: On the Backroads of Southern Afghanistan. A number of his poems, fiction, and other essays have also been published in recent years. Now retired, he lives with his wife in Washington state. His piece ‘Begin at the End’ appears in Hinterland Issue 16.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

A condolence note, sadly a common experience at the senior community where my wife and I live.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

Two books about Brits who came out of World War I to pursue their passions far from Europe were new to me even though they’d sold well – Elephant Company by Vicki Croke and The Lost City of Z by David Grann.

Words to live by?

The Golden Rule, to start; I wish I did better at it. Here’s one less known that appears as an epigraph at the end of the draft from which ‘Begin at the End’ in Hinterland was adapted:

Beyond ideas of wrong and right there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

It’s translated from the Persian poet Rumi and first came to my attention in the novel Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

For all my love of music, I can’t dance, sing, or play an instrument, and of course it’s too windy to haul rocks.

What’s your piece in this issue about?

Earlier this year Post Road magazine published a piece from the start of my time in the Peace Corps. ‘Begin at the End’ in the current issue of Hinterland marks the end, but also a beginning — today my wife and I celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary. Both submissions are adapted from the draft remembrance mentioned in my bio: Adjust to Dust: On the Backroads of Southern Afghanistan.

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Issue 16 is available to order from our webstore now, or in good bookshops.

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