Interview with Jason McCall
Jason McCall is a multi-time contributor to the Under Review. His essay, “My Dad Still Watches the NFL,” was published in our second issue, and his beautiful eulogy to Kobe Bryant, “824 Words,” ran on the one-year anniversary of Bryant’s death. Both essays were included in the essay collection, Razed by TV Sets, published by Autofocus Books in March of 2024.
We chat with Jason about the book, the ways in which his history as a poet informs his prose, and how sports (and the 1993 New York Knicks in particular) continue to show up in his work.
Jason McCall is the author of the essay collection Razed by TV Sets (Autofocus Books). His other books include the poetry collections What Shot Did You Ever Take (The Hunger Press, co-written with Brian Oliu); A Man Ain’t Nothin’ (Porkbelly Press); Two-Face God (WordTech Editions); Mother, Less Child (co-winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize); Dear Hero, (winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and co-winner of the 2013 Etchings Press Whirling Prize); I Can Explain (Finishing Line Press); and Silver (Main Street Rag). He and P.J. Williams are the editors of It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop (Minor Arcana Press). He holds an MFA from the University of Miami. He is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, and he currently teaches at the University of North Alabama.
Terry Horstman started playing basketball as a child in Minneapolis and grew up to become the all-time lowest scoring player in the history of Minnesota high school hoops. A dubious record, but one that can never be broken. His writing has been published by or forthcoming from Flagrant Magazine, The Next, The McNeese Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and he once Googled “submission guidelines for The New Yorker.” He is a graduate of the MFA in creative writing program at Hamline University, a co-founding editor of the Under Review, a co-host of the Belligerent Beavs podcast, and a co-many other things. He lives and writes in Northeast Minneapolis.
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Terry Horstman: Jason, the back copy of your book, Razed by TV Sets, describes it as an essay collection “filled by mirrors and all the threats and discoveries that mirrors may hold.” What are some of the main differences between a threat and a discovery that you might find in a mirror and how did that idea help shape the book?
Jason McCall: This book is all about how the TV screen is a type of mirror. As I put Razed by TV Sets together, I found myself bumping into alternate versions of myself. Who would I be if I grew up on Magic and Bird instead of Kobe and Iverson? Who would I be if I didn’t come from Montgomery, Alabama? Who would I be if Tupac and Biggie were alive today? Who would I be if I believed the bullshit stereotypes about Alabama that the world has tried to feed me?
But when it comes to threats and discoveries, I think about shrinking and growing. A threat makes the world smaller. The choices narrow when a threat appears. I’m a gamer, and I think about the games where you move through levels until a monster appears on the other side of the screen. The game locks you in the room with the monster. You can’t move forward until you beat the monster. The narrative of the game won’t move forward until you beat the monster. There are other types of games that let you explore. Some games let you move through levels in different ways and complete the game using different skillsets or paths. Discoveries make your world bigger. In the book, I’m writing about how the different representations of the South, Blackness, and masculinity I’ve seen pose a threat to me at times and lead to discoveries at other times. For example, the longest essay in the book, “The New Transported Man,” deals with my relationship with suicidality and my time in a psych ward. It also discusses my love of the late wrestler Eddie Guerrero, so there’s the sports angle if we need one. In the essay, I’m honest about how suicide is a constant threat in my life. Every day, I decide if I’m going to keep living or not. But that decision also leads to discoveries about myself when I discover what types of things can motivate me to live as I move further and further away from the college kid who decided to take his life almost 20 years ago.
TH: Among all the things we love about this book, it was a sincere thrill to see “My Dad Still Watches the NFL” in the first section, which you published with us here at the Under Review way back in our second issue. At the launch reading for that issue I remember you talking about the difficulty in writing essays versus poems, and by sometimes thinking of an essay as a poem makes it easier to write. What is the relationship between poetry and prose in your work today and how do you manage blending the two?
JM: First of all, I’ll always be in debt to the Under Review for publishing that essay. Razed by TV Sets wouldn’t exist without it. Finding a place for that essay helped me see what potential I might have in creative nonfiction.
When it comes to the forms, poetry and nonfiction prose are cousins. I’ve been thinking a lot about cousins recently. I’m mad that I’ve lost relationships with the cousins I grew up with. I’m a Trojan War fan, and Hector will always be my guy. For a long time, I’ve thought about the relationship between Hector and his cousin Aeneas, and I think those two heroes work as a metaphor for how I see poetry and nonfiction. Poetry is often honored as the highest form of writing. It’s anointed by the gods. The muse doesn’t descend from heaven to bless the prose writer. The muse blesses the poet. Aeneas is the son of Aphrodite. He’s destined to survive the war so that his bloodline can found the city of Rome. There’s an aura around poetry, and, sometimes, I hate that aura because the aura takes attention away from the craft and talent that it takes to write a good poem.
If Aeneas is poetry, then Hector is prose. Hector wasn’t a demigod like Aeneas or Achilles. Some versions of the myth make him the son of Apollo, but I don’t like those versions. Hector has to stare down the son of a god when Achilles is closing in on him. Hector has to fight against the will of the gods when he defends Troy for years even though the city has already been doomed by the gods.
Prose isn’t favored by the gods. It feels more human, but that can make prose more accessible because it’s more tangible. When I was writing the book, I had a few moments when I huffed and said, “Why don’t I just make this a poem?” I know the moves of a poem. I know how to lead a reader where I want to lead them in a poem. I don’t have those skills as a prose writer because I haven’t spent as much time as a prose writer. When I write prose, it feels like I’m shooting a basketball with my off hand. But if you’ve ever hit a tough layup with your off hand, then you know how satisfying it can feel to find some success in a different genre.
TH: Given your background in poetry, where did this collection of essays start? Was there a clear moment that an autobiographical essay collection appeared to you, or did it come together over time?
JM: Sports writing made this book happen, actually. A few years ago, I co-wrote What Shot Did You Ever Take with my brother Brian Oliu. It’s a collection of poems based on the original five movies in the Rocky franchise. It was published by the Hunger Press (R.I.P. Hunger Press. Erin and Lena over everything.) The Hunger Press shared a table with Autofocus at the AWP writing conference back in 2022. I knew about Autofocus’ podcast, The Lives of Writers, but I didn’t know much else about them. I got to talk to Michael Wheaton, the publisher at Autofocus. I figured it was just another conversation with a cool dude who I could add to the list of cool dudes I should catch up with at writing conferences. But after the conference, Michael reached out to ask if I had any work that might fit Autofocus’ mission as a press that focuses on autobiographical writing. Of course, all writers know how to answer when someone solicits you for work. I didn’t have Razed by TV Sets in mind when Michael reached out, but I did have some creative nonfiction pieces I had published here and there over the years. I went back to them and realized a lot of them were about my experiences with pop culture and how those experiences shaped my relationship with the world and with myself. From there, I got greedy and thought about what subjects I should write about. I realized I wanted to write about how my relationship with tennis is really more about my relationship with my brother and my relationship with whiteness. I wanted to write about CM Punk and how he represents the post-9/11 generation of wrestlers who came into their own when I was coming into my own as a college kid. The essays came together over time, but then I had to take a step back and think of how to order and shape things. I’m beyond thankful that I got a chance to work with Michael and Autofocus for this book because he gave me room to play with the organization and offered feedback throughout the process. Having a supportive voice like his helped me realize some of the changes and edits I needed to make when it came to the length of some essays and the overall structure of the book.
And writing this book felt like coming back to my roots as a writer. I was mostly a fiction writer when I started. But when it was time to apply to graduate school, my poetry portfolio was stronger than my fiction portfolio, so I went in that direction. Throughout my career, my poetry has been called conversational, accessible, and prosy. Sometimes, those are compliments. Sometimes, those are criticisms. But I’ve always been interested in storytelling and narrative. That’s why I’m a sucker for things like pro wrestling and ancient history. Writing Razed by TV Sets gave me a chance to be as prosy as I wanted to be. But the poet is still there.
TH: Another piece we had the privilege to publish, “824 Words,” is on the death of Kobe Bryant. I visibly remember the text I got from you on the first anniversary of his death that just said “I think I got something.” I knew it would be good, but I wasn’t prepared for how good and to be just floored by it for the rest of the day. Can you talk a little bit about how this piece came together and how challenging it was to land on such a meaningful and specific word count?
JM: Kobe’s death still hits me. I learned about his death from a sneakerhead Instagram page when they posted a black-and-white photo of him. It took most of that first year for me to figure out why Kobe’s death matters to me the way it does. He was never my favorite player. I was pulling for Iverson in the 2001 NBA Finals. When Shaq and Kobe broke up, I sided with Shaq. That’s probably because Shaq and I are both Superman fans, and because, according to kids of a certain age, Shaq and I are doppelgangers, but that’s something for another essay.
When it comes to Kobe, I finally realized it was the missed opportunities that I was so mad about. It looked like Kobe was on his way to getting the type of post-career turn that most athletes don’t get, especially Black athletes. He was moving into new interests. Some of those interests were related to basketball, of course. I don’t think the WNBA and women’s basketball as a whole grow the way they have over the last few years without Kobe being a supporter of women’s basketball. His fandom did a lot of work in creating/widening a lane for other men to be supporters of women’s basketball. But there was the other stuff, too. I wanted to see how far his interest in filmmaking would go. I wanted to see if his interest in music would ever lead him back to the studio to record more bad rap songs.
When I started writing “824 Words” on the anniversary of his death, I didn’t know if I had anything special to say. I thought it might end up being a rant that never made it out of my writing folder. But as I worked on it and realized how much I was invested in the myth of Kobe and the different sides of Kobe we were never going to see, I realized I had to embrace the Kobe mythology. I had to embrace the idea that Kobe was meticulous and intentional about everything, so my essay about Kobe couldn’t exist unless it was 824 words. I’m not meticulous in that way, normally, so it was a different exercise to edit and cut things to get to 824 words without sacrificing the quality of the piece.
TH: We are obviously obsessed with the intersection of sports and literature, and I think the second paragraph of “824 Words” is an ode to that. The paragraph reads: I’m sad that Kobe died because I’m still learning to see peers as companions and not competition. I’m still learning that every trophy they raise isn’t a trophy stolen from my case. I’m still learning that success doesn’t have to come with a snarl and a flex. I’m still learning that compliments don’t have to have a sublevel to them. I’m still learning that every smile isn’t just about flashing my teeth. I’m still learning what it means to share space with this golden age of Southern writers. I’m still learning that throwing up a link to an Ashley M. Jones poem or an Imani Perry essay is just as good as throwing it up to Shaq in Game 7 against the Blazers. It seems as though as writers we all have a difficult time with the idea that “comparison is the thief of joy.” How has focusing some of your writing through a sports lens, and specifically Kobe, helped your understanding in that area?
JM: I’m a little brother, so I grew up being competitive with my brother and older cousins to show them that I could hang with them on the court or on Nintendo. I’m a two-time spelling bee champion, and those trophies might be the most valuable things in my office.
I love competition, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve taken a different approach to competition. When I was younger, it was strictly about winning. Staying on the court. Never having to pass the controller. I brought some of that energy to writing in the beginning. I wanted everyone to know I was the best writer in the workshop classroom. I wanted everyone to leave a reading knowing I was a damn good poet.
I still want to make sure people know what I bring to the page as a writer, but now I feel like I’m competing with myself and with my era of writers in a healthier way. There are so many great writers putting out work right now. When we talk about sports and literature, there are writers like Hanif Abdurraqib, Brian Oliu, Jalen Eutsey, Jenny Liou, and Megan Roth. If you want to read someone who blends sports and literature in a masterful way, read their work. They’ve set a high bar. For me, it’s fun to see if I can reach that bar and move that bar a little higher. As a Southern writer, who wants to read a Jason McCall piece when you could be reading what Kiese Laymon is writing, what Jacqueline Trimble is writing, what Raye Hendrix is writing, what Tiana Clark is writing? Hell, Tiana Clark is hanging out with Spike Lee these days. Go be like her. Seriously, though, it’s exciting to have such a high standard for art and to have a chance to call some of these artists peers and friends.
In a lot of interviews, both Shaq and Kobe admitted that they left championships on the table when they let their egos get between them and break up their Lakers run. I don’t want to let my ego get in the way of winning. If you follow me on any social media platform, you’ll found out that my favorite phrase is “I love seeing my team win,” and I’m still learning that winning can be a collaborative process.
TH: What does it mean to you to be a Southern writer?
JM: It means I got lucky. “Lucky” isn’t a word we usually associate with Black people in the South, but I’m lucky to be part of a Southern family that fostered my curiosity. I was lucky to have Southern teachers who challenged me and let me be the weird kid in elementary school who wanted to ask questions about Charlemagne and the Eastern Roman Empire. Today, I’m lucky enough to live in the Shoals area of north Alabama where art is respected because of all the great music that was recorded in the studios around town.
But I think being lucky in this way comes with a responsibility. Being a Southern writer also calls for specificity. I’m not interested in writing about the South, necessarily. I’m interested in writing about my small corner of the South. I grew up in Montgomery, and Montgomery is Montgomery. It isn’t Atlanta. It isn’t Nashville. It isn’t Columbus, Georgia, or Columbus, Mississippi. I touch on it some in Razed by TV Sets, but I hate when people make lazy generalizations about the South, and it’s often a geographic laziness. It makes me think of my accent. If you want to get someone from any part of the South talking, ask them about Southern accents on movies and TV shows. You’ll probably get a whole lot of laughter out of us or a whole lot of anger. Maybe both, and that’s because accents are relative. Back home, some people don’t think I’m from Alabama because they don’t think my accent is thick enough. When I travel to other parts of the country, I have the thickest Southern accent some people have ever heard. But if there was only one accent, there would only be one South. The South has a world of accents, and that means the South has a world of voices that deserve to be heard.
TH: In the essay, “Inside of you there are two members of the 1993 New York Knicks. One Knick is John Starks. One Knick is Charles Smith,” the long story short I took from this is that if John Starks never dunks on Michael Jordan and Horace Grant in the 1993 NBA Playoffs, then Jason McCall doesn’t win the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize in 2012. Have you ever tried to contact Starks to thank him for that? But more importantly, how do you fight through the writing days when the Charles Smith inside of you is more present than the John Starks?
JM: I haven’t reached out to John Starks, but thanks for the suggestion. That 1993 Knicks team means so much to who I became as a sports fan and as a writer.
When it comes to fighting through bad days or bad tendencies as a writer now, it’s not about the Charles Smith inside of me. It’s about the Josh Smith inside of me. Josh Smith came into the league a year after LeBron James. If you didn’t know how to watch the different levels of the game, Josh Smith looked like a rival to LeBron. He was just as big and fast. He might have been even more athletic. He could handle the ball well enough for his size. He could knock down a three and give you one or two huge dunks or blocks each game.
He had a 14-year career. He won a slam dunk contest. You can’t say he wasn’t successful.
But he’s not LeBron James.
I think about Josh Smith when I feel myself getting a little too lax with my writing routine. When I look at a draft of an essay and notice that I let a weak metaphor slide into a paragraph. When I look at a draft of a poem and see a line break that’s not bringing any energy to the poem. When I catch myself saving a draft that’s good enough. I’m not interested in being good enough. If I have a shot at doing something great, I want to try to be great. If you can be LeBron, why settle for being Josh Smith?
Reaching for something better than yourself takes me back to Kobe, actually. I think about Kobe’s obsession with being like Jordan and it reminds me of different levels of Karaoke. If someone sings a song and doesn’t take the song seriously, the bar crowd will mumble, turn away, or be pissed off that someone is wasting their time. If someone sings a song good enough, it’s a fun experience for everyone. The crowd cheers, sings along, and maybe buys a shot for the singer when they come off stage. But if someone sings too well, there can be a sense of discomfort. If the Karaoke singer sounds too much like Whitney Houston, then the crowd isn’t sure how to respond. For some people, Kobe got too close to touching Jordan, and that bothered the fans who thought Jordan was untouchable. But imagine how much we would have lost as fans if Kobe didn’t try to catch Jordan. Imagine if Kobe came into the league thinking that he just had to be a replacement for Eddie Jones and a good complement to Shaq.
TH: What is your relationship to the genre of “creative nonfiction” like today? Are more sports essays in your future? Please say yes.
JM: I’m still loving the feeling that comes with writing creative nonfiction. It still feels like using my off hand. I’m not close to feeling ambidextrous about it. Besides, “ambidextrous” means “two right hands,” and I’m a lefty, so that word grinds on me.
I’m writing a couple of essays for an online addition to Razed by TV Sets. Autofocus has some great things coming through their digital membership and digital publishing platform, so I’m happy that I have a chance to be a part of that.
For new book possibilities, I’m looking into writing something about Black people and competition. LeBron vs. MJ. Biggie vs. Tupac. Martin vs. Malcolm. I’ve listened to these comparisons my whole life and thought about what they mean to the wider world and to the Black community. I’m hoping to make some progress on it in the next year or so.
TH: My co-editor Carlee Tressel asked last issue’s interview author, Holly M. Wendt, this question and I loved it so much so I’m stealing it: Are there other sports-connected projects you want someone else to write? As Carlee brilliantly points out, so many Under Review readers likely have one of those projects in them ready to be written.
JM: That’s a super question, and it’s another chance for me to give love to some of my favorite writers. This question is asking me to be greedy, so I’m going to be greedy. I want someone to write about what it feels like to be a gamer in decline, to know that you’ll never be able to press buttons and be as precise as the teenager you used to be or the teenager who’s kicking your ass on the other end of the internet connection. I want someone to write about what we lost in MMA when so much of it fell under the UFC banner that’s now under the ESPN/Disney banner. I want someone to write about how gameday/tailgate friendship is a unique brand of friendship. I want someone to write about the excitement we used to have when we went to the video game store in the morning to pick up a copy of Madden on release day. I want someone to write about the bands they discovered through the soundtracks of sports video games.
