Retired teacher to release third short-story collection
Living the writer’s dream after 31 years at Schenectady High
When Schenectady High School English teacher Gregory Wolos retired in 2009 after 31 years in the classroom, he had the dream of finally becoming a full-time writer. “I’m living pretty much the retirement gig I always wanted,” he said from his home just outside of Boston, where he and his wife moved to be closer to their children. “This has been all part of my vast eternal plan.”
Wolos realized when he was in his late 30s and early 40s he was never going to be an independent writer and live off his writing. “I went back to get my doctorate mid-career and did publish a handful of short stories at that time, but my kids got older. They needed me to drive them around, and I decided to put off the fulltime writing till I turned 55.”
When Wolos did retire, it took him a full year of hard work and a number of rejections before he published a short story. “I think I became a much better editor of my stories. That first year I read through the Best American Short Stories collection and the Pushcart collection, which gives awards to the best writing in the small presses, to see what publications were putting out these award winning stories. I sent my stories to those magazines, and today I usually publish eight or nine stories a year.”
In the 12 years since his retirement, Wolos has published more than 80 short stories at literary magazines throughout the country. His work has earned six Pushcart Prize nominations, and his third story collection “The
Thing About Men” will be published by Cervena Barva Press this fall.
“Short stories have always been my favorite type of writing. They fit my style better. Maybe I have a short attention span, but I’ve always enjoyed reading short story collections. I don’t mind going from one story to another with different characters and different settings. Most readers would probably prefer to get lost in a big novel they could read for months at a time, but not me.”
It usually takes him at least one and a half months to write a publishable short story. “I like a short story that is an immediate punch like Flannery O’connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find,’ that starts out
like a comedy and then goes to a very dark place."
He will often take events in his own life and switch them around to different possibilities for the story. “In my new collection there’s a story called ‘Balance’ about a high school cross-country coach who encourages his team to run over a dangerous bridge to build their character, and it all goes horribly wrong. I did that with a girl’s team I was coaching at Linton High School (which merged with Mont Pleasant High School to become Schenectady High School). It was a stupid thing to do but fortunately everything turned out all right for me."
Wolos enjoys the creativity of writing short stories. “My stories often are about 30 pages in length and then I figure out what’s the heart of this story. One of the fun aspects for me when I write a short story is playing with the story’s structure. I’ll take those 30 pages and then mix them up. I find that exciting.”
His first story collection “Women of Consequence” was published by Regal House in 2019. Wolos realized when putting the collection together that many of the women in the stories lived daring and confident lives, but when they failed, they failed spectacularly. The men in his latest collection are mostly underachievers yet do a better job recognizing their failures and seem to have a better self-awareness of who they are.”
As a longtime distance runner, Wolos draws many analogies between running and writing. “Writing is hard work, but I derive the same sort of pleasure I do from running a good race or a hard workout. For both of them, when I’m done, I’m exhausted.”
He also finds both activities can put him in a type of trance. “Like those days when I’m running well and just floating along, writing can also take me away and I can just get lost in it. I love being in that place where I feel like I’m between waking and sleeping. That brings me great joy.”
Wolos has a governing philosophy with his writing. “I’ve always loved the line attributed to (Franz) Kafka that a literary work ‘must be an ax to break the sea frozen inside us.’ That’s what I’m after with every short story I write. I want to shake up my readers. I want to break up their frozen sea. I hope my story can help them see and experience things a bit differently.”
He believes being a full-time writer has helped him become a more fully alive human being. “I’m always observing all that’s around me. I carry a small notebook with me and jot things down all the time. I try to take everything in. I wasn’t always like this. Writing has brought this out in me. I’m not sure if I’m more compassionate, although I am pretty sensitive to what others are feeling. I’m very sensitive to what my characters are going through.”
He knows how lucky he is that writing is a joyful endeavor. It’s not something he depends upon for his financial well-being, and not having that pressure to succeed has helped him become a success. “I also made writing my job. It became a habit, like running. It can be a miserably cold and rainy day, but at a certain time I’ll put on my running clothes and go out for that run.
It’s the same with writing. I might not feel like sitting down to write, but I’ll put in my two to three hours every morning doing it. It takes time to become a good writer, just like running where you need to log the miles.”
His advice for beginner writers is to be sensitive, observant and willing to make tough, real-life decisions. “You need to be hard on yourself when you’re editing. You may have to rip a character or a scene out that’s not working, but you also need to be tough enough at take the thousands of rejections you’ll get.”
“I’m living pretty much the retirement gig I always wanted. This has been all part of my vast eternal plan.”
— Gregory Wolos