Tanner is currently a student at BYU, where he is studying English Teaching with a minor in Creative Writing. In addition to multiple wins in university writing contests and scholarships, his work has been featured in Mollusk Lit Mag and is set to be featured in the fall issue of the Debut Review.
In the prelude to Igneous, we will be publishing six exclusive, unfiltered interviews with authors. The purpose is to flesh out the individual behind the work, understanding the ins and the outs of what it means to be a writer--and a person.
Enjoy!
If you could go back to the hardest time in your life, would you change anything about how you acted? What about how others acted?
Tanner: I love the idea of living my life regret-free, but the reality of something like that is just so out of character for me that if I had a time machine to go back and shake some sense into myself at certain critical junctures, I definitely would. I'd like to just take a step back and not jump into panic mode at the first sign of trouble. I think I would treat others with more respect and try to find peace with myself in doing so. As for how others behave, I find some solace in having no control over the actions of others and if I were to change that, I think I'd just go bonkers. So, even if they treated me poorly, it was just like the refiner's fire kind of thing, right? I'm stronger because of how they treated me, good or bad.
When you think of the word Igneous, what’s the first thing to come to mind?
I think of middle school science classes, first and foremost, and having to identify different types of rocks and their characteristics and how much it made me want to run away and join the circus instead. But, no, really I associate "igneous" with the product of that transformation. Toughness, rigidity, a thing reformed and stronger now because it's been through all the heat and pressure.
Amanda: If you could say one thing to your past self, what would it be?
Tanner: I love this question; I know it sort of feels like a high school writing prompt kind of thing, but I think this is a beautiful question. I think I'd just tell myself to love people as big as I possibly could. Even if love doesn't last, I'd remind myself that the fact that we can love each other at all is such a miracle. Tell your girlfriend she's the only one for you, call your aunts and uncles and grandparents, and never forget to hug your parents and tell them how important they are. As we grow and change, the most important thing we can do for each other is to love each other. It's the one thing we won't regret, even if it stretches us and destroys us. You'll get better and the memories of that love will always have a special sort of glimmer for having taught you things.
Amanda: "Honest Doubt" is a short story from the point of view of a young narrator who faces the challenge of religious disillusionment--the ideological betrayal of what he was brought up to believe.
As this is a short story, and not a memoir, how much inspiration did you take from your own experience? Which parts are true to you, and which parts are not, but still maybe true to another person's?
Tanner: So a lot of this feels real to me, even though a lot of it is sort of manufactured from random details of other peoples' experiences. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and we have this HUGE belief in prayer being a gateway for communication with God. But we also have this saying that we all kind of share with each other and that is that the Church is perfect, but the people are not. So, while I feel like prayer is such a wonderful tool, there are people who use faith as a sort of weapon. I love to pray and I hold the act very sacred to me, but I've heard of so many experiences where people have been told to behave a specific way or do certain disgusting things because it is something that God would have them do. And it disgusts me to no end that people can manipulate others and their faiths. The concept here is almost entirely fiction, but the emotion and the reality of spiritual manipulation is very true to members of my faith. This story was me trying to have one of the most sacred and personal parts of anyone's religion and having it poisoned because of another person. Except maybe the part about praying to find a toy because I think a lot of kids do that.
Amanda: When it was revealed that the Dad was the one to place the Superman figure in a hidden area to teach the narrator the power of prayer, we learn a lot about the father views his role in teaching religion to his children. We gather that this is a story with its heart surrounding religion, but it is also a story about a father-child relationship.
What are your thoughts on the power dynamic that religion establishes in families? How does this affect both ends of the dynamic?
Tanner: This is a beautiful question and I'm so SO grateful for it because it kind of addresses something that was really personal to me. I want to stress first and foremost that my own dad would NEVER do this and is just the best guy. However, my church gives a lot of room for men to behave like pompous, worthless (crass insults redacted). I think a lot of religions place a lot of power in men's hands, but my faith for a long time empowered men and sort of disenfranchised women. The role of men in the home was the dominant role, the presiding authority in a spirit-filled home, that kind of thing. Sometimes it was okay and you had men who were like "Okay, this is what the church says and feels, but we're all equal here and I love you all more than any kind of societal structure and Mom knows just as well as I" and that kind of thing. Then there were men, some of which I knew personally, that took this feeling as basically the law. "I'm the dad, I'm the man, you listen to me, dammit." What a cruel, miserable way to lead a house. Where is the love in that? Even if you preach everlasting love and respect, how can you expect anyone to believe you if you behave like that? There is no room for pridefulness in homes, in church or even in the real world, as we've seen in the news recently. Giving men all the power in a home often leads to really poisonous uses of that power and all sorts of misconduct. The father in my story wasn't guilty of anything necessarily obscene, but it sort of hints at that kind of behavior, the kind that narcissists and emotional abusers wield to force women and children into submission in the name of God or something. Sorry, this answer is overlong and sort of rambling, but it's something I feel strongly about and why I wrote the story. The only way to have peace and harmony and the Spirit of God in your home is by cherishing kindness and love and mutual respect. This story, to me, is about the inverse of that and how disenfranchised we can all feel when those qualities are not the most important.
Amanda: So, the story provokes the notion that, sometimes, the most destructive and the most harmful weapons are those that are meant to be used for good. And that, in this case, would be religion. Religion, while it can foster beautiful relationships, can also be the catalyst for demoralizing gender roles and dehumanizing power structures. It can swing either way.
If you’re comfortable, would you be willing to talk about how your parents or extended family were able to foster such a love of God in your life, perhaps during your childhood? Maybe there’s a specific memory you have?
Tanner: Yeah, I think there are moments I can point to in my life that really drove home that idea of personal relationships with God and how I should foster those. I remember once when I was really struggling on making a decision about college in my senior year and my dad asked me if he thought it might help if I prayed about it. Didn't demand I do it, just asked if maybe I thought it might help. It was all kind of up to me. I think that all comes from just living in that house and that environment, whether I liked it or not. But I also think it comes from the fact that my parents never really forced anything on me. I always thought they did because it's kind of the duty of a teenager to gripe about everything (with good reason, I think, how do we grow if we aren't demanding answers of everything?) but the reality in my home was much more that it was a loving, respectful environment. You go to church on Sunday, you pray with the family, but we aren't going to be texting your friends' parents or asking teachers how you behave at school or having regular checkups to make sure I wasn't breaking commandments, that kind of thing. My parents let me live my life and made sure it was up to me to have my own relationship with God so that it was more meaningful. Funny enough, as I write this, I'm very aware that the distinct opposite happens in this story so that there is this wedge between father and son and The Father and a son. Maybe that's partially where the idea came from, too, wondering what might happen if I didn't grow up the way I did.
Amanda: Do you think that praying does hold any power in it, whether it be real or not?
Tanner: I am a huge believer in the power of prayer, but within reason. I do believe that God can do anything and we should always pray for guidance and strength, but I've been told of people who refused treatment at a hospital because God would take care of it. What a joke. PLEASE get help, please find ways to make yourself better. God supplements our own efforts, I think. But, otherwise, yes, I think prayer is a wonderful thing, even if you think you're talking to a void. It's nice to have some quiet time, just talking out problems with someone who will always listen.
Amanda: You mention that God should be a supplement to the work that people put into their own lives. That prayer is less of the sole solution and more of a powerful tool. Has there been an instance that this has worked well for you?
Tanner: Yes, absolutely. I point back to that same experience where I was debating a bunch of different post high school options, like a gap year, or maybe the military, or go to college, and if I did go to college, what to major in. So I prayed, like my dad asked and I remember distinctly feeling nothing. Like no emotions at all. But, after that, I was like, "Okay, might as well help myself," and I went and did some research. I realized that the military definitely wasn't for me, that a gap year sounded fun but I would mostly feel lost, so I settled on college and told myself I'd figure it out when I got there. It turned out to be film, at first, but changed to English and I think sometime about now I'm starting to feel the blessings of that little prayer. Like now I'm months away from my degree and I feel so fulfilled and I think that living the way I am and feeling the way I feel, this is like an answer to God's prayer because I did my part.
Amanda: What was the process behind writing this story? Did you sit down and write it in one day, or did it take much longer?
Tanner: This story was actually inspired pretty heavily by George Saunders's "Sticks". I LOVE that story and if you haven't read it, everyone should and you'll probably see the influence all over my story. But, yeah, basically I wrote this in a fever because I'd heard a story somewhere about a father who was abusing his religious power in the home, very much like the father in "Sticks", and thought about what might happen if someone were to poison how others felt about prayer, something so pure and accessible and, like, the absolute most basic tenet of religion. It was just a seedling, powered by the form of "Sticks", that decades long journey through a family dynamic in just a few sections. So, yeah, I wrote it all in like 25 minutes, then stepped away for a while, came back and added my own flair to it and made sure it wasn't just blatant plagiarism. So, two days writing time, I guess: the idea vomit then the revision. And it was cathartic and fun and I'm so glad other people get to see it!
Amanda: The idea vomit is definitely always a good method for writing. It lets the words really flow, pure and unadulterated, from the author. The passion beneath it is really what matters. Back to the writing process,
Would you say that you get your best ideas under some sort of pressure? Or are you usually more of a calm-time writer? And how does your mental/physical state influence your writing, if at all?
Tanner: I absolutely think it takes pressure. For me, at least. I think writing to deadline sort of forces my brain into that active mode and I get a lot of good work done when the deadline is minutes away. Ideas come naturally and unprompted, usually just sitting and thinking, but the real work and the quality revision comes when someone tells me it has to be in by this day. As for my physical/mental state, I think exhaustion (obviously) plays a big role in if I'm getting any kind of quality work done, but I think being too high-energy also does. Too low energy and I'm typing like single keys per minute and it slogs. Too high energy and everything comes out in a fever, too much to filter and I have to delete like all of it. I have to find a zen and kind of cool down. I need to be calm and have my mind running smoothly, but not quickly. Minimize distractions, get a little ambient music going and I feel like a professional.
Be sure to stay tuned for Igneous, in which you can read Burke's short story, "Honest Doubt."
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