To try to outwrite Steven Tingle is like inviting Tim McGraw to karaoke. So for the record, no matter how hard I try here, please know that if he himself were writing this about himself, it would be just that much better. Writing about himself, however, has been exactly the kind of self-reflective therapy Tingle found in the “Man About TOWN” column that runs every month in this magazine.
Now, with the release of his first novel, a detective fiction entitled Graveyard Fields, out this month, as well as its sequel, Cruel River—the martini-tippling, maybe-more-than-a-little-hypochondriacal miner of words of self-deprecating gold—who isn’t nearly as insecure as he plays on the page—doesn’t even balk when you pull out a Sharpie and ask him to autograph his 100th column. Tingle, we’re glad we knew you when!
Portrait by Paul Mehaffey.
TOWN: As I writer I must say that when I read your stuff it’s annoying how good you are! How do you do it?
(silence for a while) That’s very kind. I do really appreciate that. I don’t know. I came at it late. I was in my forties when I started. I’d been in the golf business for a long time. My parents owned a golf course outside of Asheville, and I was the general manager and co-owner for years, but in 2008, I decided to switch gears. My girlfriend at the time knew I was struggling to figure out what to do and asked me, ‘What is something people get paid for that you would do for free?’ I loved reading, especially detective fiction, mysteries, thrillers, and I also love long-form journalism like what Esquire used to do, or The New Yorker, and I said, ‘I’d love to do that, but I don’t know how you do that.’ And she said, ‘Here’s what you do: you get a business card that says “Steven Tingle, Writer,” and you stop whining and start writing.’
TOWN: Yes.
I was so naive I thought, Okay, that’s what I’ll do! I guess you just email these magazines. So I emailed Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ . . . every magazine I loved, I started emailing them just waiting for the phone to ring.
TOWN: No, oh my.
And, of course, you know . . . nothing. So I started working down the list and then finally an editor from Golfdom, a trade magazine for golf course superintendents, emailed me and he said he would give me a shot to write 600 words on employee compensation.
TOWN: Oh, wow, good!
I was euphoric for about five minutes and then I hung up the phone and thought [expletive], and honest-to-God, I googled “How to Write a Magazine Article,” because I’d just been living in my head that I could do this, and now I had an assignment and a deadline. And then I was googling “How Do You Quote People.” I had no idea how to do any of this stuff. I finished it and sheepishly sent it off, and he sent me a check and another assignment.
TOWN: And then you started writing for TOWN and moved down here from Asheville.
Yes, and then I asked Blair [TOWN’s editor-in-chief] if I could do “Man About TOWN” and do things around Greenville and write about them. She said ‘Ssure, we’ll give it a shot.’ So I booked a whole-body exfoliation at the River Falls Spa and wrote about it. That was my first one.
TOWN: And you wrote about it and now here we are, 100 of them later.
I did it like that for a while, and then something happened, and I ended up writing more of a personal thing that wasn’t about an experience in Greenville, but just thinking about childhood or something, and I sent it and Blair said, ‘Do more of these.’ So that’s how it’s been ever since.
TOWN: So when did the idea for the book happen?
When Tempus [a magazine for which Tingle also wrote] folded in March 2016. I had just finished reading whatever the latest Michael Connelly book was and I loved it, and then I got jealous because I thought, you know, he’s a writer, I’m a writer, but this magazine stuff’s a lot of work! But this Connelly guy just gets to make s—t up! I want to try that. So I just started writing. And I didn’t tell anybody, really. I didn’t want anyone to know because I really didn’t think I would ever finish it.
TOWN: And, now, it’s out this month! Congratulations! How are you feeling about it?
When I signed with [Crooked Lane Books], it was a two-book deal. They wanted a sequel. So the sequel is due at the end of the month [July].
TOWN: Did you start it immediately?
(laughs) Who do you think you’re talking to?!
TOWN: That makes me nervous for you.
It’s great because I need a deadline.
Steven Tingle’s first novel, “Graveyard Fields,” was published this month. For more, go to steventingle.com.
