I read this in Ron Carlson Writes a Story, an ingenious book in which Carlson unpacks the writing process of his own story. He leads the reader by the hand as he suggests his thought process while he sets down one sentence after another in the first story draft. The book is funny and wise, and also manages to be both self-deprecating and assured at the same time. It’s also full of great advice, not least when it comes to the need for writerly perseverance: “The writer is the person who stays in the room.”

It was perhaps a bit uncanny to then read the story, ‘The Governor’s Ball’, in its entirety, having read 100 pages about how it was written, but it was deeply satisfying to get to know a story so well. I also felt utterly motivated to write more stories of my own; I just need to stay in the room.

First published in TriQuarterly, Winter 1985. Collected in A Kind of Flying: Selected Stories, WW Norton & Co, 2003, and in Ron Carlson Writes a Story, Graywolf Press, 2007