Andrei Codrescu has said of him, “If Flannery O’Connor had been a bad boy living in the French Quarter, she’d have been James Nolan.” Maurice Ruffin, a former student of his, likens Nolan to John Kennedy Toole, saying, “He can do more in a short story than most writers in a novel.”
In addition to being a fiction writer—his newest work You Don’t Know Me: New and Selected Stories is out this month from UL Press—Nolan is also a poet, literary critic, essayist, translator and a teacher of creative writing through the Arts Council of New Orleans.
His writing workshops have become a must for many burgeoning Louisiana writers. Two of his students published debut novels this year: Amy Conner’s The Right Thing in May and Laura Lane McNeal’s Dollbaby in July. “I workshopped the first 100 pages of Dollbaby in his class and I wouldn’t have gotten there without James,” McNeal says. At right, we catch up with each about their books, their writing workshops and what they’re working on next.