Best-selling author Bruce Holsinger knows what it takes to produce rock-solid fiction. The writer, professor, and Guggenheim fellow penned Culpability, the 116th selection of Oprah’s Book Club. His novel The Gifted School earned a Book of the Month Club selection and won the Colorado Book Award, and The Displacements was named the inaugural title in the United Nations Read for Action Book Club. Holsinger’s essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times and Vanity Fair, and he’s been profiled on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Here & Now, and Marketplace. He’s also the judge of First Page, a free contest for adult fiction writers that serves as the culmination of WriteNow!—a community campaign to inspire creative writing. Submissions for First Page run through May 31 at writerhouse.org. In light of the contest, we put Holsinger in the HotSeat.
Name: Bruce Holsinger
Age: 58
Pronouns: He/him/his
Hometown: Annandale, Virginia
Job(s): Professor of medieval literature, fiction writer
What’s something about your job that people would be surprised to learn? It’s destroyed my lower spine.
How do you define fiction in literature? The art of the plausible.
Why is it important to support fiction writing and literature? The arts embody and activate our imaginations. Without fiction, we would be trapped in our own sad, small, narrow little worlds.
What are you working on right now? A new novel called The Beta Test, taking on the so-called masculinity crisis in our authoritarian age.
Best advice you ever got: Start your next book ASAP, and don’t look back.
Proudest accomplishment: Helping to raise my two sons.
Best parts of living here: Mountains, food, wine.
Worst part of living here: The Wine Guild closed.
Favorite Charlottesville restaurant: Oakhart Social
Favorite Charlottesville venue: Old Cabell Hall
Favorite Charlottesville landmark/attraction: The Farmers Market at IX
Bodo’s order: Everything with cream cheese, lox, onion, tomato.
Describe a perfect day: Mid-50s in October, partially cloudy.
If you could be reincarnated as a person or thing, what would you be? The Lindisfarne Gospels, an illuminated manuscript of the early eighth century.
Are there any superstitions you abide by? Knocking on wood
Most embarrassing moment: Missing a bass clarinet solo in Mahler’s first symphony.
Do you have any pets? A problematic cat named Sparky.
Favorite movie and/or show: “The Wire”
Favorite book: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Who’d play you in a movie?
Alan Alda
Go-to karaoke song: “White Christmas”
What’s your comfort food/meal? Tuna melt on sourdough
Subject that causes you to rant: Politics, politics, politics.
Best journey you ever went on: Pacific coast of South America
Next journey: Freiburg, Germany
Favorite word: I’ll give you a phrase instead: “unbokele the male,” which is Middle English for “unbuckle the chain mail.” It’s the medieval knight’s equivalent of taking off uncomfortable work clothes and throwing on sweats at the end of a long day.
Hottest take/most unpopular opinion: Half and half is disgusting in coffee.
What have you forgotten today? That I had a deadline to finish these questions.
First Page is a free contest for fiction writers ages 18+, sponsored by WriterHouse and C-VILLE Weekly as the culmination of WriteNow! For full First Page submission guidelines and more information about
WriteNow! events, visit writerhouse.org.
