Season 3, Episode 6: My Savage Year

In this episode, Julia F. Green and Ralph Walker welcome Steve Weddle to discuss Jordan Harper’s short story My Savage Year, published in the Southwest Review. Together they dig into a well-crafted tale that’s engaging in the most unsettling of ways.Read: My Savage YearIn this story, the narrator revisits a crime that occurred when he was in high school and has haunted him for decades. He admits that his perspective is unreliable, leaving the reader to decipher what is fact and what is fiction and whether the narrator was more than just a witness. Julia, Ralph, and Steve explore the twists and turns of this unsettling story and the craft of compelling crime fiction.Prompt: Take a narrator reflecting on an event from the past and experiment with deception and withholding in a way that prevents the reader from knowing for certain what is true and what is not.Do you have feedback on this episode or thoughts on the show? We'd love to hear from you! Connect with us on social media or leave a comment.Guest Bio: Steve Weddle is the author of Country Hardball, which the New York Times called "downright dazzling”, and The County Line, a novel set in 1930s Arkansas. He is the co-founder of the crime fiction collective Do Some Damage and the co-creator of the noir magazine Needle.You can find Writing in the Dark on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and subscribing is a great way to support this work. Thanks, as always, for listening.Listen to previous episodes.Writing in the Dark is co-hosted by Julia F. Green (Substack, Bluesky, website) and Ralph Walker (Twitter, website) and edited by Aaron Fyler, with cover art by Jarmusch. Get full access to Writing is Joy at writingisjoy.substack.com/subscribe