We recently were delighted to chat with William J. Cobb, author of a book of short stories, The White Tattoo, and two novels--The Fire Eaters and Goodnight, Texas. This
native of Texas City teaches creative writing at The Pennsylvania State University in State College, where we caught up with him in the middle of an enchilada craving.
1. What Texas foods do you miss most in Pennsylvania?
Mexican food, absolutely! In my high school years my parents owned a restaurant and my mother made the best chalupas with chili in the world. When I'm in Austin, I like the chicken rellenos
at Chuy's and the Tacos al Pastor at Güero's Taco Bar, two of my favorite places. But I was raised on fried chicken and chicken-fried steak. Pretty much, I think Texas has the best food in the
world, though I may be biased.
2. How does Texas continue to inspire your work?
I never realized what a Texan I was until I moved away. Then I learned what I'd always taken for granted--how it seemed normal for people to be friendly, dramatic, outspoken, outrageous, and
not afraid of seeming foolish, all of which are in the blood of Texans. Plus, I've got an eye for the big sky and a taste for wicked thunderstorms. For some years now I've lived in the East and feel
a bit like a longhorn steer among the dairy cows of Pennsylvania Dutch country. In the eighties, I lived in New York City. My first afternoon there, my car was broken into, and they stole my
cowboy boots. New Yorkers also had much fun with my Texas drawl and my knack of referring to more than one person as "y'all." They'd laugh and point and then urge me, "Say it again!" It was
all very amusing--for them. Which is all to say that wherever I've lived, Texas has continued to haunt and inspire me with its warmth and grandeur. It affects my fiction in that I like the oversized,
the outlandish, the exaggerated, mythic stories with guts and humor. That's what I try to achieve as a writer. Goodnight, Texas has a giant fish that washes ashore in a small coastal town with a
horse in its mouth. In some ways that vision sums up my Texan heart--that link between the Old West and the sea, a larger-than-life world baked by hot sun and flashed by lightning.
