Look and Listen

Biography

Born in Charlotte, Trent Dotson grew up in Cary in North Carolina’s Research Triangle. An accomplished pianist, he studied music with James Clyburn at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC, and with Barbara Rowan at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he appeared as a soloist with the UNC Symphony. Away from the practice room, he explored fiction writing in classes with authors Lee Smith and Marianne Gingher at UNC and, changing direction, with Eve Shelnutt at Ohio University while pursuing a master’s in journalism. He currently lives in Arlington, VA, and works as an editor and designer in Washington, DC.

Trent’s first major writing project was a guide to making model railroad scenery, begun when he was ten and abandoned three chapters in (though he continued to play with trains). Around that time he also started work on a biography of Cruella De Vil after watching “101 Dalmatians,” the recollection of which undertaking continues to inform his opinion of writers who appropriate characters from famous works.

Inspiration

Trent says about his inspiration: “An old friend of mine recently observed that Catherine, the main character in my novel ‘Craven Prayers,’ was probably more like me than I might care to admit. I’m sure this person thought he was very astute, even wise. What he doesn’t realize, but which every serious writer knows, is that all the characters in a story come to life only to the extent that the author is ‘in’ them. Ditto the settings, ditto the action and the outcome. The satisfaction, the joy even, in writing to me derives from making art from the inner ‘stuff’: remembered feelings and images, secret convictions, brainstorms too numerous, sometimes too outlandish, to ever fulfill. My private cherishing (or lamenting) of them seems a waste when, put into a story — however much altered to that story’s demands — they might live.”