MFA Student Spotlight: An Interview with Brandon Hansen
by Emily Collins
Welcome to CutBank’s weekly MFA Student Spotlight where we interview current MFA candidates at the University of Montana. This week’s spotlight is Brandon Hansen, a writer and nature enthusiast pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at UM. I recently sat with Brandon and got to hear his thoughts on books, literary journals, and writing on the landscape.
Let’s hear from Brandon!
Emily Collins: What drew you to the MFA in creative nonfiction program at the University of Montana?
Brandon Hansen: Well, aside from the obvious quality of the program as a whole, I really admire Judy Blunt and Chris Dombrowski. They write so beautifully about rural America and its inherent joys and struggles, and they write reverently about nature of course, which is all right up my alley.
But beyond the writerly stuff, I thought Missoula was a good graduation in space for me. I grew up in Long Lake, a Wisconsin village of about 200 people. We had long, freezing winters and resplendent summers in northern Wisconsin, and the same was true of Marquette, Michigan, where I moved next for my undergraduate degree. Marquette has a population of roughly 20,000, but when I first got there, it felt like a frenzied metropolis to me, ha. Cross-walks, roundabouts, curfews, that sort of thing – it took me years to get used to, honestly. So, when it came time to apply for the MFA, I wanted to go somewhere that would be a bit more challenging for me, but not so much so that just living day-to-day would feel like an exercise. And Missoula, with its beautiful, distinct seasons, and its modest bustle but small-town personality, has proven to be the perfect place to settle in and study and write and adventure.
EC: Who are your favorite writers, memoirists, poets, etc.?
BH: To rattle off a few: Joan Didion, Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib, Nicole Sealey, Natasha Trethewey, and Ross Gay. I really love literary journals too – the whole concept of a community-based effort to put out a collection of work that anyone has a shot at being included in is just awesome. Some of my favorites are Puerto Del Sol, DIAGRAM, CutBank (of course), Passages North (go alma mater!), Denver Quarterly, and Willow Springs.
EC: What are you working on writing-wise and what do you hope to gain during your time at UM?
BH: Mainly, I’m working on a collection of personal essays about lakes I’ve visited, fished on, camped by, etc. Fishing is my favorite thing to do in the world, and lakes are my favorite things – Thoreau said: “A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” I’m inclined to agree, and aside from this philosophy and the personal stories I hope to tell, the history and science and culture of lakes fascinate me, too. What I like most about creative nonfiction is that, like a lake, it naturally takes many different forms, is composed of different material, has different funny little things floating through it – all that good stuff. While I have brilliant classmates and professors here to lean on, I’m trying to push and pull the creative nonfiction genre as much as I can – I’m lucky to have them to raise their eyebrows at me if I stop making sense, ha. So, I’m writing about lakes, dipping my toes into fiction and hopefully poetry, and am just counting myself very lucky to be among such wonderful company.
EC: When you're not writing, what are some of your favorite hobbies, interests, etc.?
BH: Well as I mentioned, I love fishing, and have since I could walk. I also love video games – in fact, playing Final Fantasy VII as a kid is what made me want to write in the first place. It was such a moving, beautiful experience that all I’ve thought since then is to try and pay it forward, to make something that beautiful for someone else. So, I dabble with game-making software too. I play chess as well, very mediocrely. And of course, I read as much as I can.
EC: When you look back on your journey as a writer so far, what excites you the most?
BH: Well, I mentioned that I’m from a village in rural America. I think the trajectory for a lot of rural Americans is that you look around and see the lack of resources and opportunities and realize that, basically, you have to grab the first job you can find and hang on for dear life. While there are a lot of joys in living in small places, there is this ever-present, crushing pressure that says: you might never get to do what you really want to do. Of course, what I really wanted to do was write.
So, I think of things like the odd-jobs my neighbors would give me in the summers, and the scholarship opportunities my teachers would dig up off-the-clock, and the afternoons spent with friends as we figured out how to grow up into the big, noisy world, and of course the endless sacrifices my family made with their time and energy and resources, and I just feel lucky. Because the people in my small town were there for me, I got this fellowship to go out west to a big-name school, where I get to study writing with other brilliant writers on a campus surrounded by mountains. I’m still not really over it; I just feel dizzy with luckiness.
So, to get to the question, I guess what I’m most excited about is that every accomplishment so far, and that is hopefully to come, I can attribute proudly to the fact that I am from a small place – I grew up worried that because I lived in a village, I had traded a dream for peace and quiet. But I like to think that my being here is proof that you can have both.
EC: Bonus Question: If you could quarantine with any writer throughout history, who would they be and why?
BH: Ha, I’m going to say Dante Alighieri. If he thought he knew what the nine circles of hell looked like, wait until I show him like, an hour of any news broadcast.
Brandon Hansen grew up in Long Lake, Wisconsin, and graduated from Northern Michigan University. He is currently a Truman Capote scholar and MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at the University of Montana, as well as an English and reading tutor for the Princeton Review’s Tutor.com. His writing has been Pushcart nominated, and he has work in Puerto Del Sol, LIT Magazine, Cape Rock Poetry, and in a few other places.
Emily Collins is the Interviews Editor for CutBank and a MFA in fiction candidate at the University of Montana. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Orleans Review, The Florida Review, The Atticus Review, The South Carolina Review, and others. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and other anthologies. When she’s not interviewing incredible writers, she enjoys hiking and volunteering.