Washington Square.

On air is the Audiotown square for the Washington Square Review, Lansing Community College's literary journal.

Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing.

Hey, there.

This is Melissa Ford Luckin, editor for the Washington Square Review.

I'm here today with Dylan Hoover, whose piece Aztec is in our Summer 25 issue.

Hey there, Dylan.

Hi, Melissa.

Thank you for having me on.

Yeah, for sure.

Give us a little overview of your piece and let us know.

How did you come to write it?

Sure thing.

So Aztec follows the story of an Aztec in the 1500s, around the time when the Spanish arrived in the Americas.

And the main narrator is grappling with the aftermath and the loss that he encounters with the city that he's born in, which is Tenoche de Lan.

And the story is mostly concerned about grief and that continual emotion throughout.

And when it comes to inspirations for this piece, I would say it really began last summer when I took a trip out West.

I've spent most of my life on the East Coast.

And something about going to Arizona, to California, and seeing the influence of Aztec culture, it really left an impression on me.

And when I returned, I was compelled to watch documentaries, to immerse myself in the mythology of the Aztecs.

I suppose that's where this piece originated.

What was it about the Aztec culture that intrigued you so much?

Well, sadly, I think it's the fall of the Aztecs and seeing really incredible civilization that had all this technology, all these traditions.

It's actually a sad thing to see a civilization like the Aztecs fall from this imperial regime that just stormed an entire civilization and toppled it.

It's something that I was compelled to write about.

It sounds like a lot of unanswered questions.

Yeah.

So you decided to write the story.

Did the story come to you right away?

How did you shape the story?

Yeah.

So I would say when I returned from California, it took me, like, a few weeks.

I went to Barnes and Nobles.

I bought a book on, like, the mythology.

I dived into that, and then I also got another book on the Conquistadors.

It took me a few weeks to really scan through the information and see, do I have a story here?

And I love.

Like, I'm a really big history buff, but I mostly focus on European history and specifically with England and Britain.

So thinking about, like, this other, like, culture took time.

Once I was able to find, like, a central emotion, because that's really what carries stories is there has to be a central issue.

And for me, it was a sense of grief.

And I think that was prevalent with the fall of the Aztecs.

So I. I compiled the story like that.

One of the things you and I were chatting about before we started recording officially is your use of dialogue.

And I. I asked you if you had kind of some thoughts about that, and you let me know that you do.

So let's hear them.

Yeah.

So I think with the dialogue in this story, as with any story, it's really important that the dialogue serves the characters.

It gives the reader a strong sense of who these people are, what's at stake, and just in general helps blood credence to the world of the story.

And thinking about this piece, I had to include the Nahuatl language, which is the native language of the Aztecs.

And I knew the reader would probably have to go, like, research most of the translations, but I wanted to stay faithful to the people, to this culture.

I don't want to compromise that by using English and just looking at a random section from the story.

I also tried to stay faithful to, like, the main antagonist of the story, which is the conquistadors and Fernando Cortez and like, the establishment of New Spain.

And I really wanted.

I just really wanted the story to feel authentic.

Right from each, like, snippet of dialogue.

I really wanted it to feel complete.

Yep.

That is one of the challenges of writing historically.

You want it to have the historic vibe, but it also needs to be accessible to the reader.

And I can appreciate what you were saying about it being like a.

A big decision, a bold move just to go ahead and do it the way that you did it, because as a writer, that's the only way to do it.

Right.

Once you realize this is the way I'm going to do it, it's either going to sink or it's going to swim.

You just don't.

You don't always know which way it's going to go.

But that's.

It's complicated decision.

That's what I'm thinking about, is how many elements went into the dialogue.

You got the historical part, the characterization part, the words, right.

And then the way that it functions in the text.

So it's doing a lot of different things.

And that's what makes it, I think, so complicated.

And I think specifically with historical fiction, you have to a lot like certain amount of creative license where you depart from the actual history.

You want it to feel authentic.

But at the same time, if you want the story to feel literary and rely on a central, like, emotional strand, then you have to give yourself the Room to expand and maybe depart from the actual history.

But then also you want the reader to feel like, oh, this is actually something that happened in the past.

So it's a fine medium.

Yeah, yeah, it's really complicated.

I think that the dialogue also, as we're talking about it now specifically in your piece, also serves as part of the setting.

Yeah.

I think there's no way you can tell the story without thinking about where it's set, which, if the reader explores the background of this piece, they'll find that Tenochtitlan, it was the big capital of the Aztecs, and that's where the Spanish arrived and met the emperor Moctezuma.

And it's very complex, actually.

Tenochtan, because it was set in modern day Mexico City, which is the place that I would love to visit in the future.

I haven't had a chance to.

But it's actually kind of a tragedy, though, what happened there.

That there was this lake, Lake Tex Cocoa.

And basically the Spanish drained it and built on top of the ruins of the Aztec.

And even to this day, the Mexicans are finding relics and, like, all these treasures just buried beneath the city.

It's.

It's kind of mindboggling.

But that setting to no Shon is.

Was such a unique place that even the Spanish, when they arrived, they were completely shocked to find, like, these pyramids and all these structures that they thought were only located in Europe or in the East.

So it was quite impressive.

That is pretty wild.

How does this story fit in with your other creative works?

I would say the piece is obviously historical fiction.

It's just I have, like, a very vast range, like, as a writer, where all my short stories rely on these intense emotions.

And I always strive to make my work literary.

But I think this piece is very separate from the other works because it deals with this unique period in time.

And it's also.

It's very strongly anti imperialist.

And a lot of my other work doesn't really deal with that.

I'll go into further detail later, but I wrote this story called New China, and I presented it to my MFA workshop.

It basically is like.

It's an.

Like an alternate history.

So I guess this one is a departure because that's more speculative of, like, what could have been.

And then this piece is obviously trying to capture something authentic.

You mentioned workshopping and your programs.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about your educational background and what you're doing.

Doing right now?

Yeah, so I just recently finished my MFA in creative writing at The University of New Hampshire.

That took me two years.

And I really had such a great time in workshop.

Like in New Hampshire, they don't really give you writing prompts.

Like, maybe the other MFA programs would sort of like, expect you to present your own material for workshops.

They go through it and you get feedback from the entire class.

And I don't know, I just really found it helpful.

I began the program not really understanding what it meant to be literary.

I'm laughing because.

I'm laughing because people tell me that all the time when I ask this question.

They often say, well, I didn't really know what was going to happen to me in the MFA program.

I had no idea what was going to go on, but it sounded fun, so I went and did it.

So.

So anyway, back to you.

When you first started, what did you expect it to be like?

Yeah, so as an undergrad, I really, like.

I guess I feel changed in the sense that I put so much concentration, effort, and emphasis on world building and on, like the aesthetics of the piece on, I guess, just the theatrics of writing.

I didn't realize there's this deeper emotional resonance that you can actually beg from your readers.

And I think just also like having to revise your work, getting feedback from multiple different people, and also just, I don't know, like, all the helpful writerly suggestions from faculty and stuff.

My one professor always had this rule of get in this, get in late, get out early.

Basically.

Writers tend to overwrite because they're trying to work their way into the story.

And you don't really need all that in the beginning.

And that's part of the process of revision, where you rip off the first few pages and then you rip off the last and there's your story.

And I didn't realize that there was just so much helpful suggestions and support that I think the MFA program is just quite wonderful.

I think it really changed me as a writer.

That's great.

You've mentioned a couple times the engagement that the writer and the reader have.

And it seems to me that with a lot of genre fiction or commercial fiction that there's more supplied for the reader.

It's maybe perhaps easier reading.

And I don't mean that to disparage it.

That's just the way it is.

But with literary, you've mentioned a couple times giving more space for the reader to use their own imagination, use their own thoughts, and to do more work, essentially.

Does that make sense to you?

Do you see it that way with literary fiction?

Oh, absolutely.

And I think because I really love historical fiction.

I feel like sometimes because it's a genre, of course, that other writers might be more inclined to stick with just straight up literary fiction.

But I kind of want to pioneer something original with historical fiction.

I want to strike a balance between historical and literary and not.

I don't want to get completely caught up with the historical theatrics of the period and the time.

But I also realized you need a certain amount of that for the reader to invest in sitting down and reading this entire piece or even a book.

Yeah.

So I just think it's very important to balance those two because if you lean strictly into either one, then you're.

You're sort of.

You're stuck with that, I suppose.

Like, and not there's anything wrong with literary.

That's what I'm aiming for.

I know that like, sometimes historical fiction, fiction might just be dismissed as genre and.

Yeah, I think you're right.

People might not be interested.

Yeah.

Why do you think that is?

I don't, honestly.

I think because history is very difficult to like, comprehend because there's so many dates, there's so many events.

I think because it demands that people research.

And that's kind of like an endless pursuit of filling in the blanks.

And I don't.

And I think it's even more difficult to write because you're constantly making sure everything's accurate.

And then you have to make the hard call of where do I depart from the actual history?

It's a really tough call.

Yeah.

I think most people, it's.

It can be dense to read and it can also be extremely.

Yeah, I don't think it's a flavor for everyone.

That's kind of why I want to like, pioneer almost like this hybrid genre between historical and literary.

That way I keep the greener readers grounded.

Yeah, I think that's pretty fascinating.

It is a puzzle.

How do you work creatively within a pre.

Existing framework?

Right.

You only have so much room to adjust things and there's a lot of things you can't change.

So I think that what you were talking about earlier with making use of the emotion of the piece would probably go a long way to achieve something there.

Yeah, I definitely agree.

And I think with this story I really came back to like, these central emotions of a pain, of grief, of sadness, and having like following a single point of view with one distinct narrator and getting like these certain snippets of his life really highlight those emotions.

I just was thinking that those basic emotions are something that any reader can relate to.

So even if they can't relate to the historical background, obviously we can't because we weren't there, but we can relate to the emotions.

And that's your way in, your way to connect.

Right.

And I'm also hoping that the story extends itself to contemporary times and the anti imperialist undertone is translated into modernity.

For sure.

You mentioned workshopping in your MFA program.

And then I also know that you've done workshopping around the world.

I'd love to hear about other places where you've done workshopping and how do they do things different, differently, or, you know, what's the same.

Yeah, so I think that calls the mind my experience.

When I was an undergrad, I studied abroad at Lancaster University for a semester as an exchange student and I took a few creative writing courses there.

And well, it's, it's actually interesting because no matter where you go, I feel connected as a community of writers.

It's a very unique feeling that we can all relate to each other.

But then I think what makes the international experience different is that part of the job of the writers is to experience.

And like going international, you experience all these other cultures, all these other traditions, and you kind of bring that with you to workshop.

I think that's what makes the experience so different.

And also I think specifically thinking about the uk, they're much more focused, I would say on like genre and the workshop itself is sort of similar.

But I do think the US provides a lot of support from faculty when it comes to like suggestions and everything.

I think in the UK it's more like what you pull from the actual workshop with other students and your peers.

You said that they were more focused on genre.

How did you come to have that awareness?

For me it was.

I wrote like a few pieces when I was there and I noticed with the supplement readings that it was more, um, it was less literary and more on like different genres.

So yeah, I think it's definitely different on the front of literary versus genre.

Okay, so it was mostly through the reading material that you noticed it?

Yeah, I would say through the reading material.

Did you find that the, the writing community was just similarly supportive of each other in the way that, you know, the willingness to read each other's work and that kind of thing?

Oh, absolutely.

I think that's just the nature of writers that we're curious about other writers work.

We want to help others, but then we also want help ourselves and we need direction.

And I feel like I received that in the international workshop.

Yeah, other Countries where you've done workshopping.

Well, that was actually a writer's, like, summer workshop.

It wasn't like, through an actual school.

Okay, I would definitely.

Yeah, let's hear about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I did that.

I think it was two summers ago.

It was right before I began my mfa.

And basically, it's like a small community of writers that meets on the island of Colossus in Greece.

And it's the same with that experience, which is you take in the culture of Greece.

We went on all these excursions.

We went and experienced all that Greece had to offer, and we took that and applied it to our work.

I mean, some people wrote about their own struggles, like back home or in other places, because it was a collection of writers from all over the world.

But I think as a group, experiencing Greece and the Mediterranean and taking in just everything before us really helped give us inspiration to write.

Was there anything that stood out, especially when you were traveling around and experiencing different things?

Yeah, I noticed that before we went to the island of Fossils, we went to this city in northern Greece called the Saloniki.

And I was the only one in the whole workshop that loved that city.

Everybody was like, it's too busy.

It feels overcrowded, kind of confusing.

And I'm the only one that I was like, well, I mean, I like the island, but I like Saloniki the best.

And I thought that was kind of strange.

But, yeah, it made me, like, stand out in the sense that I could write about that city from a different perspective that probably they wouldn't.

Did you grow up in the city?

Why?

Do you just have a thing for cities?

I actually.

Yeah, so, actually grew up in a rural area, so I prefer the city.

Yeah.

Since you mentioned growing up in a rural community, how does that.

That fit into your writing view, do you think?

Actually, I've written a few pieces that I've included in my MFA thesis, and I think it is pertinent to my work, but I also don't prefer to dwell on it.

There's so much, like, other things to write about.

Like, as I mentioned earlier, I'm a real history buff and I really like to dive into, like, a certain period or time and then draw from that.

But I have up written about my experience and especially, like, in my childhood of coming from that rural area and how it shaped me and gave me, like, the proper motivation to go international, to go as far as I can and meet as many people as I can and take and learn from the experience.

And I'm going to tease you and say is that because there weren't many people to meet in the rural community.

So, like, I've met all these people.

I'm ready to go out and see who else is out there.

Well, I think there are people, but probably the wrong sort of people.

Right.

I should tell you that I lived in a rural community for about 30 years, so I can relate.

So I'm laughing at myself a little bit as well.

So what kind of work are you doing currently?

So I've had this project that I've been working on since the beginning of my mfa, and I really sound the motivation to write it from my advisor in the mfa, because I had the idea since high school and I finally had the courage to write it.

And it actually began in a very strange way where I took this screenplay class with my professor, and I decided to turn the story into a screenplay before anything else.

And it's basically, it's a historical fiction piece set in the American Revolution from the British perspective.

Because I'm very intrigued by British history, and I have been since I was really young.

And I don't know, like, I think with, like, current politics and everything, I really, like, wanted to take a jab at the American mythology and ethos of putting the Founding Fathers on a pedestal.

Because the more, like, I dig into, like, Tory Loyalist literature from the British perspective, the more I find out how wicked and corrupt the Founders were.

And I think it's really interesting to see, like, an alternative lens of what the British perspective was like, because there are so many books on, like, the Patriots on the American side breaking into, like, the governor's home in Boston and, like, loot gutting his home of, like, tar and feathering of Americans loyal to England being forced out of their homes to flee to Canada, flee to Britain, and just leave everything behind.

Because the Patriot insurrection, like, forced them out of this place that they came to respect.

And it's really a story of.

Of exile.

And that's what I want to tell with that piece.

Interesting.

So it sounds like the alternate perspective would give you the opportunity to paint a different picture.

Oh, definitely.

And I'm also hoping that it challenges everyone's view on the Revolution, because, to be honest, I really can't stand Hamilton.

Like, the musical.

I don't really, like.

I'm not a fan of, like, the glorification of, like, the Founders and the Patriots.

I think the way Britain was so far advanced compared to America politically and.

And socially, it's really sort of a tragedy that a small band of colonials undermined the colonies, especially for people that were actually rather content with the current order of things.

And it's definitely interesting, like dusting up on this history.

I have like thousands of books on this, and I'm hoping to turn this into a novel in my doctorate.

That's what I'm going to spend the next three years writing.

It's just not beautiful.

That sounds great.

And you're going to the right place to do it.

Oh, yeah.

If people would like to follow you online and watch your progress, where can they find you?

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram, my handles at uptillhoov96 and I tend to just use Instagram.

Okay, beautiful.

Well, we'll be sure to include that in the show notes so people can follow along and see what you're up to.

Awesome.

Great.

Well, thanks a lot for coming in and talking to me today.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Thanks for stopping by the audio town square of the Washington Square Review.

Until next time, this has been the Washington Square on air from Lansing Community College.

To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, Visit LCC News.edu.

wSL writing is messy, but do it anyway.