I wrote an entire novel (IfYou Yvant Me to Stay) with a sound– track of classic and obscure soul songs, and as I was writing it, and fig– uring out how to revise it, I wrestled a lot with this notion ofwhether the musical references enhance the work. The risk, of course, is that the reader not only does not know the corpus of Sylvester "Sly" Stone, but doesn't care to know it. My rule is this: the story must work without lmowledge of the song. And if you do know the songs, well, that's gravy. 1hough I would strongly urge you to check out Sly. CR: You have taught for a number ofyears at both graduate and levels. you often find yourself assigning again and again in semester to "set the tone" for your classes? stories do you assign that you feel might be overlooked or in writing classes around country? MP: There are two stories I use to begin discussion of craft and technique in classes ranging from beginning undergraduate to gradu– ate workshops. They are both by Tobias Wolff: "Say Yes" and "Bullet in the Brain." They're both short enough to read aloud, extremely economical; smart; and very, very different formally and stylistically. That ultimately is what I would like my students to understand: that you don't find "a voice"; if you want to be a good writer, you find many, many voices, one (at least) for each story you tell. I have some stories that I use, over and over, that do not make it into anthologies, or at least that I haven't seen in anthologies. Here's a partial list: Gina Berriault, "The Stone Boy" Conrad Aiken, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" William H. Gass, "The Pedersen Kid" Donald Hall, ''Argument and Persuasion" Janet Peery, "What the Thunder Said" Isaac Babel, "My First Goose" 63
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