Who Am I?

My authorial identity is something I’ve been searching for since I first put pen to paper. I’ve been trying and failing to create art and stories in various mediums for most of my life. These attempts have included, but are not limited to, unsold feature-length screenplays; student short films; lyrics and music for multiple garage and electronic bands; film review blogs; YouTube video essays, some of which actually performed well; and a now sizable collection of unfinished novel drafts. Despite, or perhaps because of, my myriad attempts, I have yet to publish any of my fiction writing. My authorial identity, as it stands today, is defined in equal parts by what I know about myself as an author, what I don’t yet know, and what I hope to be true.

I envy authors like Gaiman, Atwood, and Martin, who have the versatility and capability to tell compelling stories across multiple mediums and genres. I enjoy sweeping works of epic fiction as much as concise tales of personal horror, and I find incredible feats of storytelling as often in print literature and audiobooks as in film and streaming TV. If I could only be one thing, I would be a fiction writer. That’s medium I have ultimately settled on as the ideal outlet for creating art and telling my stories. If perchance I’m lucky enough to ever successfully be two things, I’d love to dabble in writing for the screen.

I’m not unique. The desire to write fiction is commonplace. I’d wager there are more people with an idea for a novel than there are people who have read a novel this year. I’m not unique in demographics sense either. I am a cis, hetero, white male. Writers who match that description have disproportionately hogged the publishing opportunities and critical attention in literature for centuries. In contemporary lit circles, there has been an effort to elevate historically disenfranchised voices, and rightfully so. Many of the best novels I’ve read in the last few years have been written by non-white and/or non-male-identifying authors (Emily St. John Mandel, Fonda Lee, and Sally Rooney, to name a few).

What I’m left with is who I have chosen to be and who my life experiences have made me. I believe in mercy and grace, for people and for animals. I believe sentience is a spectrum and animal life is vastly undervalued, so I never kill anything by choice. Even spiders. I rescue cats, dozens every year, and I TNVR (trap, neuter/spay, vaccinate, and release) feral cats in even greater numbers. I am also childless by choice, despite being happily married to my best friend, because I don’t see the world as needing more human beings in it. I believe creating art and engaging with culture gives life greater meaning. And I believe that kindness is a human mandate and contentment our reward.

As an author, I strive to be earnest in my work and online. I don’t want to play a character. Is M.C. Ragland a pseudonym? Only sort of. It is my legal name, but not the name friends and family call me. But for my own health and happiness and that of my partner, I believe it’s important to maintain a modicum of privacy as I push myself and my writing into online spaces. I want to be honest, and I want to offer readers genuine intimacy, particularly in my fiction, but I don’t want to live online or feel owned by other people. I think as an author, my writing should speak for me first, and all other forms of online engagement (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) should be supplemental.

I hope you’ll stick around as I share my work and glimpses into my writing process, as I learn and (hopefully) get better. This website and blog are in their infancies, but so is my career as a writer. In three weeks, I’ll finish the last course of my Creative Writing and Fiction undergraduate degree program, and I’ll be on my own. No more workshops, no more writing assignments. It’s time to take the training wheels off and skin my knees.