turtleneck: Tell me about the inspiration for the stories in Close Program.

Jason Gurley: Inspiration-good place to begin. The stories that make up Close Program are very diverse: there are languid, slow-to-the-head tales and quick comic sketches. This being the case, most of the quick works were written in the moment, riding high on the wave of whatever mood inspired the thought. The longer stories I generally write while enveloping myself with music that complements the mood I'm trying to achieve. Many of the stories are whims; others have certain direct influences-others, I'm seeing after the fact, bear similarities to other works I've read in the past, most notably, as my agent pointed out recently, "The Place," which is, in a general sense, very similar to the children's story The Bridge to Terabithia.

turtleneck: Many of your characters have been enlisted in the Army. Were you or someone close to you in the military, and how do you feel that affected your writing?

JG: Until you brought this up I'd never really thought about it. I've never been in the military; the closest I've come is watching friends enlist after high school. I wish I'd had the nerve, but at the same time, I think that job is better left to those who have it in them. I don't. My father was never drafted; his brothers never were. Both of my grandfathers served, and I've gained a new respect for them just by reading old scribbled notes on the backs of photographs they once mailed home to their sweethearts.

Now, thinking about this, I can name another inspiration for a story in Close Program: "Swinging to the Big Bands" was influenced by my relationship with my maternal grandfather; he is still very much alive, and the story is, for me, another reason I would never let him die, if I had a choice.

turtleneck: In "Graduation Day," the key event that occurs within the story is the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. What connection did you personally have with that event?

JG: "Graduation Day" deals not so much with the assassination of King as it does the pandemonium that seemed to spread across the country as a result. Until I began researching material for my second novel, Sleeps the Stars, I hadn't been aware of the rioting that had taken place. As I interviewed people for that book, certain ones recalled the fear and the pain of that night and the ones after. People revolted against society in the wake of King's death-but in effect were rising up against everything that King had tried so hard to promote.

"Graduation Day" is actually an excerpt from Sleeps the Stars, one in which I tried to accurately capture the horror of that long night and end abruptly in that moment, wanting to leave in the reader's mouth the same sour taste I experienced when I learned about the riots myself.