05/20/2026
Featured writer
Rob Davidson
Writer, teacher, world traveler, Fulbright prize winner, former Peace Corps volunteer, radio host, musician, native of Minnesota, resident of Chico, author of prize-winning short story collections Rob Davidson took the time to answer some e-mailed questions the other day. You’ll hear Rob’s story, “The Photograph,” read by actor Jim Sink at CapLit on Friday, May 22 at CLARA, and we thought you might like to know more about how that story came to be, and maybe a little more about Rob
Q. Rob, “The Photograph” is a story about a man whose life is changed when he becomes a photographer’s subject. What inspired it?
A. "The Photograph" started on a winter morning. I was sitting outside in one of the yards on the Chico State campus, writing in my notebook. Some guy was walking around taking photographs of people--not me. I started daydreaming. What if he suddenly took a picture of me? How would I react? I started writing a "what if" sketch. I got the first couple of pages down. I liked the voice, the nervous, post-Covid lockdown anxiety. I ran with it. I have long had an interest in photography, especially street photography, so I started riffing on that idea. Add to that a protagonist who is not himself an artist, but is open to the transformative power of performative art. It was a fun story to write.
Q. “The Photograph” is only one of the stories in your prize-winning collection Welcome Back to the World. You’ve said that the collection was meant to offer "lessons of hope during darker times." How does “The Photograph” do that? And, were you thinking of “lessons of hope” when you started writing, and assembling, the stories in this collection? Do the stories relate to our specific, admittedly difficult, times?
A. Welcome Back to the World began in 2016 while I was teaching in Taiwan on a Fulbright. Trump somehow became the Republican nominee for president. By the time I got back to the States he'd sewn it up. As I drafted each new story for the book, I consciously engaged with political and cultural narratives that emerged out of that first Trump administration. If Trump was going on about immigration and the border, I wrote a story about that, presenting, I hope, a more nuanced and humane examination of that situation. There are stories addressing housing affordability, access to health care, toxic masculinity, corrupt leadership, and so on. But this is art, not a lecture. To this point, "The Photograph" is a Kafka-esque satire of the bureaucracy, but also an assertion of the value of the arts, something often misunderstood, denigrated, or ignored by DJT.
Q. Rob, you’re originally from Minnesota, and yet, here you are in Chico California, with many, many stops in between. What brought you to Chico? What keeps you there?
A. I’m there because I’m a writer who needs a job! I've been teaching creative writing at Chico State since 2002. My wife and I raised two kids in this town. It's a pretty good gig for a writer. One of the perks is that I can travel and teach creative writing all over the world--Taiwan, Spain, and England, among other spots. I've now lived in Northern California longer than I have lived in any other single location. And I love writing about California, so I am both lucky and grateful.
Q. I’m always curious about how writers work. You've mentioned that you have a very disciplined writing habit – you write nearly every day. Suppose nothing comes? What do you do?
A. I don't actually write every day. It depends on my schedule—whether I am teaching or not. But I do try to write 5-6 days a week. On a really bad day, if the muse is raising her middle finger to me, I catch up on submissions and queries. I clean my writing studio. I don't beat myself up about it. I know I'll be back in the seat the next day. In a certain sense, what happens at the desk on any given day has nothing to do with what happened the day before, good or bad. Each day brings its own bright opportunities.
Q. What a great outlook! That’s very encouraging to hear. And I’m sure, when the muse is better behaved and the work is going well, you’re not thinking about how people will react to your story. I know you’ve been a featured writer with us, years ago, when CapLit was Stories on Stage. What’s it like for you to sit in an audience and hear your work read? What’s your reaction? Are you aware of the audience’s reaction? Does the reader ever find something in the story you weren’t even aware you’d put there?
A. A good actor brings their own voice and spirit to the page, inhabiting the story. For a writer, this can be quite revealing. Of course, the author gets invested in the story's language, and maybe even has a melody for the voice in their head. The actor presents another interpretation, another way of understanding what the story is putting across. A skilled actor can play around with tone, inflection, and rhythm—it can really impact how a line lands. It's an amazing thing.
Then there is the communal aspect. It's great when a room full of people laugh or sigh at a given moment. Something is being shared, a collective experience of a work of art. The fact that it's your work of art is gratifying, but I try not to get up in my own head about it. Once a story is done, I'm just another reader.
Rob, thanks for doing this. I'm really looking forward hearing your beautiful story read at the event!
Meet Rob and hear his story read at CapLit, Friday May 22, at the Auditorium at CLARA, 24th and O Streets, Midtown. Copies of Welcome Back to the World will be for sale and Rob will be happy to sign yours!
