Most students will not be able to make a living writing, especially creative or fiction writing. What do you try and impart to those students who will go on to ostensibly non-writing careers?

I, as is too often the case, use myself as an example: I write and I teach because I was never any good at anything else. I never thought about making a living at writing, because I always had teachers who didn't make a living at their writing, they made it teaching, and editing, and freelancing. One (at least this one) didn't start writing thinking I would make a living at it: I started writing
because I thought I had something unique to say, and I thought I could say it in a way that was my own. There is a fundamental arrogance here, some of it (probably much of it) misguided, but that's another thing I tell my students that
they'll probably need.

Are you planning future novels? What is your next project?

I just finished a short story collection called Carrying the Torch, which is set mostly in Georgia and South Carolina, and I'm trying to finish a difficult to finish novel called An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England about an
arsonist who accidentally burns down the Emily Dickinson House, goes to prison for it, and then upon his release finds out there is a market for this kind of arson.