Drawn from “A Conversation with Tess Gallagher.” The Atlantic Monthly. July 10, 1997

<http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/factfict/gallaghe.htm>

AM: "Rain Flooding Your Campfire," another story in this collection, seems to tell Raymond Carver's celebrated story "Cathedral" from a different perspective. What led you to take this tack?

TG: This story was originally written as "The Harvest," which was chosen by Joyce Carol Oates and Raymond Smith to be published in the Ontario Review back in Fall/Winter 1983-84. It was written around the same time Ray wrote "Cathedral." Ray loved my story, and as I'm sure he would admit if he were here, it was my material. The blind man who visited us -- and upon whom both stories are based -- was my friend, and Ray knew I was going to write about it, but I was teaching and he wasn't, so he got to it first. When I finally had time I just went ahead and wrote mine. My story became its own story, but it was also in dialogue with his. Literature isn't a closed circuit. It's a universe full of intersecting dialogues. I understand that "The Harvest" is being taught with Ray's story in some literature and writing classes across the country. Now they'll have this version, "Rain Flooding Your Campfire," which goes a step further. Ray and I both loved rewriting a story, trying to see what it was about. So here are three views of the same material.