Author Matthew Vollmer, a former Seventh-day Adventist, was recently interviewed on "The Millions"--an e-zine/blog that covers books, arts, and culture.

Vollmer is the debut author of Future Missionaries of America, a collection of short stories released earlier in the year. The New York Times review of the book states: "Vollmer writes with equal dexterity about teenagers and adults, men and women, atheists and believers, Goths and jocks, dropouts and doctors - less interested in getting down any particular demographic, it would seem, than in revealing the humans beneath. Expertly structured and utterly convincing, these stories represent the arrival of a strong new voice."

Nic Brown, also an author, asked the questions. Here's what Vollmer had to say about his Adventist upbringing, how his parents reacted to his book, and writing about the SDA experience.

Brown: In your book, you write several amazing, matter-of-fact, contemporary, and complicated stories involving aspects of Christianity - namely Seventh Day Adventists. I know you have some family background with this religion. Did you feel uncomfortable at any point writing about people of this faith (and those only encountering it, like the protagonist of the book's title story), or worried about how any Seventh Day Adventists you know would react? How have they reacted?

Matthew Vollmer: Yes, it's true I grew up Seventh-day Adventist. People may find it hard to believe that stopping each week for 24 hours (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday) to rest, reflect, and abstain from "secular" activities (TV watching, sports, shopping, school, work, reading Mad magazine, etc.) could be great, but by and large being an SDA kid was pretty great, at least in my family. Sure, my church and grade school (and boarding academy) had some kooks, but as you pointed out in your interview, we're all freaks and there are kooks everywhere. When you grow up SDA, you grow up in a very tight knit group of people, the majority of whom like to have fun, even if they don't, by and large, dance or participate in competitive sports or listen to rock n roll or endorse the consumption of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, or "flesh foods." I suppose my problem began to emerge in college, once I started to ask questions about the "27 Fundamental Beliefs." Also, I started to meet people who weren't SDA. I started to appreciate different cultures, different cultural experiences, and eventually, I just found the SDA culture much too inhibitive, too insular. From my perspective, the SDA church was one that wanted to provide answers for why everything is the way it is. And those answers were often unsatisfying. Not to mention I surrendered the idea of having to have an answer for everything. I realized that sometimes, it's okay for things to remain mysterious.

For years I'd tried to write about the SDA experience. But usually, when I did, I aimed at the easiest possible targets, like hypocritical characters, or characters who cherish some secret sin or something; I wrote one really terrible story about a church Treasurer, who had a crush on a teenage boy operating a soft serve yogurt machine. But those stories didn't work as well; they seemed forced - as artificial and agenda-ridden as the bedtime stories I listened to as a kid, where "little Sammy never disobeyed his mommy and daddy again!" It wasn't until I stumbled upon the idea of writing about outsiders who experience SDA culture that I found I could really capture both the strangeness and earnestness of SDAs, and use representations of that culture as fuel for the story. Also, I could harness the energies of my own desire (and failure) to fully understand this peculiar group of people, while portraying them as real people with real struggles. Hopefully, despite the fact that SDAs might seem strange, I hope people will see them in a favorable light.

As for SDA reactions: I only know what people in my family have said (though I predict that plenty would be scandalized by the book). My father, who is one of my biggest supporters, has, as of this writing, still not read the book - but that's not saying a lot: he's more of a Suduku player and internet news reader. My mom read most of the stories beforehand, I think, and will usually offer some sort of vague praise, like, "I just don't know how you do it," or, "How do you think this stuff up?!" Which is sort of how my grandmother reacted. Imagine the nicest and sweetest person on the planet, a woman who has never said anything bad about anybody (and who always, always counteracts criticism of someone else with something positive), and who, when she sees a sex scene in a movie, says, "Aw... I was hoping they weren't going to be naughty!" And then imagine her reading a story collection by her grandson that's filled with foul language, sex scenes, violence, and all sorts of pathological behaviors. You know what she said? "It's not exactly my cup of tea, but what an amazing imagination you have!"

Finally (I know this is a long response, but you ask me about this SDA stuff and it really gets me going), my Uncle Don, whom I adore, and who played in a folk band in the 60s (and recently revived that band) that was the equivalent of the Grateful Dead for SDAs, asked me if he'd be able to use my book for devotionals with his church members. It was a joke, of course, and we both laughed, but I couldn't stop thinking about that. Like, why couldn't he use the book for devotionals? It was and is a book about people trying to figure out life and how to live it. So I wrote him and told him what I thought and lo and behold, he not only agreed, but said he'd felt bad about making that joke.

Read the whole interview.

In another interview, Vollmer describes why his stories appear to have a sense of longing and loneliness. Vollmer:

"I feel like any explanation on my part is going to feel artificial here, but at the same time, I can’t help but think that maybe it has something to do with my formative years, growing up in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina, being a part of a religious movement that defined itself as ”not of this world,” attending a boarding school in rural Georgia. Like most humans, I experienced a lot of desires and longings, and though I wouldn’t necessarily have ever described myself as truly lonely, I did feel for many years that I was, thanks to my religion, different, not of the world, not meant to be a part of the world. And yet, that’s exactly what I wanted: to feel like I could make connections with anyone."

Vollmer earned a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina, an M.A. in English from North Carolina State University, and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He now lives with his wife, Kelly Pender, and their son, Elijah, in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he teaches in the English Department at Virginia Tech.