By Will Anderson

This is what Brian Conn did the day before: woke up, ate oatmeal, and talked to Human Resources about his health insurance. He checked his mailbox, explored a nearby hiking trail, and responded to some emails. And before eating some dinner and heading to bed, Brian sat down to write. He wrote for three hours.

In late October, it was announced that Brian Conn had won the 2013 Bard Fiction Prize. The prize came with certain accolades, such as $30,000 and press for his work, but it also came with some parameters. Winners of the fiction prize move to Bard for a semester where they write and live amongst the faculty and students of the college. There is little structure to the way Brian must spend his time. He has office hours and gave a reading earlier this month. But other than that, he is left alone.

And now he finds himself here, transplanted from Oakland, Calif., in a house that Leon Botstein’s mother once lived in, with a flickering kitchen light, a backyard shared with Olin, and a 1993 IBM laptop, which has no internet connection, 1 MB of ram, and only a simple word processor. It is here that Brian Conn will work for the next six weeks.

Bard established the Fiction Prize in 2001 in an effort to recognize and promote young, contemporary writers. Contestants must be under 39 years old and have already been published. A winner is announced each October, determined by a panel of Bard faculty (Mary Caponegro, Robert Kelly, Brad Morrow). In the past, winners have included Karen Russell, Edie Meidav, and Paul La Farge.

Conn submitted to the prize on a whim, an approach that has worked seemingly well in the past. In 2004, he thought to apply to the Clarion West workshop in Seattle—an intensive six week program where participants write a story a week, workshop for hours a day, and live in close quarters with one another. After completing the workshop, he decided to try and find an MFA program. He landed at Brown University, a feat he described as a “miracle.” And then he decided to move to Hawaii for a summer, live in an empty apartment, isolated and alone, where he ended up writing roughly half of his first novel, “Fixed Stars.” The work went on to be published in Spring 2010 by Fiction Collective 2, an author-run, not-for-profit publisher that specializes in experimental and avant-garde fiction.

But let’s back up a bit. Conn grew up in the mountains above Santa Cruz, Calif., in a community he only describes as “odd.” He went through high school fascinated by science and math and planned to continue studying these subjects when he arrived at Yale in 1994. But then his interests veered off course. He decided to study Archeology.

“If you majored in science, then that could get you a job. If you major in economics, then that could get you a job. Any other degree, they’re pretty much all the same,” Conn said. “So I thought that what I should do is go into the course catalogue, and pick out the courses I want to take, and then figure out which major would allow me to take most of these courses.”

Interestingly enough, Conn kind of looks like an archeologist. He has fair skin, light, blonde hair, and academic facial hair. He is tall, skinny, and soft-spoken. He talks like someone who is intensely fascinated by what’s around him; he loves taking walks and loves being in new places.

Anyway, after completing his undergraduate, with his archeology degree in hand, Conn drifted around from place to place, employed as everything from a bartender in New Orleans to a used bookstore employee in Boston. At one point, he bought an old typewriter at a pawn shop.

Conn wrote during this entire period. His work is generally considered under the genre of science fiction, or fantasy. He plays with time and perception in his stories, and his writing is often described as “dream-like.”

During his time in Boston, Conn had a couple of stories published, and his writing accelerated when he entered the Clarion workshop. Which led to Brown, which led to Hawaii, which led to “Fixed Stars,” which led to the Bard Fiction Prize.

When Conn received the news, he was in Oakland, Calif. He had been living there for the past year or so, working at a well-paid job and still writing on the side. “I was quite shocked [when I found out about winning],” Conn said. “I really didn’t expect to get this.”

“I remember the last week, packing up the apartment, and … these are some of the favorite times in my life. You’ll have this when you graduate; it’s something to look forward to. It happens when you’ve been doing something for a long time, and it’s about to come to an end, and you just have no idea what you’re going into. My things were packed up; I put them in storage. I was in this totally empty apartment, sleeping on the floor, wandering around Oakland, being unsure of what was going to happen to me the next day. I’m going to this crazy place,” Conn said.

And here he is. Some of Conn’s expectations have shifted. He expected the area towns to be wealthier, the students are smarter than he thought they would be, and he is surprised by how much everyone seems to think about music.

Conn’s short-term plans are now solidified. He is working on a novella, something he describes as taking much longer than expected. He is living in Botstein’s mother’s house until the end of the semester. He is continuing to ease into Bard, becoming familiar with its customs, and establishing some routines. But beyond that, it’s less clear. After Bard, he may go to Mexico, or Alaska, or Southern California. He may go into teaching, or not. Or he may just let it figure itself out, as he has done in the past, hoping all goes well, and new opportunities arise.

With the help of professor Melanie Nicholson, ISO, LASO, Bard Center for Civic Engagement, Bard, Series in Innovative Fiction, Difference & Media Program, Human Rights Program, Languages & Lit Program, LAIS Program, and Spanish Studies Program, Diaz came to Bard.