Valerie Fioravanti: Sue, your flash piece “Heartbreaker” appeared in the Shorts on Survival section of r.kv.r.y., and it seems to me that survival is a recurrent theme in your work. Would you agree?

Sue Staats. I think so. Life throws you off cliffs and puts you in front of speeding trains. It’s interesting to me how people deal with this, especially if it’s unexpected, like the birth of a damaged child.

VF. So you agree with the writing adage only trouble is interesting?

SS. Probably, although I’ve always defined “trouble” as broadly as possible!

VF. “Heartbreaker” makes some lovely lyric shifts, from considering the perspective of the father, to the narrator, to the child. The effect is a full-bodied brevity. Is this something you strive for in your shortest fiction/work?

SS. What I’m striving for, I think, is the complexity of that place between humans where understanding takes place. Or, in the case of this story, the complex nature of heartbreak caused—unwittingly—by the child. Often the conventional POV structure—where you’re forced to choose between first person and some form of omniscient narrator—doesn’t quite work for me. Sometimes you can slide into a sort of middle ground, which is what I tried to do in this story. I think the fact that it’s so short, so brief,literally a “flash” helps. The reader can take it in quickly and it works, in their minds, as a whole, complex piece.

VF. You primarily write fiction, but you also write poetry and creative nonfiction. What
draws you to writing across genres?

SS. I love the splash and dribble of poetry. It’s a perfect venue for expanding the little moment. And sometimes—cliché alert—truth is stranger, and more wonderful and compelling, than fiction. And sometimes it’s not, and I just have to make up a better ending, or shove in a character who was nowhere near the actual event. And then I’ve made fiction. I do find that I have to use different parts of my writer brain so I can’t switch easily between them.

VF. Can you discuss what those different parts are?

SS. Writing poetry—and flash—I can indulge the writer brain that loves to roll around in language, metaphor, and /images. Writing fiction, or non-fiction, I’m focused on character, what changes happen, what’s the story arc. And for me, these really have become two different ways of writing. They require a different kind of attention.

VF. What writing project are you currently focused upon?

SS. I’m currently in revision hell on a loosely-linked collection of short stories with the working title “Olive Street Stories,” and submitting pieces from that for (I hope) publication and eventual marketing as a collection, possibly even winning a contest. Like you, Valerie! My bio mentions I’m working on a novel and yes, that’s still somewhere in the works but frankly, at this point I’m way more interested in these short stories, which are full of strange turns of life, odd smells and many, many animals, not all of them four-footed. Although I do not write about werewolves…

VF.Beware the allure of short stories! As someone with a second collection in line to follow her first, I’m clearly smitten with the short form. Why are you?

SS. I think because it allows me to focus on the heart of a story and allow it to expand, to stand on its own. I don’t have to try and fold it into the context of a longer piece. This may be the result of my short attention span, or it may just be because I’m way more interested in the crux of that “interesting trouble” you were referring to earlier than I am in the past or the future of my character.

VF. What can a short story collection offer that a novel cannot?

SS. Do you mean for the writer or the reader? Because for the reader, short stories offer the opportunity to dip into a scene or event, inhabit it, and then come up for air. Wash the dishes, put in a load of laundry, come back and read another story. For the writer? It’s probably easier to amass a collection of short stories than to write an entire novel: certainly there are more ways you can get short stories published. And I read somewhere that the old adage that “you can’t get a collection of short stories published” isn’t so true anymore. I’d say the success of some recent short story collections points in that direction, wouldn’t you?

VF. I think short story collections have always been published, although sparingly—particularly in comparison to novels—and that remains true. Now, “Heartbreaker”
appears amid some fine company in the Winter 2013 issue of r.kv.r.y. Which piece struck a particular chord with you?

SS. I agree: it’s a fine issue with some deep and powerful stuff from outstanding writers. I feel lucky to be included. My favorites, I think—and believe me, it’s not an easy decision—are Paul Austin’s “Cry Like My Wife,” and Randall Brown’s “Mindlessly.”

Valerie Fioravanti is the author of the linked collection Garbage Night at the Opera, which
won the Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction from BkMk Press (UMKC). Her essay
“Touching Margaret Atwood” appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of r.kv.r.y.

Hello! Randall Brown here. My fan club has announced some great new items for purchase to promote not only my flash fiction writing career, but also the flash form itself. Here’s a description of some of my favorites:

The “Randall Brown Who?” T-Shirt

This item makes fun of flash fiction fame by pretending that no one would know who Randall Brown is. Yes, I am sometimes confused with the Randall Brown who sells videos on how to fight like an American Indian and ranks ahead of me on Google—but if you get confused with being his fan, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if you encounter some bad-ass folks when you’re in a dark alley after a flash fiction concert.

Condoms Imprinted With Famous Six-Word Stories

Okay, only four-words could fit on my personalized one, but isn’t For Sale: Baby Shoes a bit nicer without that ending of never worn. One version starts as a six-word story but then expands to 60 words. I’ve never gotten those to work.

I ♥ Short-Shorts Series of Thongs

What says I love you more than expressing your flash dominance on a pair of authentic Randall Brown Flash Thongs?

The One Use Pen

This pen not only runs out of ink after 999 words, but it gradually withers into nothingness. That way you don’t even have to revise. Just write, submit, publish. As the pen shrinks, your writing resume grows.

The Randall Brown Shot Glass

Randall Brown, like his grandmother and her mother before her all the way back to some backyard still in Kentucky, drinks bourbon, Wild Turkey, straight-up. Then, unlike his grandmother, he runs through the house screaming, “It burns. It burns.” This shot glass has an inspirational message for all flash writers.

The Randall Brown Matchbook

I had a friend, well not exactly a friend, a pot dealer in college, answer, when asked for a match, “My pinky; your dinky.” The same day he got busted, his puppy got killed by a truck. Wait. That sounds like a flash, doesn’t it? I’m off to submit it to the Micro Journal of Puppies Killed By Trucks. I hope they nominate it for a Pushcart!

Brandall Rown Interview Series

Brandall Rown almost loves Randall Brown as much as he loves himself. Almost. As much as Randall posts videos, FB status messages, blog entries, tweets, it just isn’t enough. So he created Brandall Rown, an alter-ego, because Randall Brown has too much ego for just one person. Here’s an excerpt.

BR: Do you find your big-ness to be ironic in this world of flash and micro fiction?

RB: Do you find your smallness ironic?

BR: If you were the King of Flash, what rules would you subject your subjects to?

RB: What do you mean “if”?

BR: How did you start writing flash?

RB: Flash writes me.

BR: How many times are you reading at AWP?

RB: AWP? What’s that?

BR: A pleasure.

RB: That’s what she said.

Brandall Rown

Joan Hanna: We were so happy to have your poem, “I Dreamed Your Epic” in our January issue. I wonder if you could tell our readers about it’s origin.

Gay Giordano: I’m honored to be in a journal that actually focuses on this topic! So thank you!

Actually, this is the only truly autobiographical poem I’ve ever written. I’ve avoided my own childhood. It’s composed of so many secrets. My sister and I have no idea what was real and what was staged in our childhoods. A year ago I helped my parents move away.  I was sweeping out the attic, and one white envelope was literally shining in the corner. I thought I’d cleaned out everything, but there it was, and its contents were shocking – answering one of the many questions I had always been haunted by.  I will never know the answers to all of the holes in our story because they refuse to be told. But this one envelope, it was a gift and a curse. So much can actually be told on a single piece of paper. It was a revelation that as a poet I should already know.

JH: I love the recurring /images of the scarf and the throat. Can you talk a little about the use of this imagery?

GG: On a daily basis I never knew if my mother would be home. And every day when I got home we were somehow shocked to see each other. I always believed I made her feel doubly trapped in a life that was composed of so much disappointment for her. Every day was a kind of bloodletting, a gut-wrenching experience. My scarf was so tight, so aggressively tied. I look so much like her. I always felt she was immolating herself when she looked at me.

JH: I wonder if you could discuss some other themes in your poetry.

GG: I make up stories about other people. And they are always, with rare exceptions, an exploration of loneliness and displacement. Sounds trite – all poets address this. I try to find a way to make these stories a seduction, an experience which the reader senses is like a corset begging to be unlaced to find the person panting in there, praying to be found. The trickery of language is its ability to hide and reveal at the same time amidst its own pageantry.

JH: Please share links to other work with our readers.

GG: Almost all of my published work has appeared in print journals but here are two online journals that are accessible…

http://www.alittlepoetry.com/vs07gaygiordano.html

http://www.ghostoceanmagazine.com/#!__issues/vstc9=issue-11/vstc25=8—gay

JH: Thank you for taking the time to talk about your poem and for discussing your process with our readers. Just one final question, Can you share with our readers what recovery means to you?

GG: For me it’s what makes you suddenly realize that you have something you NEED to recover from – that your normal state of affairs is not an acceptable one and that it does, usually with unbearable pain and effort, reveal itself to you as the inevitable outcome of your own participation in the drama you’ve written for yourself. And finally, if you’re lucky, you become a kind of curiosity to yourself which you use as a cipher to understand other people and how they live their own epics. That’s forgiveness, all around. And one of the most important forms of kindness.

Alice D.: I enjoyed reading your short on survival “Greenie” in the winter issue of rkvry quarterly. I thought it was interesting how the story used dark humor woven throughout, such as the lines, “The ambulance is the stagecoach for alcoholics. We don’t lose a glass slipper. We lose our sanity.” Why did you choose to use humor in this story in particular?

Tessa Torgeson: I believe that there is beauty, truth, and even humor to be found even in
darkness and despair. I do not think that a person can ever heal from addiction, depression, or any difficult life experience without having a sense of humor about it. Humor has helped me deal with pain immensely and I have noticed it also helps others who are dealing with addiction and mental illness. By that I do not mean making light of anybody’s pain or loss, but more so exploring the contradictions within life and embracing them.

AD.: What did you think about the image of “Mother and Child” by Marilyn Sears
Bourbon that was selected for your story?

TT: The image was beautiful and I felt lucky to have it chosen for my story! I am not an art
expert by any means, so I don’t have the most eloquent words to describe it. But I do love how it conveys the nurturing and protective relationship between the mother and her child through vivid colors and spatial relationships. It complemented my story really well in the relationship between the nurse “Sandy” and the protagonist.

AD: Where else can readers find your work? Where else have your stories been published?

TT: Actually I was pretty excited because this is my first story I’ve submitted and published.
I’m fairly new to this whole thing. Otherwise, I have just had poetry published in college literary journals. I just graduated with my English degree. My goal right now is to just keep writing and hopefully write a novel! I do have a blog: tessatorgeson.wordpress.com.

AD: What does recovery mean to you?

TT: I think that recovery is a daily journey towards healing, of trying to stitch together fragments of light like searching for constellations in the night sky. Recovery is not a destination; it is a constant grasping and fumbling towards finding meaning and connection in life. For me, that means sharing my story with others to try to break some of the silence and stigma surrounding addiction and mental illness. It means connecting with others and hopefully fostering some hope. I often read about someone in the paper who has committed suicide, or hear about friends relapsing or struggling and it breaks my heart. I wish people did not feel so alone and know there is support for recovery and healing.

Lisa Jeffries: Your poem “Umbrella Mouth Gulper Eel” deals with some heavy topics: heroin addiction, isolation, death. What was the inspiration?

Jamie McGraw: A little less than two years ago, I developed a nasty pill and intravenous drug habit. I nearly died, spent a week in a mental hospital. I hid my addiction fairly well. I mean, my arms and legs were always covered with bruises, my hands and feet were constantly swollen, and I looked like total shit—but I didn’t get many questions. If I did, it was usually, “Is someone hurting you?” Nobody thought I was the sort of person who’d fall into that hole. Probably a reason I fell so hard.

Writing about that period is difficult, for sure, but also cathartic. “Umbrella Mouth Gulper Eel” was the first poem I wrote after my hospital stay. It was originally two pages long, a complete mess. Allowing people, grad school peers and a few friends, to read it was horrifying. And one of my biggest breakthroughs, in terms of both my writing and my recovery. Disclosing your screw-ups, even in the form of a fantastical poem, is a big, scary thing. But if I never let it loose, all of my poems would be very Taylor Swift. Meaning I would be rich.

LJ: What about the idea of deep-sea creatures?

JM: I was looking at a list online, Top Ten Weirdest Sea Creatures, or something similar. I thought, hey, that’s me. An ugly fish at the bottom of sea. But look, I’ve got a little light. Got to see somehow.

LJ: I’ve read some of your other work, and you tend to tackle difficult topics head-on and rather grotesquely. Does this ever feel risky to you?

JM: Always. This January I attended a seminar taught by Pinckney Benedict, who is so, so amazing, a wonderful fiction writer and teacher. At the beginning of class, he told us to write a letter to a person, living and whom we knew, confessing something that would wholly alter that person’s view of us, completely change the relationship. I wrote to my dad. Then he told us to fold the letter, and, to the best of our knowledge, write the person’s address, and pass the letters to the front of the class. Horrifying, right? What is going to happen to these gut-splattered things, everyone’s thinking.

He said, that feeling you just experienced, that feeling of absolute dread and terror, that’s how you should feel each and every time you let someone read your work. Don’t write stories or poetry or lyrics that make you seem dateable; you’re probably already un-dateable, you know? Your work should make readers assume you’re the kind of guy who wears trench coats and gawks at children playing in the park. Risks are important. Healthy, non-criminal risks, of course.

LJ: I’m always interested in asking other writers this: what is your writing process?

JM: Ideas come to me sporadically. If I’m out, I try to scrawl down a few key words on a napkin or my hand, or e-mail them to myself. Eavesdropping is a terrific method of coming up with stuff. People are always saying the greatest first lines, particularly kids.

I usually focus on one abiding image, the tinier and stranger the better. I like to vomit up every unconscious thought about that image—the look, smell, taste, feel, everything—using pen and paper. I’ve found that if I start writing a piece on the computer, it becomes stiff. The words too detached from the heart of the poem.

LJ: Your bio says to ask you about your spirit animal. A lobster?

JM: When I was a kid, if I were ever somewhere with a lobster tank—Red Lobster, the grocery store—I would press my face against the glass and stare at them, until my mom
dragged me away and told me I was weird. I think they’re beautiful creatures. I would
never eat one. It would haunt me forever.

I also have a giant lobster tattoo on my left arm. Girl with the lobster tattoo. The spirit
animal line is mostly a joke in response to “Why do you have a lobster on your arm?” Or
I tell an elaborate story about how my grandmother was drowning off the shore of Maine
and was saved by a family of lobsters.

LJ: What does recovery mean to you?

JM: I’m unsure that I’m in recovery just yet. I’m always recovering. Not only from drug addiction, but from the overwhelming disappointment and sadness that I allowed myself to fall prey to it. I suppose recovery is finally letting out that hulking sigh that’s been festering and rotting and molding in the deepest part of your lungs. It’s about feeling lighter.

Lisa Jeffries is a middle school teacher in the Durham, North Carolina area.  In her (very little) spare time, she writes poetry.  Her work has been featured in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and Main Street Rag.

Mary Akers: Thank you for agreeing to talk with us today, Katherine. Your story “Crustacean” in our winter issue was ambitious in its setting and subject matter. While it takes place around New York City, Roshani’s mind is stuck in Nepal. Can you talk a little about where you drew your inspiration?

Katherine Russell: Roshani’s character is based on a friend of mine from college. Her life story was one of deep sorrow, loss, and tragedy after tragedy, though she had worked very hard to rise above it. Her childhood in war-torn Nepal weighed on her family a great deal, and even years after leaving her country, she was still mentally working out what she’d seen and been through. I constantly watched her juggle her carefree nature with a deep inner struggle that very few people could understand. I wrote “Crustacean” for her. While Roshani’s experiences aren’t a carbon copy of my friend’s, I drew from her descriptions of Nepal, which were mixed with nostalgia, love, and discontent.

MA: From the beginning, it’s mentioned that Roshani was diagnosed with PTSD from her experiences in Nepal. Can you touch on this subject a little?

KR: I’m always wary of diagnosing characters because it makes it too easy for readers to put them in a box. A part of this literary PTSD diagnosis came from my desire to remain somewhat close to my friend’s true story. The other part is that I wanted to materialize the lasting effects of trauma. Just because we have left a place doesn’t mean there won’t be external cues that haunt us in a new setting. Our homes remain inside of us, and curing ourselves of horrific memories can become even more challenging as time goes on. Because of her PTSD, Roshani is constantly conflicted. Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress often inspire contradictory feelings on death – there can be an urge to touch it and know it, a need to live free of fear, and a simultaneous desire to detach oneself from the body. Roshani wants to move fast and live recklessly to shake away her anxiety; however, at the same time she wants protection, and she fears for the children in her memories, that they might “unexpectedly fall off the wall, break the growing bones in their bodies, disfigure themselves.” Furthermore, she knows the type of guy Marcus is, but she willingly allows him to play her because she is so desperate for connection.

MA: Can you talk a little bit about the construction of your story – i.e. tense, vantage point, and the intertwining of flashbacks?

KR: It’s definitely hard to incorporate flashbacks without confusing or overwhelming the reader, but my hope is that I’ve done it moderately and successfully. Roshani is caught between making sense of her past and living in the present, which is why I frequently interrupt a present-tense narrative to pull readers back into her memory using physical cues, such as the scar on her cheek. As far as tone goes, I wanted to keep it detached while still giving a full picture of Roshani’s character. The third person present tense carries a very detached tone, and the oceanic /images sprinkled throughout have the same effect.

MA: That leads me to my next question. The crustacean imagery is so subtle in this story and carries the strong theme of loneliness. You tie together the image of an anglerfish’s lantern. In particular, I’m thinking of the line about Roshani “grasping or something warm to hold onto in this metallic water,” and the final image of Roshani curling up with her mother in bed like the shell of a crustacean. What inspired this theme, especially since Nepal is a landlocked country?

A: To me, the ocean is a lonely, dark place, and anyone can relate to the mysterious world within it. I imagine some creatures float in darkness for days before running into another living thing. On land, we can feel similarly when we are alienated from others. Loneliness can push a person to recklessness and even more emotional detachment. As the one line goes, a lonely person hopes to crash “into an ally or a predator, anything that reminds them that they’re not alone down there.”

MA: Yes. I love that. And, finally, if you don’t mind, what does “recovery” mean to you?

A: Recovery has always been a part of my life. I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at six months old, and from that point on, I was fighting lung infections with treatments, hospitalizations, and medications. Naturally, as I got older, CF increased in severity, and “recovery” meant something different than others might define it. I knew I would never recover the lung function I was slowly losing; I would never recover time I spent in a hospital bed; and “getting better” didn’t always mean I was back to normal. Then things changed a little. At age 22, I underwent a double lung transplant after weeks of battling pneumonia and rapid weight loss. Before the new lungs, I was laboring for each breath through a ventilator. After the new lungs, recovery meant my body would slowly shed the chest tubes and intravenous lines; I would stand and learn to walk again; and when the ventilator was removed, I would relearn how to inhale and exhale, then watch my lung function gradually rise over the course of several months.

I connect with Roshani through this experience. I have never experienced war or watched someone die up close. However, I intimately know what it means to feel powerless under certain conditions, and extracting oneself from those scary feelings takes more than physical recovery. I remember mentally detaching myself from the bodily trauma I was witnessing every single day during illness and recovery – from little nuisances like heparin injections to worrisome issues like clotting chest tubes. It’s only possible to detach for so long. Eventually, it all catches up to you, and recovering from the post-traumatic stress of it all can take far longer than the physical scars take to heal.

MA: This was wonderful, Katherine. Thanks so much for speaking with us. I so admire your beautiful writing.

Jonathan talks a bit about his poem Harold:

Childhood, as best as I can remember, is a tug-of-war between imagination and mortification. Sadly, the fruits of imagination are largely enjoyed in solitude while the fruits of mortification are shared with a multitude—for example, I don’t know, say, the entire student body of J. B. Watkins Elementary School in Midlothian, Virginia.

After bullies have exhausted the quivers of their ready barbs regarding your corporeal defects of girth, color, breath, armpits, ears, speech, etc., they are compelled to scrounge for more outlying flaws which, give the cretins credit for effort, require research to discover—“research” read “wedgie” as often as not. Their interests typically comprise your father’s job, your mother’s looks, your side of the tracks, and, invariably, your middle name.

My middle name is Harold.

For reasons now beyond me, I was embarrassed to confess it. Perhaps I figured my middle name was the male equivalent of Myrtle (apologies to Myrtles—it’s a lovely name and a darn fine beach but this was the eighties, mind you) or just plain goofy like a lunchbox with a mismatched thermos (I don’t know, say, Star Wars and Smurfs, respectively); regardless, I wished my middle name was Flash or Buck or Conan or even something sublunary like Charles or Steven. But no.

My middle name is Harold.

Of course, eventually (though clearly not always) the bullies relent—“relent” read “fail eighth grade” with decent frequency—and you are relatively free to become comfortable with your idiosyncrasies, appreciative of your flaws, and proud of your middle name.

Which I am. Indubitably. Because it is an honor to be named after my grandfather. My
grandfather whose disease grew more and more vicious as my mother grew larger and larger with me in her womb. My grandfather, Harold, who died mere weeks before I was born, who never saw me in person, whose name I was given to carry on—into the world of linens and on, as far as I can go.

***

You can read more of Jonathan’s fine writing online through the following links:

“Boy at Play” (Poem w/ audio, Able Muse)
“A Man Drowns” (Poem, Hospital Drive)
“Widower at Perril Falls” (Poem w/ audio, Conte)
“In Terms of Grass and Dirt” (Poem, Floodwall)
“Waiting” (Fiction, Mixed Fruit)

We are thrilled to announce that the illustrator for our April Faith & Doubt issue will be none other than the fabulous Suzanne Stryk! She has generously agreed to provide us /images for the upcoming issue and I couldn’t be happier.

Deborah Bazalgette: Your short story The Sequined Shawl is an account of experiences that can be seen as both universal and individual. How important is it to you to write about things that have touched you personally?

Simone Davy: Writing about things which are close to home helps to make my writing feel more real and truthful. I want to write in a way that the reader can relate to. I try to focus on the everyday things that we do, even at difficult times. From my own experiences of loss, I know that it is both important and necessary to carry on with the everyday; it is often these things that get us through.

I have found that writing about things that I have experienced is very therapeutic. I imagine that writers have less need for counselling. I certainly feel much better when I have put my thoughts into words. The writing seems to take the drama out of it, you can begin to see a different side, a different perspective and at times there is humour there too.

I think the reader needs to care about the characters. If you are creating characters that you can empathise with, then the chances are your reader will too.

DB: American readers may see the British ‘stiff upper lip’ approach evident, especially in Marge’s story. Did you intend to convey emotion through descriptive details rather than expressing it openly?

SD: Yes, I think this is a very English behaviour and was certainly very evident in my family. Miscarriage was not discussed openly; I recall overhearing talk about pains, bed rest and ‘what a lot of women had to put up with’ – but nothing more.

With this in mind I wanted to convey the feelings and emotions of the three women by showing the colours, /images and objects that surrounded them. For example: Marge lay on a hospital bed with the metal guard between herself and the doctor, Angela looking at the bright red tiles and white lino and Sabrina’s description of the needle being compared to sucking treacle from a spoon.

Also I wanted to show how the women maintained that ‘stiff upper lip’ through their actions; Angela counting stitches rather than weeks – doing rather than talking being the method of coping.

I am intrigued by the idea, which may just be a British thing, that it is best not to tell anyone you are pregnant until you are 12 weeks in. This suggests women should hide their miscarriages – suffer them in silence. It seems as though they are still an inconvenience. If this was not the case, miscarriage would be less of a mystery. Now we have the ‘celebrity miscarriage’ –but I’m not sure this is enough yet for the ordinary or rather the extraordinary woman on the street. Writing about it is maybe one step forward.

DB: As you wrote the story did you feel that the medical advances had improved women’s experiences of miscarriage?

I wanted to write about how the medical establishment has changed in its approach to miscarriage, but also show how the experiences may be different but not necessarily better.

Thanks to such medical pioneers as Lesley Regan, there have been huge advances in the way miscarriages are dealt with. However in the UK, there is still the view that a woman should have three miscarriages before she is able to undertake any tests.

I think all three women were reliant on the medical profession. Each era had a different perspective. In Marge’s time without pregnancy tests women may have just assumed heavy bleeding was a normal part of their cycles. For Angela bed rest was very much the only suggestion. For Sabrina the medical advances obviously enabled her to have two healthy babies, but the journey along the way was not an easy one. Women in the past may have suffered miscarriages in isolation in their own homes; today, women may find themselves suffering the same experiences but with the added pressure and stress of tests, appointments and hospital bureaucracy.

DB: You told me once that your grandmother was a great storyteller. Were you conscious as you wrote the story of the passage of time and change in culture that led you to writing it down rather than telling it out loud?

SD: My grandmother has been a great influence on my writing. From the time I was a child she would tell me stories about her childhood in Scotland. Storytelling was something I thought everyone did. Her voice is very strong in this piece as I can recall the way she spoke, the words she used and the expression on her face as she did so. It is wonderful to hear her voice as I write.

She once told me the story of how her father took all of her books and set them alight in the family fire. He said they were a waste of time for a girl. By telling stories to her brothers and sisters and later to me, she was able to express herself and keep her stories alive. I imagine that she never for a moment thought that anyone would be interested enough to read her stories and so never thought of writing them down. It is a luxury to be able to write without the kind of censorship that women in the past often had to put up with.

Deborah Bazalgette started writing seriously after her youngest child went to university. She completed a creative writing course with the Open University in 2012, and was lucky enough to have her first ever submission – a short story – accepted by What The Dickens Magazine, for their sunflower edition in August 2012. To learn more about Deborah and her writing, please visit her blog.

You may also visit Simone’s blog at http://simonedavy.wordpress.com/

ED: When my sister died, I felt as though a part of me had been amputated. On that day I knew I would never be whole again, and I was right. The skin has healed over the wound and I can go for a long while now without feeling that deep sadness, but there is a part of me that is gone forever, buried with my sister in her grave. Aside from memorializing my sister, the creative nonfiction pieces from Burying Molly (which is still a work in progress) are a feeble way of reconciling myself to this loss, which is as close to recovery as I can get. I should also add that I don’t see myself or my ongoing mourning for my sister as particularly special. Living with loss is part of the human condition; each of us, if we live long enough, must learn to live without some of our loved ones.