{"id":15459,"date":"2024-11-14T08:43:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T06:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=15459"},"modified":"2024-11-14T08:47:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T06:47:15","slug":"we-are-all-ultimately-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=15459","title":{"rendered":"We are all ultimately alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

[interview with Teresa Burns Gunther (author of HOLD OFF THE NIGHT: Short Stories,\u00a0published by Truth Serum Press]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0by\u00a0Elizabeth Bruce<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Where does the title, HOLD OFF THE NIGHT, come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

From the first story in the collection, \u201cWhere Are You, Really?\u201d We meet this narrator at a moment when everything collides and her life feels impossible, on this day she finds the difficulties in her life, unbearable and runs away, she wrestles with how to embrace darkness and trust things will be okay. The branches of the mighty oak might reach out and hold of the night, for now.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

[Teresa Burns Gunther, \u00a9Nan Phelps]<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Alienation is experienced by several focal characters. Can you speak about alienation as a defining feature of a life? How do your characters wrestle with their alienation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We are all ultimately alone. Part of our journey is to learn how to care for self and live fully within this existential truth. We all wrestle with our aloneness in different ways. Grief and loss can be the most painful experiences that, when we can sit with it, open ourselves with curiosity to it, we come to find joy in the everyday, see the ecstasy in the natural world around us, the kindness of loved ones. I\u2019m always curious to observe my characters in tight spots and watch how they extricate themselves or complicate their situation, how they are forced to grow.<\/em><\/p>\n

QUESTION: Marriage as a kind of social organization appears several times with different characters. Can you speak more about marriage as a unit of intimacy, of belonging or obligation, of financial and political reality? How is marriage – or non-marriage – a struggle for your protagonists?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There are good and bad marriages in this collection. Marriage is always a work in progress, a study in compromise, until it isn\u2019t. One woman survives an abusive relationship. Several women feel trapped in roles or marriages they\u2019d never intended. In \u201cPatch of Grass\u201d a woman has an encounter with a homeless man that throws her life into question. She is suddenly unrecognizable to herself and takes a daring leap. In \u201cA Hard Man to Find\u201d a man is abandoned by his verbally abusive wife who runs off with his child just as his world is falling apart. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

QUESTION: Financial hardships present in other stories, which is not always true of contemporary fiction. Can you speak about how you weave the material circumstances of different characters into the narrative and emotional arcs of your stories. Can you elaborate on your attention to these factors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I come from the working class, a class I feel has been underrepresented in literary fiction. The lack of funds or agency can limit life choices. Money buys time and freedoms, luxuries\u00a0 that are out of reach for many of my characters. I\u2019m fascinated by our human tenacity, how we keep on keepin\u2019 on in the face of adversity. How grace comes in unexpected ways to help people free themselves of the burdens they imagined impossible to set down.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

QUESTION: There are some \u201cstrange\u201d\u2014even creepy characters\u2014like Dr. Benson in the story, \u201cLilies\u201d\u2014that throw the focal character and the reader into intense disequilibrium. Can you talk about the process of imagining\u2014or perhaps recounting\u2014such characters? What are the larger implications of human interactions fraught with such disequilibrium?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Mental illness is something I return to in my stories. Dr. Benson surprised me. He just kept getting creepier as the story evolved. The narrator has been so careful, tiptoing around her mother\u2019s mental illness and living a co-dependent constricted life. It might just take someone over the top to show her that only she can emancipate herself. I think the story is also about the way we can project onto people what we need them to be before we truly know who there are. Rather than fully claiming our own power to dare to solve our central problem.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

QUESTION: You are based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the USA. The publisher of HOLD OFF THE NIGHT, however, is Truth Serum Press in Australia. Can you talk about the pluses and challenges of being published on a continent far from your home?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The publishing industry is getting less and less friendly to writers and small presses. Truth Serum Press was amazingly supportive, they gave me a gorgeous cover, and an abundance of care in editing and production. But with the Small Press Distribution closing it\u2019s very hard for small presses to get their books into bookstores. Australian publishers have found this a problem for a while in the US Market. Barnes and Nobles sells their books, and Amazon. Sadly, Amazon (Please boycott them) sells my book at full price for which I receive $0.20. But that\u2019s a soapbox I\u2019ll refrain from climbing up onto in the interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

QUESTION: You have extensive experience facilitating writing workshops, coaching, and developmental editing, including founding the Lakeshore Writers Workshop in California\u2019s San Francisco Bay Area. Can you tell us more about this part of your life as a writer and educator?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I love being a guide for writers, helping them consider and strengthen their practice, get words on the page, develop their own original voices. They inspire me and remind me that I write because I have to, it helps me know what I\u2019m thinking and what matters most to me in my life. I write because it helps me connect with others, and to make sense of the world. I\u2019ve been blessed by the company of so many courageous, talented wordsmiths over my 20 years of teaching. I\u2019ve taught in libraries, jails, community adult schools and am currently exploring ways to offer these workshops in service to others. Writing offers a powerful path to healing and self-discovery.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

QUESTION: What are some of the other variables that inform your writing?\u00a0 And your life and your writing life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Everything informs my work. The world of people fascinates me. I\u2019m always watching people, imagining what\u2019s going on between people. I\u2019m pulled into Sound. The natural world. Color. The quality of the light in a room, in the late afternoon sky. This crazy journey of living while human and navigating our own self-discovery, overcoming our shames, doubts, and old injuries that all inform and enliven our work. Slipping into a character\u2019s skin to experience the imagined struggle of their life is revelatory and an exercise in compassion. One of the greatest mysteries I\u2019ve found in this world is that while life is often so difficult, some people choose misery while others, who\u2019ve lived the most difficult lives, exist in this world as songbirds, they hunt down the humor and the joy in our crazy human experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HOLD OFF THE NIGHT: Short Stories by Teresa Burns Gunther<\/a><\/p>\n

Published by Truth Serum Press (a member of the Bequem Publishing Collective)<\/p>\n

32 Meredith Street<\/p>\n

Sefton Park, SA 5083<\/p>\n

Australia<\/p>\n

Publication Date: May 2023<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-922427-00-7<\/p>\n

Cover Design Copyright \u00a9 Matt Potter<\/p>\n

Cover Image Copyright \u00a9 FelixMittermeier<\/p>\n

Contact Info for Reviewer: Elizabethbrucedc@gmail.com<\/a> or +1-202-841-7182<\/p>\n

Website for Reviewer Elizabeth Bruce: https:\/\/elizabethbrucedc.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bruce is the author of UNIVERSALLY ADORED & OTHER ONE DOLLAR STORIES, published by Vine Leaves Press, 2024<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[Elizabeth Bruce headshot by Nicolas Ortega Ward]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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