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“Understanding and release”: An Interview With Guest Reader Myfanwy Collins

Interview by Shasta Grant May 13, 2019

What themes do you find yourself frequently writing about? What themes are you drawn to when reading?

I frequently write about approaching the world from a place of trauma. When I’m reading I’m not drawn to themes so much as I am drawn to the writer’s vulnerability.

Where do you get your story ideas?

Usually I get my ideas from words or phrases that pop into my head. Sometimes ideas will come to me as I’m writing in my journal. Rarely (perhaps even never?) have I had a fully-fledged idea roll out of me. I start with whatever comes to me and see where it goes.

What do you think makes a good story? What could a writer do to make you keep reading? What is something that might make you stop reading?

What makes a good story is the writer’s ability to be vulnerable and not hold back out of fear. A story that begins without too much throat clearing or attempts at cleverness keep me reading. Cliched themes and phrases would stop me from reading.

What kind of story would you love to see in the queue this week?

The best piece of flash fiction I know is not actually flash fiction. Instead, it’s the final paragraphs of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” The entire story rests in those moments and those moments are the entire story. I would love to see something like that–a piece of writing that captures a pivotal moment which brings the reader to a moment of understanding and release.

 

About the Interviewer

Shasta Grant is the author of When We Were Feral (Regal House, 2026) and Gather Us Up and Bring Us Home (Split Lip Press, 2017). Her stories and essays have appeared in Kenyon Review, Cream City Review, Epiphany, Heavy Feather Review, wigleaf, and elsewhere. She was a 2020 Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow and the 2016 SmokeLong Quarterly Kathy Fish Fellow. She has received residencies from Hedgebrook and The Kerouac House. She holds an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is the Coordinating Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly.

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