Alice Kinerk
Oyster River Pages: Why do you write and/or create?
Alice Kinerk: Reading fiction has always been something I loved to do, and I grew up in awe of the ability of authors to make the imaginary so real. As an adult, I am a pretty quiet, homebody type of person, but like all people I have a desire to interact with the world. Writing fiction helps.
ORP: What is the most challenging aspect of your artistic process?
AK: There is never enough time to write. I am a teacher. I have a family. It is always a challenge to carve uninterrupted time out of a very long day. I write in the morning before work because it is (often) a quiet time in our house. I have also found that having little time to write spurs me to draft more quickly. Compared to when I was writing fiction in college, these days I spend less time worrying over individual words in the rush to just get the ideas down. I don't know if this is a good thing? Sometimes I enjoy writing more when I know I have a limited amount of time.
ORP: What would you say is your most interesting writing and/or artistic quirk?
AK: The first time I read one of my stories aloud, during a student writers event at the organic farm at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a housefly flew into my mouth and I swallowed it. A quarter century has passed since that fateful swallow, and I do not believe there is anyone in the world who remembers it (if I am being honest with myself, only people in the first row or two were close enough to see, and plenty of them were surely glancing at their watches and thinking ahead to dinner) but in my nervous 18-year-old mind that fly was a sort of cosmic middle finger from the world, and it was a few years before I read my fiction aloud again.
ORP: What do you think is the best way to improve writing and/or artistic skills?
AK: Read, read, read, and write, write, write. It is important to read both the literary canon and contemporary fiction as well as anything you find interesting. I have been reading a lot of short stories from different authors recently and really enjoying the variety. Writing every day (or almost every day) is also important. Writing is an endurance sport. It has to become a habit in order to improve.
ORP: What does vulnerability mean to you as an artist and/or writer?
AK: In order for a story to be interesting writers have to make themselves vulnerable. You can not shirk away from topics, scenes, words, or ideas that are outside of your comfort zone in real life. This is hard for me because I am a conflict-avoidant homebody. But reading about events that would be outside of one's comfort zone is what makes stories appealing to readers. I would like to write all day about happy bunnies hopping in a field, and have fun creating lovely descriptions. But the happy bunny story would be a snoozefest to read, because there is no conflict, no stakes.
