The 40 But 10 Interview Series: Rebecca Hirsch Garcia

 

I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!

Today we are joined by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia. Rebecca lives in Ottawa, Ontario. An O. Henry Award winning author her work has been published in The Threepenny Review, PRISM international, swamp pink and elsewhere. The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories is her debut collection. You can find Rebecca on Twitter or Instagram @rhirschgarcia

 

 

What do you do when you’re not writing?

Read.

Describe your book in three words.

Eerie short stories.

What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?

I tend to connect with individual books more than authors as a whole. Five favourites in no particular order: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, and The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber.

What are you currently reading?

I juggle multiple books at once. I’m currently reading Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane, Heaven’s Breath by Lyall Watson, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. They’re all great.

Do you read the reviews of your books or do you stay far far away from them, and why?

I don’t go searching for them, but I don’t mind reading reviews or comments, even the negative ones. There’s so much writing out there, the fact that anyone would take the time to read something I wrote is always something I’m grateful for.  

Do you think you’d live long in a zombie apocalypse?

Absolutely not. If there was a zombie apocalypse I wouldn’t want to live anyway. Hopefully I’d be the person who gets bitten first.

If you could time travel, would you go back to the past or forward into the future?

Always the past. I’m old enough to have regrets now, I would go back and meddle, create new problems for me to try to fix.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve given/received as a gift?

I have both given and received a solitary brick. The recipient of the brick I gave was not amused. Conversely I love my brick. My mother gave it to me for Christmas one year.  I still have it; it’s on my dresser drawer at this very moment.

Do you DNF books?

I read the first third of Sophie’s Choice in high school and then finished it over a decade later. I tried to read Wolf Hall around when it first came out, gave up, and then tried it again in 2021 and finished it. I’ll fully give up on finishing books when I’m dead. Until then we’re just on a break.

Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?

I used to be a book hoarder but I’m trying to learn to let go of books I don’t want. Everything I love I keep, but the books I don’t love I’m willing to pass on. Hopefully they’ll find a new home with someone who enjoys them.  

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Purchase your copy here

A girl born in a small, unnamed pueblo is blessed — or cursed — with the ability to produce valuable gems from her bodily fluids. A tired wife and mother escapes the confines of her oppressive life and body by shapeshifting into a cloud. A girl reckons with the death of her father and her changing familial dynamics while slowly, mysteriously losing her physical senses.

 

Infused with keen insight and presented in startling prose, the stories in this dark, magnetic collection by newcomer Rebecca Hirsch Garcia invite the reader into an uncanny world just to the right of reality while exploring the personal and interpersonal in a way that is undeniably, distinctly human.