Say hi to Kerry Langan. Kerry has published three collections of short stories, My Name
Is Your Name & Other Stories, the most recent. Her fiction has
appeared in more than 50 literary magazines published in North America, the
U.K. and Asia, including The Saturday Evening Post, Persimmon
Tree, StoryQuarterly, West Branch, Cimarron Review, Other
Voices, The Seattle Review, Literary Mama, Rosebud,
The Blue Mountain Review, The Fictional Café, JMWW, Reflex
Fiction, Fictive Dream, Capsule Stories, and others. Her
stories have been anthologized in XX Eccentric: Stories About the
Eccentricities of Women and in Solace in So Many Words. She was a
recently featured author on the podcast, Short Story Today. Her work has
been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2023. Her nonfiction has appeared
in Working Mother and Shifting Balance Sheets:
Women’s Stories of Naturalized Citizenship & Cultural Attachment.
Why
do you write?
I
recently described my writing to someone as “an addiction”. Being seated at my
computer several hours a day is a must rather than a choice. I don’t know how
not to write, and I’m happy about that, very happy.
What
do you do when you’re not writing?
I’m
an editor and spend time reading and editing other authors’ works. Reading is
like breathing to me. There’s always a stack of books, mostly fiction, and
literary journals on my desk and nightstand. I love films, seeing narrative on
a screen, and listening to many genres of music. Music motivates me to get up
from my desk and take exercise breaks throughout the day. I live near a
beautiful arboretum and walk there when done with writing for the day. Nothing
beats the time I spend with family and friends and, since the start of the
pandemic, I don’t take a moment of it for granted.
What’s
your kryptonite as a writer?
Child
narrators. As a reader I love them, and I have written many stories with young
protagonists. Most children have no guile; they experience the world purely,
honestly. As such, they’re very reliable narrators though they’re often unaware
when the adults in their world are being dishonest. Readers are sometimes aware
of things the child narrator is not, and that makes for a very interesting
reading experience.
If
you could have a superpower, what would it be?
Flight,
definitely flight. I love aerial views of landscapes, and how enthralling would
it be to soar over them? Although my fiction tends to deal with micro
situations, something intense going on between a few characters, I appreciate
the macro view some writers have, epic fictions that require a bird’s-eye-view.
Describe
your book in three words:
Fiction,
females, aging.
If
you could cast your characters in a movie, which actresses would play them?
This
is an interesting question because My Name Is Your Name is a collection
of stories that begins with a very young girl and concludes with an elderly
woman. The interim stories are sequenced with gradually aging female
characters, so a cast would include a wide range of actresses. I’d have to rely
on the advice of casting agents for the youngest characters, budding actresses,
but I’d have such fun considering favorite actresses to star in the other
stories. Possibilities would include Jenna
Marie Ortega, Mckenna Grace, Julia Garner, Samira Wiley, Hailee Steinfeld, Rooney
Mara, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss, Sandra Oh, Viola Davis and
Helen Mirren.
Would
you and your main characters get along?
Yes,
I believe so. Those in my last book are my literary daughters, sisters and
mothers. I admire each of them in various ways, even those making errors, perhaps
especially those making errors. I feel the same about the male and female
characters in my first two books.
What
is your favorite book from childhood?
When
I was eleven, I read Betty Smith’s coming of age novel, A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn, and would go on to read it so often the spine of the book
cracked. Her protagonist, Francie Nolan, is a young girl when we first meet her
and a young woman when we say good-bye to her. She is a first-generation
American navigating an impoverished childhood with the help of the neighborhood
library and a determination to get the best education she can. It’s not
surprising that a girl who so loved this book grew up to become an academic
librarian and a writer. I was delighted when one of my daughters read the novel
and responded to it as strongly as I had.
What
genres won’t you read?
While
I largely read literary fiction, especially short stories, I’m open to reading
almost anything but I steer clear of romance. Just not my cup of tea, but it’s
certainly a genre that draws many.
What’s
on your literary bucket list?
I’m
a fan of so many writers of short stories, I almost don’t want to single any
one author out, but during high school, I discovered John Updike’s early
stories and read them, along with his later fiction, over decades. I’ve long
considered visiting his birthplace, Shillington, Pennsylvania, and walking the
streets and driving through the surrounding countryside. I’ll do it one of
these days.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kerry Langan's warm and generous third short story collection, My Name Is
Your Name, includes stories
of women at all ages—from little girls to old women whose long lives are now
only fleeting memories. A six-year old girl wanders an amusement park alone; a
teenager tries to balance the loyalty and shame she feels toward her
schizophrenic sister; a young woman stubbornly makes a home for herself in an
insular fishing village for reasons that elude her and those around her; a
newlywed touring houses with her husband doesn't see an exciting future, rather
unsettling glimpses of her own mortality. Finding unsuspected reservoirs of
strength and purpose, girls and women negotiate young love, their first jobs,
single motherhood, the death of friends, infidelity, the illness of spouses,
the indignities, anguishes, and gifts of age and aging in ways that are sharp,
funny, poignant, and often quirky. Langan draws us into a world in which the
very young blunder but also face truths that sometimes elude adults and the
middle-aged and elderly turn to their younger selves to guide them in an
ambiguous, challenging present. We come away encouraged and replenished—more
ready to face many of the same issues ourselves.
"Once again, short story writer Kerry Langan knocks it
out of the park. Her newest collection is a kaleidoscope of beautifully
rendered stories illuminating, with tremendous verisimilitude, great insight,
and lyrical and precise prose, the complex nature of the female heart and mind." Janice Eidus, author of The Last Jewish Virgin and The
War of the Rosens
"Kerry Langan’s collection offers a lovely new
literary voice and a quiet, sharp, perceptive mind. These stories are intimate,
surprising and graceful, a pleasure to read." Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta, Cost, and A Perfect Stranger & Other Stories
"Kerry Langan's My
Name is Your Name, an impressive and readable collection, is a sort of
primer on the ages of women. Her female protagonists take on issues and
problems that are familiar to us, struggling with identity, finding autonomy,
dealing with and fighting against expectations in a wonderfully detailed world,
where desire and choice are fraught with consequence. This suspension between
the ordinary and the arrival of the unexpected permeates the collection,
highlighting the darkness behind the bright scrim of daily life." Mary Grimm, author of Left to Themselves and Stealing Time
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