“Gorilla Mother” by Lyn Stevens appeared in Issue 30 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about this story.
Many years ago, I worked in an office at a zoo and was lucky enough to meet a surrogate gorilla mother. It seemed like such a fascinating job and I knew I had to write about it although all the human characters and gorillas in the story are complete fiction.
What was the most difficult part in writing this story?
Trying to write a complex character without having to develop her entire backstory. Since there was no easy way for me to do that, I had to hint at the experiences that scarred her to convey the sympathetic aspects of the character and show how she displaces her warmth and compassion onto the animal kingdom, and specifically a baby gorilla.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
So Many!!! To name a few: Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar; Exit West by Moshin Hamid; Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; A little Life by Hanya Yanagihara; The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud; The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt; The Tenth of December by George Saunders; Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout; Women Talking by Miriam Toews; Educated by Tara Westover; The Witch Elm by Tana French; The Past by Tessa Hadley; Purity by Jonathan Franzen
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
Heidi Pitlor. Having been the series editor of Best American Short Stories since 2007, I would love to hear all about her experiences reading so many great stories and working with so many amazing guest editors who are themselves, fantastic writers.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
My next short story, of course!
Our thanks to Lyn for taking the time to answer a few questions and share her work. Read Lyn’s story, “Gorilla Mother”, here: https://www.sequestrum.org/fiction-gorilla-mother.
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Lyn Michele Stevens won the 2014 Saturday’s Child Press short story contest. Her stories have appeared in Prism Review, Greensboro Review, Eclectica Magazine, the American Literary Review, and The Saturday Evening Post, among other journals. Lyn lives in the Bronx. She is crazy in love with her growing family.