Ep 191. Amina Gautier: A Writer's Work and Life

Work and Life with Stew Friedman

Dr. Amina Gautier is an associate professor in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Miami. Professor Gautier is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. She’s taught at Penn as well as Marquette University, Saint Joseph’s University, Washington University in St. Louis, and DePaul University. She’s published one hundred and twenty-nine short stories, including three award-winning short story collections -- Now We Will Be Happy, The Loss of All Lost Things, and At-Risk: Stories. Among her many honors, she’s been the recipient of writing awards, prizes, and fellowships. Her critical reviews and essays on 19th-century writers have been published broadly. Amina is a Brooklyn-born native New Yorker who currently divides her time between Chicago and Miami.

In this episode, Stew and Amina talk about how her impoverished childhood, in which she split time living in two different parts of Brooklyn, affected her decision to become a writer. Amina describes her early obsession with writing and how, in a fateful conversation with a poetry professor, she realized her calling was as a writer of stories, not poems. She talks about her creative process, especially the importance of managing boundaries that enable her to focus on producing her art, and how her relationships with both students and readers enrich the meaning of her work. Hers is a compelling illustration of what it means to strive for harmony among the different parts of life and the benefits of doing so.

Here then is an invitation, a challenge, for you, once you’ve listened to the conversation, near the end of which Amina offers advice for would-be writers. Among this wisdom, she quotes John Gardner’s Art of Fiction: “If there is good to be said, the writer should say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say it in a way that reflects the truth that, though we see the evil, we choose to continue among the living.” If you are aspiring to a creative career, of any sort, or know someone who is, how might you use her advice? Share your ideas, and your reactions to this episode, by writing to Stew at [e-mail] or via LinkedIn.

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