Shahrazad’s Gift: Interview and Giveaway

SHAHRAZAD’S GIFT

by

Gretchen McCullough

Contemporary Fiction / Linked Short Stories / Humor

Publisher: Cune Press

Date of Publication: February 20, 2024

Number of Pages: 198 pages 

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Shahrazad’s Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo—magical, absurd and humorous. The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad by the noise and chaos of the city; a frustrated Egyptian housewife who becomes obsessed by the activities of her Western gay neighbor; an American journalist who covered the civil war in Beirut who finds friendship with her Egyptian dentist. We also meet the two protagonists of McCullough's Confessions of a Knight Errant, before their escapades in that story.

These stories are told in the tradition of A Thousand and One Nights.

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Interview with Gretchen McCullough

  

You’re a Texan: how has being a Texan (or Texas) influenced your writing? 

I don’t necessarily think this book is influenced by Texas. But of course, living abroad makes you think about where you came from. It has taken me some time to work my way back to writing about Texas. The new novel that I just finished is set in West Texas during the nineteen-thirties during the Depression. It is focused on one of the CCC projects, an enormous spring-fed swimming pool called Balmorhea.  

The late Allen Wier was my mentor at the University of Alabama. He was from Texas and he encouraged me. 

 

How long have you been writing?

I started writing seriously when I was in college. After I finished at Brown, I was eager to have experiences and spent six years teaching abroad: Egypt, Turkey and Japan. It was very hard to write while I was teaching school. It was also very lonely. That’s when I decided to return to graduate school and get an M.F.A. This was a wonderful decision. At that point I was thirty and was very focused. Having time was a real gift. 

 

What kinds of writing do you do? 

I write essays, short stories, reviews, and novels! I feel so comfortable in the novel form because I want to create a world with many characters. Writing short stories is actually harder because you have to shave away so much. You have to compress a great deal; my natural instinct is to expand and digress! 

 

Where do you write?

I have a desk that looks out a window in front of huge trees, even though I live in a densely populated part of Cairo. I usually block off the mornings to write, especially if I am not teaching. 

 

What do you think most characterizes your writing?

I think my writing became less realistic after I moved to Cairo in 2000. So much was inexplicable. My writing could be characterized as wacky and humorous. I exaggerate wildly. 

Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey, and Japan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and was awarded a teaching Fulbright to Syria from 1997-1999. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Archipelago, National Public Radio, Story South, Guernica, The Common, The Millions, and the LA Review of Books. Translations in English and Arabic have been published in: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail in Translation, World Literature Today and Washington Square Review with Mohamed Metwalli. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories From Cairo, translated with Mohamed Metwalli, was published in July 2011 by AFAQ Publishing House, Cairo. A collection of short stories about expatriate life in Cairo, Shahrazad’s Tooth, was also published by AFAQ in 2013. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo.

Website ◆ Goodreads

American University Faculty Webpage

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THREE WINNERS:
Two winners receive paperbacks.
One winner receives the eBook of Shahrazad’s Gift.
(US only; ends midnight, CDT, 4/12/24)

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