I’d like to welcome Gretchen McCullough to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Hardest thing about being a writer: To hold on to your work as long as possible before you send it out. Make sure it has been fully revised.

Easiest thing about being a writer: It feels like play, making up stories.

Something you are good at: I play a decent game of doubles. I started when I was twelve and played about four hours a day until I was eighteen.

Something you are bad at: I was a terrible math student. Driven demented by geometry in high school. I managed to pass algebra, but only after my mom hired a tutor.

Things you always put in your books: I love animals, and they usually appear in my novels and stories.

Things you never put in your books: I don’t ever remember a ghost.

Favorite books (or genre): During Covid, I read almost every single thriller by Henning Mankell, the Swedish writer. That is, until I couldn’t take any more murders.

Books you wouldn’t buy: Self-help books on getting rich.

People I’d invite to dinner: I would have loved to meet Mark Twain. Apparently, he was an incredible speaker.

Someone I’d cancel on: The commentator on El-Gezira, Marwan Bishara.

A few of your favorite things: Believe it or not, Cheetos can become scarce in Cairo. We have a huge plastic bag in the kitchen, just for hoarding Cheetos. I know they aren’t good for you, but perfect when you are reading a good book.

Things you need to throw out: We have hundreds of tajin pots from ordering stews. We have no space left in the cupboard for them.

Favorite things to do: Play pool at the Carleton Hotel in Cairo

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Filing insurance claims on the computer.

The funniest thing to happen to you: A translator wanted to translate Shahrazad’s Tooth into Hungarian. (Shahrazad’s Gift is a reprint of this book.) It was also printed at a Hungarian prison.

The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: During an interview in Arabic on television, I confused two letters in a word. Instead of saying interpretation, I said whistle!

The nicest thing a reader said to you: After reading your stories, I think you are half-Egyptian!

The craziest thing a reader said to you: Too many characters.

Some real-life story that made it to one of your books: One of our neighbors in Cairo actually did throw an egg at the neighbor in the building next to us. This inspired the story, “Taken Hostage by the Ugly Duck.”

Something in your story that readers think is about you, but it’s not: I am maladroit and not very tech-savvy, but I am not a professor of biology, like the character in “On the Run.” I am also not a man!

About Gretchen:

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. Most recently, her translation with Mohamed Metwalli of his poetry collection, A Song by the Aegean Sea was published by Laertes Press, 2022. Confessions of a Knight Errant: Drifters, Thieves and Ali Baba’s Treasure, a novel was published by Cune Press, Fall 2022. Shahrazad’s Gift, a collection of short stories, is forthcoming February 2024 by the same press.

Let’s Be Social:

Website: www.gretchenmcculloughfictionwriter.com

Facebook: Gretchen Michele McCullough