Garnett Kilberg Cohen
Author Interview - Garnett Kilberg Cohen
Author of Cravings
Cravings is a collection of short stories that begins with “Hors d’oeuvres” and closes with a story called “Feast.” Food is a metaphor for these storiesthat are about longing, missed opportunities, recriminations, and joy. The stories explore of the way events shape and change our lives, sometimes for the better and sometimes in ways that haunt us forever. The book looks at the subjects of love, friendship, childhood, parenthood, leaving home, and unexpected deaths.
Author Interview - Garnett Kilberg Cohen
Author I draw inspiration from:
Oh, so many! Eudora Welty (Collected Stories), Zora Neal Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God), Joan Didion (Play It as It Lays), Joyce Carol Oates (We Were the Mulvaneys and many others), Edna O'Brien (In the Forest and Country Girls), James Balwin (Notes of a Native Son and I love his short story "Sonny's Blues"), Jennifer Egan (Goon Squad), Alice Munro (Beggar Maid and Runaway), Flannery O'Connor (Collected Stories), Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky) ...too many more to name here.
Author Interview - Garnett Kilberg Cohen | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
By an open window with a gentle breeze outside or at night in a cozy armchair with everyone else asleep and a lightening storm raging outside.For the first of these two favorite places, I would particularly like to write inside a Mattisse painting.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
Anna Karenina in the book by the same name written by Tolstoy. The first time I read the book, it was a page-turner. I was terrified for her. I would hope to be in the elevator with her before her marriage or before she runs away with Count Vronsky. Either time I would have some advice I'd like to give her, sitting on the elevator floor, sharing a protein bar from my purse.
Author Interview - Garnett Kilberg Cohen | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
I was very young and wanted to be many things, but I always liked putting things on paper: words and drawings.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
1) Paperback (trade, not the smaller kind), 2) Hardback. I like the feel of paper and the weight of written words. I would also like to listen to audio when my eyes are tired or I'm driving, though I have not tried it much.
The last book I read:
Havoc by Christopher Bollen. I liked the character development (a widowed older woman) and the pace with which she was fully revealed. I also liked the setting (a posh hotel on the decline, along the Nile). And it was suspensful. It reminded me of books by Patricia Highsmith, a writer I love (and probably should have mentioned in the section about favorite authors). Havoc was suspensful, but not a standard mystery.
Author Interview - Garnett Kilberg Cohen | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Both. It is enjoyable to write on a train or a plane with pen and paper, places with few possible interruptions. Writing with a pen (or a very sharp pencil) can also be fun outside if the weather is perfect (70-75 degrees and no wind). I used to always write by hand, the physical connection feels more personal than a computer; now, aside from occasionally starting something that way, I generally write directly on the computer to save time. My process has changed multiple times over the years, but it continues to involve a lot of daydreaming and observing.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Hard question. I think I like most fictional characters to exist in a place I can only see and feel in my mind's eye. But as a young girl, I definitely would have wanted to be best pals with Harriet the Spy.
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
A visual artist. I love to draw. I would also like to be an architect and design unusual houses, but my math skills aren't good enough for me to even consider that. It is the drawing and designing that I would like. Being an attorney also appeals to me on some levels and long ago when I took tests about possible careers to fit my personality, attorney was at the top of the list. I would be interested in cases involving social justice, civil rights or people who have been unfairly accused or treated in other ways. But though I am interested in multiple aspects of writing and visual arts, I am not as interested in all the aspects of the law one needs to study to become an attorney.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
The 1920's. I liked the beads and sparkly short dresses, the feather in the hair. As a girl, a flapper was my preferred Halloween costume.
Place I’d most like to travel:
Argentina. It has a romantic appeal to me--and I like lush landscapes, particularly in cities. Though I love central America and have visited parts of it many times, I have never been to South America.I would also like to visit Portugal. I have been fortunate to travel a great deal but I have never been to Portugal either. I want to see places I've yet to see. Japan would also be interesting.
My signature drink:
A margarita for alcoholic--it feels so festive! I love a real Coke in an icy cold bottle but I try to avoid soda. I also like water a lot.
Favorite artist:
Again, as with authors, I have, oh, so many favorite artists, with diverse styles, working over such a vast time period! I love Alice Neel's portraits. Durer's prints (I don't know how to put the dots above the U above his name), particularly the hare and the rhino. Chicago atist, Kerry James Marcshall, is amazing. Hollis Sigler. Betye and Alison Saar. Mary Cassat. The German expressionists. I like exacting & precise drawing and prints (with careful attention to the lines) and paintings that are on the cusp between representational and abstract.
Number one on my bucket list:
Visiting countries I have not visited before, and writing something unexpected, unlike anything I've written before.
Anything else you'd like to add:
Nope! This was a really good interview questions.
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About Garnett Kilberg Cohen:
Author Interview - Garnett Kilberg Cohen
Garnett Cohen has published four books of short stories, most recently Cravings, from the University of Wisconsin Press (2023). The Midwest Review called the book "impressive...eloquent, original, moving, memorable." Her short stories have appeared widely and garnered awards from Crazyhorse, Michigan Quarterly Review, december Magazine, the Illinois Arts Council, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has also been published in numerous magazines, including Brevity, The Antioch Review, Memoir Magazine, The Rumpus, The New Yorker online, The Gettysburg Review, as well as other places. Two of her published essays were named Notable Essays by Best American Essays. She has had residencies at both Ragdale and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her poetry chapbook, Passion Tour, was published by Finishing Line Press. A Professor Emerita at Columbia College Chicago, where she taught for over 30 years, and was named a Distinguished Artist, she has served as an editor at six literary journals and is currently the prose review editor at Another Chicago Magazine.
