Gina Oschner: Longtime first year fiction mentor Gina reflects on her time in the program
Q: Tell us any thoughts about your first year versus your last of being a mentor. What stands out to you across that span of time?
Gina Oschner: Each year of mentoring felt like white-water rafting over huge rapids. Each group of writers brought unique questions and writing challenges to the table and each year I discovered just how much I needed to learn both as a writer and a mentor. During my first year of mentoring the big question I struggled with was whether or not I should try to mentor exactly the way the previous mentor had. After a few failed attempts, I realized (with some gentle nudging from the mentees) that it was OK to have my own style of coaching. It’s been a humbling process, but also an immensely rich and rewarding intellectual and creative journey.
Q: Where's the strangest place you have taught? And if strange is not the word, where's a place you have taught that has a good story behind it?
Gina Oschner: I once gave a lecture in Riga, Latvia to a group of about 200 public school teachers. They had (at their own expense) travelled from all parts of Latvia to come to this conference which aimed to equip them with biblical principles that they could incorporate in their classrooms. Their administrators and the Minister of Education had lamented at the lack of moral fiber in the curriculum. So this was a highly unique event in a former Soviet-occupied country. Twenty six years ago such a conference would never have been permitted. At any rate, when some of the teachers from the eastern part of the country learned that I was interested in learning more about their dainas, poem-songs, they all stood up and sang to me. It brought tears to my eyes. As the conference concluded, all two hundred of them lined up and shook my hand and thanked me for coming. I have never experienced such gratitude or hospitality. One teacher explained to me that gratitude in Latvian culture is very important, “And so,” she said, “I thank you for yesterday, I thank you for today, and I thank you for tomorrow.” I’ll never forget that.
Q: What do you think is the most interesting word and why (in any language you know)?
Gina Oschner: The universe spins widdershins on peculiar words. If I tried to answer this question, I’d simply be copying a dictionary—word for word!
Q: What is one of your favorite short stories? Why?
Gina Oschner: I love Alice Munro’s story “Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You.” It’s such a gorgeous orchestration of image, memory, and mystery. I like very much Angela Carter’s “Erl-King.” No one retells a tale we thought we knew quite like she does!
Q: Is there anything you want to tell alums?
Gina Oschner: I remember the years after finishing an MFA and feeling very much afloat without a paddle or a plan. I remember wishing that I had spent more time cultivating friendships with fellow writers in the program while I had the chance. And since I hadn’t done that, I remember wondering how to stay connected in a writing community, or how to create the sense of being in a writing community. So if I could go back in time and give the younger me some advice, I would tell her to do all to nurture the creative self. Of course, this is no easy task as all you alums know. You have “real lives” with real responsibility. But I would urge you to do the things that increase your joy.
Q: Any big projects we should be looking out for from you?
Gina Oschner: At the moment I’m putting together a short story collection that features somewhat prominently (but not necessarily in this order) ghosts, human-eating reptiles, mean-spirited mermaids, and vampires. We’ll see what happens with that. I’ve been making some research trips to Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia with the hopes of setting a novel in that part of the world. If I do so, I think that it will feature somewhat prominently (but not necessarily in this order) ghosts, dancing bears, a typhus epidemic, werewolves, and maybe a vampire.