Kalika Valentine-Erickson/ Winonan
The short story “Captivity” written by Abby Geni, is part of a collection of short stories titled The Last Animal in which every story in the collection has an animal in it. Her inspiration started with a book by Jacques Cousteau, but her fascination with animals comes from her endless curiosity with the world.
“I do get a lot of inspiration from science readings, about the way the world works,” Geni said. “I feel like I’m endlessly curious about all the things we don’t understand.”
Geni held a reading of “Captivity” on Thursday, Feb. 19 at 5 p.m. in the Science Laboratory Center. Geni’s reading was the first in the Great River Reading Series for the year.
Winona State University English professor Myles Weber wanted a short story writer, so English professor Elizabeth Oness began the search for a short story writer to attend the reading.
Oness said, “One of the things I really admired about the stories in The Last Animal is that they’re very confident in their pacing. They’re not in a hurry. We’re living in a time where things go faster and faster, and I really feel like the tone and the pacing of these stories match each other so well.”
After the reading, Geni opened up the conversation for questions. Oness announced there would be a more intimate question and answer session the following morning.
On Friday, Feb. 20 Geni answered questions in a full and cramped classroom in Minne. Many of the students in the question and answer session were in Dr. Oness’s creative writing class, but there were some who were just interested in the author and her works. Many students wondered how she got her start as an author.
“When I was six, I was writing stories,” Geni said. “I wrote five really, really terrible novels before I was eleven.”
Several students asked Geni about the fate of the characters in her stories.
“I know as much as I wrote, and that’s all I know,” Geni said.
The students groaned and laughed in frustration at the vagueness: many hoped for concrete answers.
Despite having written a collection of short stories, Geni has always classified herself as a novelist.
“I was a novelist who wasn’t yet ready to write a novel,” she said. Geni’s dream of being a novelist is in the process of coming true however, and her first novel will be published in 2016. She had the novel in mind while she was writing her collection of short stories.
“I always have the project I’m working on, and then I have the dream project of what will come next,” said Geni.
Abby Peschges, a first year graduate student for literature and language, attended the discussion.
“This whole session was more of a conversation than a lecture, which was a really great experience to have with a writer,” Peschges said. “You get to learn so much more specifically compared to just going to a reading with the author.
Geni ended the talk by answering a final question about differing interpretations of her story.
“The story exists somewhere between the writer’s imagination and the reader’s imagination,” she said.
