19 Rounds with Amy Stuber

We were thrilled when Amy Stuber, who had been a flash reader, became assistant flash editor earlier this year! If you haven’t read Amy’s writing, allow us to suggest starting with “Happy, Happy, Happy,” “Only a Little Bit Less Than I Hate Myself,” and her very latest, “Never In a Million Years.” And you can get to know Amy better here, through our 19 Rounds:

1. Early bird or night owl? I’ve been both, but currently early bird. Even if I stay up late, though, I’m physically unable to sleep in, which is annoying!

2. What was your worst haircut? One that made me look a lot like a pilgrim. 

3. If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? This is an impossible question. I like music too much, so I rcan’t settle on one song forever. But at this very moment, it might be “Shadow Man” by NoName. (She also has a book club: https://twitter.com/NonameBooks) 

4. Can you roll your tongue? Yes 

5. Mayonnaise: yes or no? Not as a condiment or in things that are really mayonnaise evident. But I’ve stumbled into mayonnaise inadvertently and not hated it, like the sauce that’s on this ramen I like is apparently just mayonnaise and Sriracha.


6. What is your least favorite word to come across when reading a book or story? Right now, maybe “pro-life,” which infuriates me in its inaccuracy.

7. Which movie was better than the book? I don’t know! I love movies, but I’m drawing a blank trying to answer this one. I thought the movie The Thin Red Line was really beautifully filmed, but I’ve not actually read the book, so that doesn’t count.

8. What was your first concert? I think it was The Police, Ghost in the Machine Tour. But it could have also been Duran Duran, and I might have stood with a friend outside the band’s entrance with a very large portrait she painted of John Taylor, waiting to give it to him. He never showed, and we went home in someone’s mother’s station wagon with the painting sitting between us.

9. It's Friday night. You're home alone. What did you order for dinner and what's on the TV? There’s a new season of Schitt’s Creek coming out this week, so I might be watching that and eating various kinds of potato chips.   

10. How do you take your coffee? With honey

11. What expression do you use that most people have never heard? My dad has this whole list of these made-up expressions he said to us when we were kids that he calls “Golden Oldies” that he randomly texts to us still. So probably one of those, which would mean nothing to anyone else but that I say a lot.

12. What movie have you seen the most times? When we were teenagers, my brother and I probably watched Raising Arizona and This Is Spinal Tap fifty times each.

 13. What is the best thing you cook or bake? Not sure how “best” they are, but I’ve made a lot of biscuits. I do like to bake. If I’m really stressed or angry, making bread helps, though it’s one of those things I will do a lot for a month and then not do again for two years.

14. Finish this sentence: More people should be reading _______________.

More people should be reading, period. And for those people who do read, more people should be reading writers of color and writers giving voice to people who have been marginalized.

15. Favorite time-waster? I am so compulsive about checking things: Submittable, Duotrope, email, Twitter, in a loop. It wastes so much time, and yet I can’t stop myself. What else? I watch too much bad tv. I like to take a walk with my daughter each day, and she runs through all the events of her day. And my son and I drive around all the time listening to music and talking.  

 16. What's the hardest thing about writing? Being filled with self-doubt and then having people email you things that reinforce your self-doubt. But also being in between projects and starting to panic about never starting anything again. And last but not least: being 50 and not having a book and not being sure I have what it takes to write a novel and wondering why writing lots of short stories and flash isn’t enough or doesn’t feel like enough. But I saw this thing T Kira Madden posted recently about writing and creating art being the thing (as opposed to an emphasis on massive output and publication). I’m trying to focus on that so I can just really love and enjoy the act of writing and feel good about creating things I’m proud of.  

17. What's the best thing about writing? Being in the thick of something and really wanting to keep going. At times like that, my fingers literally twitch, and it feels exciting. And revising a flash is really, really fun—thinking about every single word and also about paring down to hit a word count. 

18. What is your favorite sentence from a short story or poem? I have a few lines that repeat in my head and have for decades for some reason. Some of them aren’t even my favorites, but they are just stuck, and I can’t get rid of them. One of those is from Wordsworth: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our hours. Little we see in nature that is ours.” I don't know why, but I can’t stop hearing it, even though I’d kind of like to. And one that I really like that won’t go away is from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye: “Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941.” That book is so skillful and beautiful and really hit me when I first read it, and so many of the lines have stuck with me.

19. What question were you hoping to be asked? I’m mainly an introvert, so I’m almost never hoping to be asked anything.