Ep 191. Amina Gautier: A Writer's Work and Life

<p><a href="https://aminagautier.wordpress.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dr. Amina Gautier</a> is an associate professor in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Miami. Professor Gautier is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. She’s taught at Penn as well as Marquette University, Saint Joseph’s University, Washington University in St. Louis, and DePaul University. She’s published one hundred and twenty-nine short stories, including three award-winning short story collections -- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Prairie-Schooner-Prize-Fiction/dp/080325539X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Now We Will Be Happy</em></a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Loss-All-Lost-Things-dp-1932418563/dp/1932418563/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&amp;me=&amp;qid=" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>The Loss of All Lost Things</em></a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/At-Risk-Stories-Flannery-OConnor-Fiction/dp/0820344397/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>At-Risk: Stories</em></a>. Among her many honors, she’s been the recipient of writing awards, prizes, and fellowships. Her critical reviews and essays on 19th-century writers have been published broadly.&nbsp; Amina is a Brooklyn-born native New Yorker who currently divides her time between Chicago and Miami.&nbsp;</p><br><p>In this episode, Stew and Amina talk about how her impoverished childhood, in which she split time living in two different parts of Brooklyn, affected her decision to become a writer.&nbsp; Amina describes her early obsession with writing and how, in a fateful conversation with a poetry professor, she realized her calling was as a writer of stories, not poems.&nbsp; She talks about her creative process, especially the importance of managing boundaries that enable her to focus on producing her art, and how her relationships with both students and read