One Word That Describes Lara Ehrlich as a Writer is . . .
Persistent
adjective
“The difference between a published author and a really talented writer is having that persistence to push through.”
Lara Ehrlich’s sharp word-teeth carve deep, necessary space in the literary world for writers like herself. Her stories focus predominantly on her journey as “a girl, and then a woman, and then a wife, and then a mother,” and the many monstrous ways womanhood annihilates and reforms the individual.
Growing up, Ehrlich "read a lot of old dead white guys.” She hesitated to craft stories inspired by her life because the everyday experiences of women were relegated to chick lit or women's literature: “It took me probably until after graduate school, when I started going to conferences and workshops and meeting contemporary working writers especially women, to realize that I was sort of entrenched in this patriarchal canon of literature.”
Ehrlich believes “we need to redefine what stories we tell and hold up and celebrate." Her college students were taught the same novels in high school as she was, 30 years ago. She thinks “there’s something probably wrong with that.”
When asked to describe herself in one word, Ehrlich said persistent. “The difference between a published author and a really talented writer is just having that persistence to push through, right?” Writing comes with trial and error, endless drafts, and outside input. “If you feel [lost] after just a couple of months of trying to come up with a draft, that you're failing, I assure you that you're not. That's part of the process.”
Lara Ehrlich, author of the novel Bind Me Tighter Still and the story collection Animal Wife, which won Red Hen Press’s Fiction Award (2020), hosts the podcast “Writer Mother Monster” and directs the Thought Fox Writers Den. She lives in Ledyard with her husband, owner and operator of Bank Street Books, and her daughter. https://laraehrlich.com/
Interview by Callista White