#mineralschool

[dutchessabroad]

View from #mineralschool #hope for #rural #America #saynotoracism https://www.instagram.com/p/CF7F9T1B-nb/?igshid=uhfs7tndktmp

[dutchessabroad]

#Mineral #Market #generalstore near #MineralSchool in #Mineral #WA https://www.instagram.com/p/CF7FwRjhNu4/?igshid=13uirsne7c6pp

[cupandpenny]

MAKIN THAT MUNNY ONE DOLLAR AT A TIME #hustler #smallbusiness #artshow #mineralschool

[cupandpenny]

MERCH MERCH MERCH The CUP & PENNY table is crammed with #handmade goodies at the Mineral School arts-and-crafts fundraising show in #Mineral, WA. 2 hours outside #Seattle, and we'll be here all #weekend! Come say hi! #mineralschool #mountrainier #artsandcrafts #show #handmade #washington

[litcrawlseattle]

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum: “I think Seattle gets uncomfortable with too much earnest sentiment. I don't care, though--I'm proclaiming my love for this place.”

Interviewed by Brian McGuigan

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is a short story writer’s short story writer. She plucks complex characters into stories about real world shit, and let’s them struggle with how to be a person in ways that make me think, “Yeah, I’ve been there." 

Kirsten is the author of two collections of fiction, "This Life She’s Chosen” and “Swimming With Strangers." 

She’s working on a new collection of stories. She read one at a recent Cheap Beer & Prose that made my big, dumb heart go kerplunk.  

Kirsten’s reading at Get (Mineral) Schooled, part of Lit Crawl Seattle’s 7 p.m. phase, at Still Liquor, with fellow Mineral School residents Stephanie Kuehnert, Jane Wong, and Susan Meyers. 

I caught up with Kirsten by email to talk reading and writing and teaching.  

You’re reading as part of the Mineral School reading at Lit Crawl. Tell us about your Mineral residency experience. 

I spent two weeks at the Mineral School last June, and it was such a huge gift! The site is a unique place to write, surrounded as it is by gorgeous scenery (Mt. Rainier is right there!) and the small (and I mean small) town of Mineral. I found the place’s beauty and quiet incredibly restful, and I was able to get an enormous amount of writing done in that space.

Beyond that, Jane Hodges and the Mineral School staff worked so hard to ensure that we writers all felt at home, were fed well (the food was incredible), and had a positive work experience. I am filled with gratitude to them every time I think about my residency, and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

What are you working on now?

I’ve gone back to the form that feels like home to me and am writing a collection of stories. This collection is linked, though–a first for me. It has meant always keeping an eye on each individual story’s shape, but also an eye on the shape of the narrative as a whole, and that has been a fun (and totally engrossing) challenge.

What book opened up the world of writing for you?

The first book I read that really made me think "this is what I need to do with my life” was Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons. 

A teacher gave it to me as an extra assignment when I was sixteen, and I was submerged in the book for a weekend and came up gasping for air (in the best possible way). 

After that, I think Alice Munro’s Selected Stories was really a game-changer for me. 

I read it during the winter vacation after my first semester of grad school (and–in case the details are important to you–I read it while huddled in a sleeping bag in the flatbed of a truck in Joshua Tree, California, completely ignoring the beautiful place I was in because the stories were too compelling to put down).

I had never before read stories that were about people like those I’d grown up with, nor stories that felt so richly complex and whole. And Tyler and Munro are still favorites–still the literary parents I go back to when I’m lost or seeking.

You teach high school English. What book don’t you teach that you’d love to?

I do teach high school English now (after over a decade of teaching at the college-level), and it completely surprises me every day that I ended up in a high school classroom and that I love it as much as I do. 

A big part of my love for the job, however, is the freedom my school gives me to choose what I’m going to teach–or to ask my students what they want to learn. In general, if I want to teach a book, I do.

Last year, for instance, my juniors read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Lauren Groff’s Arcadia, which are both books with difficult, “adult” subject matter, but also books my high schoolers LOVED. 

What about Lit Crawl Seattle are you most looking forward to?

This will be my first Lit Crawl, and I’m so excited to hear the other readers and to get a sense of the incredible work being made in Seattle. The energy already surrounding the night makes me think it’s going to be a highlight of my year.

What is Seattle to you?

Home. That seems like a simple answer, but it’s the truth for me. I grew up here, left, and built a life on the other side of the country, but this place never stopped feeling like home. I had to come back.

And now that I am here again, I’m grateful every single day that this is where I get to live. (Too earnest an answer? I think Seattle gets uncomfortable with too much earnest sentiment. I don’t care, though–I’m proclaiming my love for this place.)