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Your story “Church,” which you’ve included in your collection, won second place in the Mindprints short fiction contest. The title of this story is derived from this line: “She let him sleep, the house like a church.” But there is also a quest for redemption, or, at the very least, acceptance, underway, as the narrator, who worshipped her husband, tries to reassure herself that she was, in fact, a good wife. What was your vision for this story?

Seems unfair that such a dutiful wife should lose her husband. It’s like being laid-off. Suddenly, you don’t have a job anymore, and your years of service mean nothing.

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To me, however, there is also a sense of guilt on the wife’s part. She (to steal your word) dutifully served her husband—his bad habits and all. Am I reading too much into this, or is the guilt really there?

She’s grieving for two people: her husband, the man she worshipped (your word, and a good one at that), and for herself, because she’s been left out in the cold with his passing. For sure, a woman like her must feel guilty as heck thinking of herself, which is why she’s only able to do it the way she does, hesitantly. She’ll get better at it. So you’re right on, Kelly.

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“Sister Gwendolyn,” which was published in the summer 2006 issue of Per Contra, is incredibly understated, and yet it works. Is this a skill that comes easily to you? How do you decide where to draw the line, when to forego subtlety for directness?

I don’t know if it’s being subtle or understated. I’m hoping the reader will follow the story, and get a sense of being witness to something as it’s going on, as it happens in real time. Gwendolyn threw herself into the grave. It’s an act committed by a person who doesn’t know what else to do, and it doesn’t give much clue as to what’s really transpired, besides the irrational act. If you’re standing there watching it, the picture isn’t clear. By allowing Gwen to pace the story, have her moment, her flashbacks, before coming to grips, I got a better sense of what her grief was like, and, finally, the madness at the beginning seemed more natural. I think I just trusted the story to tell itself, without expecting a big bang in the end. It might be the type of story that makes it seem subtle, as well. So I don’t know if I’m being subtle, or if being too clear just doesn’t always tell the story properly.

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You recently changed your writing focus from flash fiction to short stories. Why the transformation?

You use different muscles writing flash. It took me a while to get to the point where I could sit at the computer knowing I was going to write a 500 worder on purpose. Before that, finding a flash imbedded in a longer story was a nice surprise. It was something that happened by accident. Am I making sense? Flash is very challenging, and it trains you to ask the hard questions, tells you where you should be looking because it’s hard to bullshit your way through flash for very long. It’s very immediate and intimate, and it’s addictive. You get in the habit of cutting every second word, and it’s hard to stop. I love it! I’m just going into detox for a while.

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You also have a novel in the works. Tells us about that.

I’ve always had a novel in the works, I’ve just been waiting for my skills to catch up. Ha! At the moment, it’s a pile of writing I’ve set aside for later. Soon as I’m convinced I’ve done all I can for SETTING FIRES, I’ll get back to the novel. It’s called A TRAIN RUNS THROUGH HERE.

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It seems that many writers undergo a stint as an editor. You’re no exception, having guest-edited for flashquake. What edition did you read for? How would you sum up the experience?

Spring 2006. It was a great experience. Some of the stories and poems were so surprising. What a thrill it was coming across a piece that felt perfect as is. The best stories had me from the very beginning. Debi Orton and the gang do a fantastic job with flashquake. The submissions process is very organized. It was a pleasure seeing my favorite pieces working their way to acceptance.

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If you could live the life of a famous author for one day, whose would it be?

I’ve always admired the life of Mordechai Richler. I used to see him often on my way from the Bonaventure bus depot to Concordia University. There he’d be, sitting alone at a little table outside of Grumpy’s Bar, trying to read the paper, scowling like he didn’t know why I needed to do a quick double-take every single time.

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I’m not familiar with Mordechai Richler. What has he written?

THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ, ST. URBAIN’S HORSEMAN, SOLOMON GURSKY WAS HERE, and BARNEY’S VERSION—which won him the Giller Prize—are some of his best. He passed away in 2001.

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You live in Montreal, and are part of the Canadian Writer’s Collective. Tell us a bit about this group, and about the Canadian literary world in general.

We may have set out to prove that we were uniquely Canadian, but that’s not the case anymore, I don’t think. We’re a very diverse group, banded together to share our experiences, our thoughts, as writers first, who also happen to live in Canada. We’re somewhere there on the fringes, I suppose, of the Canadian lit scene, but we’re writing for the internet so our view is of the whole world. We get readers from all parts of the globe. Yikes! As for the Canadian lit scene itself, it’s a little like the Canadian army during times of peace — the promotions are few and far between, the rifles get carved out of old growth, and the bullets out on the target range sound too much like bang, bang.

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Though you live in Canada, your family is Greek. When did you parents immigrate? Have you been to Greece yourself?

My father came over in forty-eight. I was in my early twenties when I first went to Greece, a magically real experience for me, seeing the places from the stories my parents loved to tell.

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What places? What stories? Do tell!

They each had their own stories, which they told repeatedly, and with pride, because there was always some hardship involved. My father had a story about the little scar on his cheek. Apparently, a German warplane crashed into the olive tree he’d climbed. Fantastic stuff for me, at that age. He did have to give in when I was older, though, and admit the plane hadn’t actually crashed into the tree. Didn’t matter. What was important was that he’d suffered through war as a child. But for me, it was a story I was to replay in my mind many times over the years.

The island of my parent’s youth, Aegina, became a magical place for me. My mother was precocious as a child, so her stories were slightly different from my father’s. The hunger and the hard times was just the way it was for her. At least it seemed like that to me. Her stories were always mischievous and entertaining. Eventually, my parents memories became my own. When I did finally go to Greece, I found myself at that exact spot my father had told me about, my eyes closed, trying to see him as a boy, looking skyward through the canopy of an olive tree. It was truly a strange and wonderful experience. It was like stepping into a story book.

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What is your favorite guilty pleasure, that’s rated PG-13?

Sneak-eating the leftovers, before anyone can get to the kitchen and clear the plates for the dishwasher, looking over my shoulder as if it’s a bad thing not wanting to waste such tasty food.

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Contact Antonios

Read:

“Garbage”
published by NOÖ Journal
nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“A Fond Memory of Lovingkindness”
published by Cezanne’s Carrot
nominated for a Pushcart Prize

“The Marker”
published by Verbsap

“Yellow Jacket”
published by elimae

“A Landscape and a Horse to Ride”
published by The Pedestal

“The Mule Killer”
published by InkPot

“Swineherds and Swillpits”
published by Slingshot Magazine

Antonios’ Profile on Art Springboard


Filed Under: The Writer Profile Project |