Q&A with Kristina Stocks
/
Kristina Stocks is an emerging writer and researcher. She was recently accepted into a Master’s of English and creative writing at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland. You can find her work in Drunk Monkeys Literature and Film, Defenestration Magazine, Variant Literature, and Remington Review, among other publications. She is the nonfiction editor for Lemonspouting Magazine. She lives with her fiancé and their adopted Husky that hates the snow in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. Follow her on Instagram @kristinaaanne.
Her essay “Andrew” is part of a larger creative nonfiction essay collection titled Winnipeggers, which examines independence, sexuality, and unexpected friendship. First written five years ago after a series of particularly bad dates, “Andrew” examines the skewed decisions a young person makes while coming to grips with their self-esteem.
Logan Tyler converses with Kristina Stocks regarding “Andrew” below.
What meaning do you give the quote you included at the beginning of your piece? Does it have any personal significance outside of the story’s plot?
The quote from the beginning of the piece is a part of the “This is Water” commencement address from the story. This quote from the speech is personally significant to me because it boils down to the value of “bigger picture” thinking. Actively trying to be good to other people can get lost in the search for meaning in a person’s day to day. But it’s the “unsexy” stuff, like paying attention to what the people around you might need or being able to step outside of your own “I am the main character in this story” narrative, that lends itself to feeling free.
The nature of your story is very relatable and relevant to today’s social media climate. Do you typically write about relatable experiences? And what message are you trying to give your readers about the effect of social media?
I try to write about relatable experiences!
I think social media can be a great tool for so many things, and it’s often difficult to talk about its positive and negative aspects without being reductive as there is so much going on in our digital ecosystems today.
That said, I think we’re all aware that it can have a flattening impact. In my writing, I try to look at a microcosmic example of how social media can potentially be screwing us up, but also how it’s incredibly nuanced.
Did going on online dates in your 20’s have an impact on a lot of your work?
I think it did, yes. I like to pepper in stories about online dating in my work because it’s sort of become one of the universal ways to meet people now. It has opened the door to so many different experiences and people we wouldn’t necessarily meet. Because of this, dating online was one of those things that I often found inherently interesting and amusing by virtue of being an uncomfortable process.
How similar is the narrator’s voice to your own?
The narrator’s voice is close to my own in this story, though I think I tried to write with a bit more of a reflective lens because it happened several years ago, and hindsight is 20/20.
Certain lines in the piece are repeated a second time. How did you pick which lines were repeated and what emphasis did you want the reader to take from that repetition?
I wanted to emphasize the repetition of dialogue as well as internal thoughts. Truthfully, I hoped to make the reader a little frustrated with not only Andrew the character, but the narrator as well.
How do you find the right balance between reality and fiction in creative nonfiction?
I try to look at short creative nonfiction like a vacuum. You’re trying to capture all the detail of an experience without sucking up the whole carpet. You’re taking the finite parts of an experience and arranging them so that they can make sense to the reader. Fictional elements fill those gaps in a way that makes the experience a little more artful. I also think fiction has many elements of truth and blending the two feels more reflective to me.
Do you typically write nonfiction pieces, or do you ever work with fiction or poetry?
I also work with fiction!
A lot of your story has a humorous undertone to it. Why is humor important for you to include in your work?
Humor has always been a crutch for me. As an anxious person who tends to overthink and make things more of an issue than they truly are, it has helped me take a step back and not take things so seriously.
Do you have any advice for young writers? Or young people, in general, trying to live out their 20’s?
My advice for young writers and I guess young people, in general, would be to persist. I just left a job that made me unhappy and moved across the country to pursue this writing thing—again. I think it’s okay to fail, and it’s also okay to pursue what will make you happy. Just be kind to yourself and go with the flow.
Are you currently working on any new projects?
I am! I’m working on a fiction book tentatively called The Underscore.
It is a research-creation project that narrates the lives of four characters, all struggling with the influence of social media in their relationships, beliefs, and (dis)connections to the natural environment.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Thank you so much for your questions and the chance to share my work!
You can read “Andrew” here.
