Eckleburg: What drives, inspires, and feeds your artistic work?
Aimee LaBrie: Reading, reading, reading. I usually have two or three books going at the same time, and I’ll skip between them. I also like to read interviews with writers to see where they get their inspiration and how they fit writing into their daily lives.
Eckleburg: If you had to arm wrestle a famous writer, poet or artist, either living or dead, who would it be? Why? What would you say to distract your opponent and go for the win?
Aimee LaBrie: I am a pacifist, so don’t believe in arm wrestling. Plus, I have week biceps and so would lose. If I were guaranteed to win, I’d pick Hemingway, just because I don’t think there’s much he believed women could do better than men. I’d like to prove him wrong. In as few words as possible…
Eckleburg: What would you like the world to remember about you and your work?
Aimee LaBrie: That writing and reading can relieve suffering. We can’t get rid of pain, but we can escape it for a while through writing it down and reading about others who have survived. I would like to be remembered as making people laugh, even when they’re also slightly horrified.
Aimee LaBrie teaches and works at Rider University. Her short story collection, Wonderful Girl, was chosen as the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction and published by the University of North Texas Press in 2007. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her short stories have been published in Pleiades, Minnesota Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Permafrost, and other literary journals. In 2012, she won first place in Zoetrope’s All-Story Fiction contest. You can read her blog at www.butcallmebetsy.blogspot.com.
