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Eugenia Gallardo

Author

This writing: does it hurt?

Eugenia Gallardo -
The process itself, of putting one word together with another to structure a thought in a way that makes it communicable, shouldn't hurt. The art of writing is a pleasure and that is why those of us who write are always involved in this, either writing as such or thinking about what to write or remembering what we already wrote. It is a pleasure and, consequently, it develops a need, a drive, a form of falling in love...
Author

Inspiration or illusion factor?

Eugenia Gallardo -
Inspiration is talked over and over again. What if it's a crush, like Cupid's. What if it is a flash, some muses, some magicians, a miracle, a door, an ancestor, a mischievous spirit that suddenly opens the way for us to a beautiful text or gives us a key or a map or a compass towards a subject that lends itself to our literary adventures. In the context of writing our story, that inspiration would tell us where to start or which characters are key or which places to recreate or what treasure is in our memory that serves as the foundation for the narrative...
Author

Common places have their place – Part Two

Eugenia Gallardo -
Eager to polish a story, we proceed to replace common places with other, more creative and personal ways of saying things. Now, it is necessary to think (besides being original) what that "common phrase" or commonplace really affects. Sometimes it is because sincerity is lacking where the matter of being believed is essential, as in a testimony or in an autobiography, because there specificity is the greatest contribution...
Author

Common places have their place – Part One

Eugenia Gallardo -
In the shared territory of the language, there are not only words, the structures that give them meaning, local expressions, grammatical and orthographic conventions, etc. There is also a drinking fountain, a source of ready-made phrases or expressions that we call commonplaces. They come from interesting or effective findings that some author gave to humanity and humanity, grateful, wanted to show their admiration by repeating that phrase and embellishing or improving their literature with it. That author could be a poet, a novelist, an orator, a philosopher...
Author

Guatemalan altarpiece of wonders

Eugenia Gallardo -
It was a gruel that got muddy on some papers and some papers to which a sawdust stuck and that, already wrinkled, became mountains. They were little white stones that were roads and river basins. It was a mirror that was a lake where a swan bigger than him sat. It was a moss that ran along the banks and in its path hid the pots. They were hidden pots that were forests and jungles and splendid nature.
Author

Of the oral and the written

Eugenia Gallardo -
I asked a friend who is a great conversationalist why she didn't write those colorful and interesting stories that she told with such grace and enthusiasm. He replied that without the nourishment of the immediate reaction of his audience, he could not fabricate stories and that he had tried but that the result was frustrating. “My written stories -he lamented- seem rigid and bland to me; they are no longer living words”.
Author

Eureka

Eugenia Gallardo -
They say that many who have shouted eureka! finding something they desperately sought, they achieved it in the humbling, everyday act of taking a shower or soaking in a bathtub. The explanation is that when we let go of the state of despair, the mind is released and finds itself without effort, that is, in freedom.
Author

In addition to observing: being present

Eugenia Gallardo -
I suggest an exercise to hone our observation capabilities. In a meeting let us remain silent for ten or fifteen minutes. Let's observe people: their gestures, interactions, their way of dressing, of seeing others, of intervening or listening or being silent. Everything has a specific way of happening: let's observe in detail, minutely.
Author

Teach yourself to fly

Eugenia Gallardo -
Like flying, writing is learned by launching. Like the birds that come with the instruments in the suitcase of the wings, whoever writes comes equipped with two essential tools: something to say and a visceral need to say it. And the rest, as the Guatemalan Monterroso would say, paraphrasing the British Shakespeare, the rest is silence. In other words, if you already have something to say and it stings you to say it, don't ask for anything else. Fly. Scribe.
Author

How do you write a tango?

Eugenia Gallardo -
How do you write a tango? I asked for. A tango is not written, it is danced, they answered me in the classic posture of someone who enjoys consuming and not doing what is consumed.
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About Me

Literariamente Eugenia se define como hija de Asturias y Cervantes; prima de Monterroso y Batres Montúfar; amiga de Yourcenar y Christie. Su obra ha sido traducida al italiano y francés, e incluida en antologías. Publica poco y escribe mucho; la crítica ha sido generosa con los frutos de su inventiva. En 2020 y 2021 fue nominada al Premio Nacional de Literatura. Floreció en dos hijas y dos nietas. Casada de dos hervores, hoy es soltera empedernida. Creció en Cobán, Huehuetenango y la Ciudad de Guatemala. Entre aventuras y exilios ha vivido en Nueva Orleans, Sao Paulo, Atlanta, Carolina del Norte, Londres, Madrid y Costa Rica. Es Máster en Ciencias en Economía de América Latina (Universidad de Londres). Como economista política se ha dedicado principalmente a la investigación social. Escritora, dramaturga, actriz y artista plástica, su principal motivación es la creatividad y la experimentación.
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