1. When did you begin writing?
   I had a number of teachers in high school who encouraged me to write creatively. Then, when I went to Stephens College I took a fiction writing class with the novelist, Jaimy Gordon. She
   encouraged me to apply to Brown because of the creative writing program there. That changed the course of my life because I thought that I might become a journalist.
   Later, at the University of Alabama, there were many writers who were encouraging and generous with their time: Allen Wier, John Keeble, George Garrett.

2. What inspires you to write?
   I am inspired by colorful characters I meet in real life or even an odd situation, might be a trigger for a short story. Once I had a taxi driver in Cairo who had no legs. I was stunned. Someone had made hand brakes for him so he didn’t need to use his feet to stop the car. He was working in Iraq during the Gulf War. This made it into one of my stories, “Tiger” in “Shahrazad’s Gift.”

3. Have the places you have lived influenced your narratives? If so, how?

• Even though I lived in Istanbul and Tokyo, I didn’t write about those experiences. I am not sure why. It’s inexplicable. I think that I always had a connection with Egypt, from the first time that I came here in 1985. I wrote an autobiographical novel about my experience teaching in a girls’ school, but it’s in the drawer. I wrote many essays about my experiences living in Syria, 1997- 1999, but no fiction. I returned to Cairo in 2000. Many of the short stories were inspired by the shenanigans in the building where I lived in Cairo. I do think learning Arabic and living in Cairo has impacted the way I tell stories.

4. How did the idea for Confessions of a Knight Errant evolve?
   The two characters, Gary and Kharalombos feature in the last novella of my collection, Shahrazad’s Tooth which was published by a small press in Cairo in 2013. I thought it would be
   fun to find out what happened to Gary and Kharalombos after the 2011 uprising in Egypt. A German tourist invites them to work in her girls’ camp, but the ending of the novella is open. They were such crazy characters that I wondered how they would behave at a girls’ camp in Texas.

5.     Can you share a little of the story in Confessions?
Dr. Gary Watson is a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist who has been accused of masterminding a computer hack that wiped out the files of a major publishing company. His sidekick is
Kharalombos, a fat, gluttonous Greek dancing teacher, who is wanted by the secret police for cavorting with the daughter of the Big Man of Egypt. They rescue a number of pets as expatriates flee during the uprising in Egypt, 2011. Self-preservation necessitates a hurried journey to the refuge of a girls’ camp in rural Texas. Then a body turns up nearby that is connected to Middle East antiquities, and they are on the run once more.

5. With a short new fiction book also releasing in 2024 – are you constantly writing?
   It certainly looks like I am a machine! But this is not the case.
   Shahrazad’s Tooth was originally published in Cairo in 2013 by Afaq Publishers. The late Scott Davis, publisher of Cune Press was so enthusiastic about my novel, Confessions that he wanted to republish the story collection. I added two new stories to the forthcoming collection. When I am teaching, I can only
   manage smaller projects, like essays or reviews. It has been some time since I wrote a short story since I have been focused on a new novel project after Confessions.

7.     What is your writing method like?
I usually write a lot of notes in notebooks and start with a loose plan. I think it’s a mistake to be too rigid about plot. You have to pivot and be ready to go in another direction, depending on your characters. Sometimes, they do take on a life of their own. If you are writing a novel, you really need to be in that world every day. It’s a little like tending a garden. I was fortunate that the university granted me many leaves to work on my writing. I get up every morning and try to write until noon. In the afternoons, exercise, lunches with friends or reading—a break from writing. It’s important to take a break. The next day I am fresh when I get up, ready to write.
8.     Where can readers find you? Amazon.
https://gretchenmcculloughfictionwriter.com/
9.     Do you have a favorite quote you can share?
A friend recently returned my book, Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life. I thought some of her observations were so honest and helpful, especially on the creative life. I have been writing for so long—and was disappointed that I didn’t publish a novel earlier in my life. This quote from Tharp resonated with me, “My respect has always gone to those who are in it for the long haul. When people who have demonstrated talent fizzle out or disappear after early creative success, it’s
not because their gifts, that famous ‘one percent inspiration’ abandoned them; more likely they abandoned their gift though a failure of perspiration.” Writing is about the “long haul.”

10.  What are you working on next?
I just finished a draft about a CCC camp, set during the thirties in West Texas. I was intrigued by the freshwater swimming pool at Balmorhea, which is the size of a football field. I wanted to write about my grandfather who went to Sul Ross University in Alpine in the thirties. But when I went to the archives at Sul Ross, the librarians gave me so many oral interviews about the CCC camps in the area that I got interested in the establishment of Big Bend National Park and Balmorhea swimming pool. My grandfather
never worked in a CCC camp, but I imagined him there. I loved doing the research for this novel!

Bio:

Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey and Japan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and was awarded a teaching Fulbright to Syria from 1997-1999. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Archipelago, National Public Radio, Story South, Guernica, The Common, The Millions, and the LA Review of Books. Translations in English and Arabic have been published in: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail in Translation, World Literature Today and Washington Square Review with Mohamed Metwalli. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories from Cairo, translated with Mohamed Metwalli was published in July 2011 by AFAQ Publishing House, Cairo. A collection of short stories about expatriate life in Cairo, Shahrazad’s Tooth, was also published by AFAQ in 2013. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo. Her website: http://www.gretchenmccullough.wix.com/gretchenmccullough.