First pages are impossible… so we’re hearing from authors about how they got them right.
In this episode, Amina Gautier discusses the first pages of “Lost and Found,” the first story in her collection The Loss of All Lost Things. She explains how the story prepares the reader thematically and stylistically for the stories that follow, how she manipulates voice, avoids graphic representations of abuse and violence, and how she has produced a record-number of published short stories (hint: it has to do with working on many stories at once).
Gautier’s first pages can be found here.
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Amina Gautier is the author of three award-winning short story collections: The Loss of All Lost Things, which won the Elixir Press Award in Fiction, Now We Will Be Happy, which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, the USA Best Book Award in African American Fiction a Florida Authors and Publishers Association Award Gold Medal in Short Fiction, and was Long-listed for The Chautauqua Prize in Fiction, and At-Risk, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and received an Eric Hoffer Legacy Award and a First Horizon Award. Gautier has published a record number of one hundred and forty-five short stories for which she has received numerous prizes, fellowships, and grants. For her body of work, Gautier has been the recipient of the PEN/MALAMUD Award for Excellence in the Short Story.
Passages: Amina Gautier on "Lost and Found" from her collection The Loss of All Things