“Lincoln, Maw and Shorty”, a short story by Ellen Birkett Morris, appeared in Issue 27 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about “Lincoln, Maw and Shorty”.
This story was inspired by a photograph of the same name that I saw in the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. In it an old woman, a young man and a beagle look into the camera as if they are posing for a family portrait. I knew who Maw was, but I wondered about a family dynamic where the dog would be named Lincoln and the young man Shorty. It was great fun to explore the idea of the dog being the mother’s favorite and that led me to the more poignant moments of the story that dealt with being left out and over looked. I enjoyed being able to put in pop culture references to add humor and also ground the story in a particular time period.
What was the most difficult part in writing this story?
Finding the right ending was the most challenging part. I wanted the ending to continue to illuminate the themes in the piece and be satisfying for the reader. I feel like I hit the mark on that. Shorty’s role in Lincoln’s disappearance was in keeping with his character and was in some ways an act of kindness to try and restore the world to how he thought it should be.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
Just one? I think I have to give two. Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge bewitched me with her ability to so fully draw Olive and to lead me to a place where I felt love and empathy for such a difficult person. I love the way the stories are linked and the beautiful, yet unfussy, way it is written. I also love Lily King’s Euphoria. The story is compelling and the setting is transformative. She hits all the right notes in the unfolding of a love triangle.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
I want to have a pint with Colm Tóibín and talk about how beautiful he renders the interior lives of women.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I am revising and submitting a story about the mother of a son who has past life memories to indie presses. I am revising and seeking representation for a novel about a female astronomer in Hawaii.
Our thanks to Ellen for taking the time to answer a few questions and share her work. Read Ellen’s story, “Lincoln, Maw and Shorty”, here: https://www.sequestrum.org/fiction-lincoln-maw-and-shorty.
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Ellen Birkett Morris’s collection of short stories, Lost Girls, is forthcoming in September 2020. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, and Santa Fe Literary Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council in support of her fiction. For more information: http://ellenbirkettmorris.ink/