Writer Spotlight: Jennifer Hudak
Welcome to the 30th installment of Writer Spotlight. This week’s focus is Jennifer Hudak. I’ve reviewed 14 of Hudak’s pieces, all of them individually on InkFoundry’s “Get WYSR” feed. (In case you didn’t know, InkFoundry is a wonderful and free resource that aggregates short fiction and poetry pieces!)
Recurring Themes:
Aging and how society sees older women
Out of body experiences / ghosts
Eating disorders / body dysmorphia
Older women doing whatever the fuck they want
Mothers!
Day One - Sep 10
A ghost tries to keep a promise she made to her son.
After swimming in Lake Greenpenny, Leena has an out of body experience.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both these stories have themes of disconnection from bodies.
Individually:
“A Promise” This story has themes of regret, a dynamic of loss between a mother and her son, and time hopping / time travel.
“Getaway” This story has themes of body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and body horror.
Day Two - Sep 11
3. “Mirrored” | WYSR Review
A changeling longs for the life of the girl she was meant to replace.
4. “The Cat Lady and the Petitioner” | WYSR Review
While going door to door for signatures, Laurie finds an adventure she wasn’t expecting.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These stories both have portals in them!
Individually:
“Mirrored” This story has themes of longing for a mother / feeling loved, jealousy, and fairies/changelings.
“The Cat Lady and the Petitioner” This one has a sweet, humorous tone and has elements of cats, portals / portal fantasy. The themes seem to be about finding out who you are and gaining confidence in your own identity. There is also anthropomorphism of the house.
Day Three - Sep 12
5. “The Taste of Centuries, the Taste of Home” | WYSR Review
The MC has always lived in the magical woods. But her grandmother came from somewhere else.
6. “With the Nectar Comes the Sting” | WYSR Review
The narrator has a mother who becomes a Hive Mind.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both these stories have themes about mother / daughter dynamics and generational knowledge.
Individually:
“The Taste of Centuries, the Taste of Home” This story reminds me of “Mirrored” in that the MC is from a fairy-tale place, and yearns for the mundanity of our Earth. There is also a theme of figuring out one’s identity that echoed “The Cat Lady,” braided along with the theme of origins, belonging, and feeling torn between two worlds while wanting to live in both.
“With the Nectar Comes the Sting” This story has themes on rage against men, on loss and grief from both the mother and the daughter’s perspective, and aging. The loss / yearning the daughter has for the mother and who she used to be reminds me of “Mirrored.” The way this story is structured makes me think of “A Promise,” in that it feels broken up because the POV is fractured. In “A Promise” it was because the MC was a ghost, in this one it’s because it’s between two POVs, and one of them is a hive mind of bees. There’s also body horror, reminding me of “Getaway.” There’s protectiveness of the daughter.
My god there’s so much in this one. GO READ IT.
Day Four - Sep 13
7. “The Weight of It All” | WYSR Review
Elizabeth wants to become like the ghost inside her: weightless.
8. “Echo Syndrome” | WYSR Review
A mother realizes her daughter is suffering from echo syndrome.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both these stories involve women suffering from conditions that progressively make them lighter / less substantial, which reminded me of “Getaway.” Both also are from the POV of someone watching someone else go through something difficult, while denying or not realizing that they themselves are also suffering, which reminded me of “With the Nectar Comes the Sting.”
Individually:
“The Weight of It All” This story immediately reminded me of “Getaway” in that Elizabeth has body dysmorphia and hates her body. There is also a ghost in this, echoing “A Promise,” as well as a similar theme of needing to let go of staying in the world of the living. There are also wonderful food descriptions, as I noted in “Taste of Centuries.”
“Echo Syndrome” This flash has a mother yearning to help her daughter. There is also a magical sickness present, which echoed “Getaway.”
Day Five - Sep 14
9. “The Witch Trap” | WYSR Review
Elizabeth’s contractor finds a shoe under the floor, a thing to trap witches.
10. “The Colonists” | WYSR Review
No one knows the true story of how the colonists died. You will, though, if you listen.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both these stories have themes of revenge in some way.
Individually:
“The Witch Trap” This story echoes themes of separation from the body / incorporeal beings, which reminded me of “Getaway,” “A Promise,” and “The Weight of it All.” It also has themes of abuse / murder of women, Christianity and religious oppression / violence, and, of course, witches.
“The Colonists” This is a revenge story from a non human POV, from a fungus. It also features a wrapped / layered structure with a story within a story within a story. This one also is also told in second person.
Day Six - Sep 15
11. “Written on the Subway Walls” | WYSR Review
The homeless live inside of Erie, but the police keep raiding, and Erie cannot help them.
12. “The Tide Folk” | WYSR Review
If you wait till the right time, you’ll see the Tide Folk come out.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both these stories create beauty out of what many would consider trash or detritus, like graffiti or old cans.
Individually:
“Written on the Subway Walls” This story has a POV from a city! I LOVED this one, especially how Erie came to realize what they were. There are themes of identity, and connection to humanity from a non-human POV, police raids, white gentrification, and the hardships of homelessness. I freaking loved Erie, they have my whole heart. I recently read The City We Became by N.K. Jemison and I was also reminded of that concept of how a person could represent a city or a place.
“The Tide Folk” This short flash has themes on the ocean, liminality, and beauty in the fleeting ephemeral. This one is told in second person, which reminds me of “The Colonists.”
Day Seven - Sep 16
13. “The Last Time Gladys Howled at the Moon” | WYSR Review
Gladys remembers when she used to be a wolf. She wants that again.
14. “The Day of the Sea” | WYSR Review
The sea comes, but she is an old woman, and not a warrior.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both these stories have themes on aging and how it affects how people see women, and older woman doing whatever the fuck they want which is AWESOME. Both these echoed, in my opinion, “The Cat Lady” and “With the Nectar.”
Individually:
“The Last Time Gladys Howled at the Moon” This one also has werewolves, not-quite-human POVs, and themes of identity and choosing for yourself what you want. The last one reminded me “The Cat Lady and the Petitioner.” Also, shapeshifting, which “Mirrored” also had with the changelings. And perhaps “Cat Lady” as well, now that I think about it, because the house itself kind of shapeshifted into cat form. Gladys also loves her husband and children, but doesn’t confine herself to them as her sole identity, which also reminded me of “With the Nectar.”
“The Day of the Sea” Along with what I said in the Pairing section, the ocean theme reminded me of “The Tide Folk.”
Emmie’s Personal Favorite: “Written on the Subway Walls” (I LOVED ERIE)
Interview Questions
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
Hudak: My spouse and I joke that almost every story I write includes 1) mothers/daughters/grandmothers, 2) musings on aging and power, and 3) bodies of water. And it's true: almost all my stories include at least one of those elements, and some include all three! Since I'm an aging mother to a daughter, and a daughter myself, the first two elements are obviously on my mind quite a lot. As for the water, I grew up near the Atlantic ocean, and I miss it dreadfully. I try to return to the ocean at least once a year, and when I do, I really feel like I'm communing with it in some way. The salt water is necessary for my well-being, and I have to fill myself up with it before I head back inland. It's interesting, too, because I've had the experience of meeting people that I connect with instantly, only to find out later that they are ocean people too. I think we find each other.
2. What character(s) in these pieces do you relate to the most? Or, what character(s) are different from you that you found most interesting?
Hudak: I've been open about the fact that I'm in recovery from an eating disorder, and both "Getaway" and "The Weight of It All" are written from a very personal perspective. "Getaway" was written just after I was first diagnosed, and it's pretty grim; in fact it was the writing of this story that made me realize how ill I was. When I sat down to write "The Weight of It All," I wanted to try to find a possible path to healing. So I feel like those two stories are interesting bookends of my own journey, in that one of them was very clearly written from my own lived experience, and the other was written in an attempt to find my way out of my current lived experience.
3. Do you tend to start writing a story idea out of a particular element, like character, setting, or point of view?
Hudak: My story ideas often start with a feeling more than anything else. Sometimes that feeling is associated with an image, sometimes a physical sensation, sometimes an event. But it almost always appears to me first in isolation, and I have to figure out how to build the story around it. (Incidentally, this is why I seldom outline my stories, because what I'm working toward is a moment of feeling rather than a plot point.) Other times, though, what comes to me first is kind of an intellectual concept... So for example I'll be thinking of, say, the omniscient pov, and I'll start to wonder what story would need that pov, and what could I do with the pov that's interesting, and then the story unfolds from those musings. My story "The Witch Trap" was written like that, actually. The original idea was that I wanted to portray the "witch" as being discursively constructed; or, to put it in less academic terms, I wanted to show how the language we've used to describe the witch throughout the centuries has caused the witch to take shape, both in our imaginations and, at times, in reality. How could I do that? What form would the story need to take in order to make that happen? I came up with a kind of crazy-quilt construction. I don't know if all my readers get that when they read the finished story, but the cool thing is that the story stands on its own even without that understanding. So that's important to think about, too.
4. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
Hudak: My favorite short story writer is Kelly Link, hands down. I've been obsessed with her work since I picked up her collection Magic For Beginners in 2005. If you haven't done a deep dive of her work yet, pick up any one of her collections; you are in for a TREAT.
5. Do you have any piece, listed here or otherwise, that you would like to promote?
Hudak: I'm a poet as well as a writer of prose; my poem "The World To Come" won the Nebula Award and was a finalist for the Hugo Award. I think that my deep interest in language--how it sounds, how it looks on the page, the ways in which it can surprise you--comes out in a lot of my fiction as well as in my poetry.
6. Do you have any piece, listed here or otherwise, that you would like to promote?
I've had a couple of short stories published this year that I'm really proud of, both of which lean a bit more into horror. One is "Penance," which came out in Issue 2 of Adventitious, and the other is "The Body Monstrous" which came out in The Rumpus as part of their Sunday Scaries series. If you like my work, I'd be honored if you checked those out (heeding the content warnings, of course!)