DIY MFA Radio · Gabriela Pereira

441: Writing an Experimental Short Story Collection - Interview

·1 hr 3 min·5 clips

Tarina describes how writing her pandemic story forced her to look at images of dead bodies, flipping her mind back into isolation.

This episode of DIY MFA Radio features host Gabriela Pereira interviewing fiction writer Tarina Elizabeth Bell about her debut short story collection, *Tell Me What You See*. Bell's collection uniquely focuses on the years 2020 and 2021, with all ten stories directly stemming from that period. The conversation explores how Bell's solitary experience in Manhattan during the pandemic's peak influenced her experimental, cross-genre fiction. Several stories, including "Privacy Station" and "Fifth Fear," originated from vivid dreams Bell had during quarantine. "Privacy Station" involves two scientists isolated on a space station while a pandemic unfolds on Earth, mirroring feelings of quarantine. The story "#coronalife" was psychologically the most difficult for Bell to write, emerging from a heated online argument about pandemic responses. Bell structured "#coronalife" in three distinct text columns representing conflicting perspectives from New York and Kentucky. She incorporated actual images and news screenshots from the pandemic era, requiring extensive research into traumatic events. This research process negatively impacted Bell's mental health, causing her to revert to early-pandemic anxieties like hoarding food. Her beta reader, author Andrew Schaefer, noted the initial draft portrayed the main character as overly self-righteous, prompting a significant rewrite. Bell emphasizes the importance of a personal support system to check in during emotionally taxing writing projects. The collection's title story, "Tell Me What You See," addresses the January 6th Capitol attack and the public reaction to it. Bell describes her writing process as an exercise in honesty, channeling raw emotions like anger into her work. She contrasts writing authentic fiction, sparked by "what if" scenarios, with merely fictionalizing a personal diary. The episode maintains a conversational and reflective tone, blending personal anecdote with craft discussion. Listeners interested in experimental fiction forms and the creative processing of recent historical trauma will find this episode compelling. Writers seeking purely technical advice on short story structure might find the deeply personal focus less applicable.

As heard by us

A measured craft conversation about an experimental collection that blends images, erasure, and careful research.

Tarina Elizabeth talks through an experimental short story collection built from images, erasure, and careful factual research. The episode keeps coming back to the same hard problem: how to stay exact on the page without flattening the feeling that makes the work matter.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a candid craft conversation about writing with images, erasure, and radical honesty.

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