I never write without music. Popping on my headphones and turning up the volume is the only way I’ve found to block out the world enough to get into the deep headspace required to make a story.
At times, I have no ideas when I begin a story. I let my mood and whatever music matches it to take me somewhere. I get one line down and then I follow. I wrote the four stories of NO MAN’S WILD LAURA between October 2014 and June 2015. In those months, my grandmother became very ill and passed away.
The chapbook and playlist are a response to the despair and loneliness of losing one of your most beloved people. The magnitude of her loss led to a great deal of reflection about all of my close relationships, to long periods pondering my roots, and the strong, but badly damaged women I grew up around.
The second to youngest of seven children who grew up during the depression, my grandmother was often described as fiery. It’s true she could come across steel-hardened, but this is not uncommon for anyone who grew up in poverty. She survived. Survival doesn’t always leave a lot of room for sweetness of temper, but she held on to hope and always made time to look after those having a harder time than she. If I’ve accomplished what I set out to in this chapbook, then there’s a bit of fire, sweetness, and resilience in all the women in these stories. The following is a playlist of the songs in heavy rotation during the making of these stories.
— Beth Gilstrap
