Emily Strasser
Author Interview - Emily Strasser
Author of Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning with a Hidden History
Half-Life of a Secret is a deeply researched memoir that traces my journey to reckon with the toxic legacies of secrecy—local, familial, environmental, international--arising from my grandfather’s work building nuclear weapons in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In search of answers, I traveled from archives in Atlanta and Oak Ridge, to the bombed desert of Nevada, to Hiroshima, and back into my own family history and childhood memories. The book weaves the personal and the political, the reported and the lyric, to ask questions about guilt, responsibility, mental illness, complicity, home, and love.
Author Interview - Emily Strasser
Author I draw inspiration from: James Baldwin--I'm always stunned by his fierce visionary heart and intellect. And his work is as burningly urgent today as it was during his lifetime.
Author Interview - Emily Strasser | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: Snuggled on the couch with a cat in my lap. Or in a hammock by some water.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Lizzy Bennet from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen! Even better if the elevator is filled with other people--I'd love to hear her wry assessments of everyone.
Author Interview - Emily Strasser | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember! Before I could read or write, I would ask my father to tell me a story, and then I would stop him and change the plot. "No, no!" I'd insist, "it wasn't an evil stepmother, it was an evil stepfather!" Later, I'd dictate stories for my mother to write down. Somewhere along the way, I think I got scared of my desire to be a writer--it seemed so improbable. And I put it aside for a while until I stumbled upon creative nonfiction, a genre which allowed me to weave my academic interests with memoir, research, metaphor, and more. It felt intuitive and exciting, like discovering a new language that I already knew how to speak.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback! I like to carry books with me everywhere and underline passages I love.
The last book I read: Brotherless Night, by V.V. Ganeshananthan, a beautiful and haunting novel about a young woman living through the Sri Lankan civil war.
Author Interview - Emily Strasser | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: I like to brainstorm on paper, maybe journal around my topic a bit. When I'm ready to start drafting, I move to the computer. I know writers who write full drafts by hand and I admire that, but my brain has become too dependent on the ability to easily move pieces around. Often, whatever I start writing does not wind up being the beginning--cut and paste is essential.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Juniper from the book Juniper by Monica Furlong, one of my favorite childhood books.
Author Interview - Emily Strasser | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Oh man, I have few marketable skills. I think it would be cool to be a librarian (author-adjacent), especially an archivist. I love researching in archives--it's like a treasure hunt. No book research compares to the excitement of holding an actual, unfiltered document in your hands. I would love to know a lot about something obscure and to be able to help writers and researchers find documents and artifacts to bring their stories to life.
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1920s!
Place I’d most like to travel: Where do I not want to go?
My signature drink: apple cider old fashioned
Number one on my bucket list: Publishing a book was a big one. Someday, I'd love to hike the Appalachian Trail. Or (part of the) Pacific Crest Trail. Or at least the entire Superior Trail, closest to where I live now. And here's a small, achievable one -- I want to collect eggs from chickens. I once collected one egg from one chicken, and it was thrilling, but not enough. I want to fill a basket with fresh eggs.
Find more from the author:
Twitter: @EmilyStrasser
IG: @emily.s.strasser
Author Bio: Emily Strasser is a writer based in Minneapolis, where she received her MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her work has appeared in Catapult, Ploughshares, Guernica, Colorado Review, The Bitter Southerner, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and Gulf Coast, among others. She was also the presenter of the 2020 BBC podcast “The Bomb.” Her writing has been honored by awards and fellowships including the Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest, an AWP Intro Award, the W.K. Rose Fellowship, the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Creative Writing, and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. She was a 2019 McKnight Writing Fellow. Half-Life of a Secret is her first book.
