Lauren Cortese is the Woodfin Fellow in Fiction (’21). She grew up near Annapolis, Maryland, and graduated from George Washington University with a background in psychology. Her poetry peer Ivy Keller talked with her on a balmy Charleston afternoon over some excellent margherita pizza at Bakers & Brewers.

Ivy Keller: What made you decide to join an MFA program to study fiction?

Lauren Cortese: I’ve always loved fiction. It’s what I like to read the most, so it was natural to me that that’s what I would write. I like writing longer projects; I like getting to spend that time with my characters. Last summer in 2018, I did an artist residency for about three weeks. It was super life-changing to get to live with other artists, to meet them and hear about their work. That made me realize what I could gain from writing with a community instead of just writing on my own.

IK: It sounds like you’ve found that community here. How are classes going? What have you learned from the MFA program so far?

LC: It’s been great. I’m learning how to read my own work with a different eye instead of being stuck within my own way of thinking about writing. And then, learning a lot of technical elements of writing too. How to be more consistent with point-of-view, how to create a more vivid setting, just sort of the nuts and bolts of quality stories.

IK: You took a few years between undergrad and the MFA to work, right? 

LC: I interned in DC for a little bit, where I went to undergrad, and then I got a job in Boston where I was working for a health tech company doing a lot of user research. It was cool because I studied psychology in undergrad, so it was a great way to use my major. But I realized that I enjoyed the creative aspects of my job more than anything else, and that I was really enjoying my time spent writing after work. I was getting more out of that than I was getting from my 9-5 job. That was when I decided, after about two years, to try writing. I spent a year doing the application process and it worked out. It was a long process!

IK: What topics do you like to write about? Do you have any specific archetypes or themes that interest you?

LC: Definitely! I mostly write about women characters, I like family structure, and definitely prefer writing about contemporary topics. Pretty much everything that I write takes place today. I don’t do much historical fiction or anything like that.

IK: Inspiration also comes from other writers who deal with similar topics, like family relationships. Who inspires you?

LC: For the project I’m working on right now, I’m drawing a lot from Celeste Ng and a little bit from Gillian Flynn, even though there’s not as much of a thriller element to what I’m writing. I love Ann Patchett, I think she’s absolutely brilliant. I read a lot of everything, so I kind of try to pull from everywhere. I find a weird amount of inspiration from podcasts too. I like listening to documentary-style podcasts, stories of real people. That’s always a really cool way to learn about and experience something I don’t know anything about.

IK: And what podcasts are you listening to at the moment?

LC: I’m a big fan of “Invisibilia,” and I really like “Freakonomics,” which is all non-fiction, but it’s a cool way to learn about industries or jobs or patterns in society that I don’t know anything about.

IK: What is your favorite place to visit in Charleston so far?

LC: I think that the Battery is super beautiful, to wander around that park and be on the water, and have all the beautiful historic mansions around. It feels exactly what I imagined moving to the South would feel like. It’s just very beautiful.