Washington Square. On air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review. Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing.

Hey, there.

This is Melissa Ford Lucken, editor for the Washington Square Review. I'm here today with author Gina Tron, who I just kind of randomly met in. Where were we? La.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. At the association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference. And she was there with her memoir, Suspect, and looked like such a cool person. I was like, hey, you got to come on and talk. So here she is. Tell us about your book.

Well, thank you so much for having me. My book, Suspect, it's memoir mixed with journalism, mostly memoir, but there's like. I guess I would call it, like, sprinkles of journalism kind of weaved in. So it's about. It's always so awkward when people ask what it's about, because it's. It's awkward for me to say it like. Like a little elevator pitch. But what it's about is in 1999, right after Columbine, I was accused of wanting to shoot up my high school. So you can see why it's a little. Little awkward. And, I mean, it wasn't something that I was actually planning to do, but I was like a goth girl. You know, this was the 90s. I didn't really fit in. I was living in a small town, and there was a lot of mass hysteria in the immediate aftermath of Columbine. So I explored that part of my past. And I also, because I am also a journalist and had already had a lot of conversations and access to a lot of criminologists. I did a lot of interviews with criminologists and experts in the mass shooting field to try to see if I could get some more insight into what I went through. But also the bigger scope of school shootings and copycat threats and bullying. So that's Suspect in a nutshell.

That's an intense and important topic where I could see how it's kind of awkward. You're like, well, let me just tell you in two sentences about this super serious topic. It sounds also like there was obviously a lag in time from the time that it happened to the time that you wrote the memoir. How did you make the decision to go ahead and write the memoir?

Well, at first, it wasn't something that I really wanted to revisit, especially because it was. It was a pivotal moment in my life that really affected me negatively and affected my reputation negatively. And it was Something that I had been kind of running from for a good part of my life. You know, I moved away from that town for a long, long time. And it wasn't something I really told people, unless maybe I was a bit tipsy or got to be close with them, and I just kind of wanted to separate myself from it. But like many traumatic or pivotal moments in one's life, you can't run away from it, and you can't just erase it from your past. And so it did just start, you know, continue to bubble up in my life and haunt me in various ways and my behavior and, you know, I hadn't really dealt with it in a healthy way. And so I wrote a Vice piece that was basically a condensed version of suspect in 2013, right after the shooting in Newtown, because at that point, there was a little bit of what I feared, although it didn't really really manifest in that way. But, like, maybe autism would have been a target in the way that Goth subculture was targeted after Columbine. So I wanted to write about my experience like an essay. And at that point, I didn't feel like there was a lot of insight into my sort of situation, not to say that my situation and my experience was that special. I know a lot of people my age experienced it, and I think a lot of folks in the generations after us have experienced something similar. So what I went. So I was always surprised that somebody else didn't really write a story, like, and actually, I had wished somebody else did first for my own catharsis. So I wrote that piece, and it went viral, and I was really happily surprised. I felt like it changed my own personal narrative. I felt like it gave kind of an explanation of what happened to people that maybe believed it. And also, I felt like that really, that was one of my first real pieces as a published writer that had success. I didn't plan on writing it as a full memoir or book until I started. I think it was 2015 or 16. No, actually, it was 2016 because I had enrolled in an MFA program at VCFA, and I started considering writing about that as maybe my thesis. And it did become my thesis because at that point, I had written one other memoir, and I thought that this was a piece of my life that was interesting enough to explore and that maybe I could dive deeper than just my own personal narrative. If I had written it in my 20s, I feel like I would have been more defensive, wanting to come off as completely innocent. But the fact was, I wasn't. Obviously, I didn't Want to kill anybody. But there's more nuances than that. And so I was less interested in making myself look as polished as maybe I would have when I was younger.

I hear what you're saying about almost wishing that someone else had done the work before you did. That also illustrates how you're contributing a missing piece of this puzzle. You're the one that's able to, you know, fill it in. So you kind of took the responsibility to fill it in after you had success with that first piece. What about that success surprised you?

I was surprised about how many people could relate to my feelings, because this is something I've learned as a memoirist in general is. And it's been really amazing and healing and just speaks to the human experience. Is that any time in my life, any experience I had where I felt really alone and like a freak and isolated, people relate to it, and it just shows how not alone we are. So. So anytime I've been, like, writing about a subject that I'm really embarrassed about, like, this is a part of my life that I was really embarrassed about. I felt great shame around it and writing about it and hearing so many people relate to it, either people that went through a very similar experience, or even just people that. Even some of them that we know were popular in high school, but they just felt some of those feelings. It just made me realize how much I am not, I guess, a freak in that way, and how it just made me feel more connected to people. And I was really shocked at how many people could relate to it and how many people could see themselves in it. And it kind of, you know, healed my inner teenager.

That's awesome. Was there anyone in your life, friends or family, that had known you all along that read the piece and saw you differently afterwards?

If so in a more positive way, I would say definitely not negative. For example, as a spoiler, is the main person that I was accused of wanting to kill in high school because kids are cruel was the boy I had a crush on, and he's now my husband. So that was a very interesting experience. It's been a. It's been quite the journey. We didn't talk right after high school. We didn't. We didn't reconnect till about 10 years later. And I think I wrote this piece, I think with his encouragement, about a year and a half after we started becoming close friends again. And he was really supportive, and he loved the article. And I think there was a lot of catharsis and seeing people that knew me from that Time maybe had some ideas about it, but didn't, were too afraid to ask. I got a lot of feedback about how it really gave insight and things just made more sense. And I think that they appreciated how honest I was, or honest I tried to be, because I didn't dive as deep as I, you know, as I did in the book, as in the Vice piece was a bit shorter and more condensed. And I was afraid to admit some, you know, more problematic things, like, you know, that I did feel sympathy for the Columbine killers back then, although quickly, you know, as I, as I matured and not sympathy for what they did, but I assumed that they were bullied, which was a false narrative. And I think that added to the narrative of the fall of the bullied school shooter. And that's why they do this. And it lets a lot of people that are isolated bullied teens, it kind of leads them to feel bad for people that are actually probably sociopathic and are not doing it because they're being bullied. So just admitting some of these problematic things that I felt, which are understandable, but it's not easy to admit those are things I dive more into the book. But even just having people that are from that period of my life read that and not hate me for it and instead feel more close to me and be understanding about it is really nice.

It sounds like this is maybe where some of the research that you did kind of started to fill in maybe some pieces for yourself about yourself, talk a little bit more about how you went about doing that research. Did you talk with any experts?

So my ambitions for the book were quite unrealistic and big. When I first started conducting the research, I thought that maybe I would be able to. Not easily. I thought I'd be able to get to the bottom of what causes school shootings. And obviously that's not something I was able to do. I don't know if anybody's able to do that at this moment. And that's a big part of that. And also why there was some limitations to the research I could do is that since the early 90s, greatly in part to the NRA, there is not an outright ban, but a nearly outright ban on research on any shooting related topics because it can't be considered advocacy. So anything that seems to be pro gun control or anti gun advocacy is not allowed by law. And so that has limited the scope, which is. It's crazy to think that. So the amount of research that any gun violence in our country gets, let alone school shootings, is not as much as it should be. That being said, there is, there has been some research and like independent people, not federal funded. There's been a little bit more federal funding lately. But I talked to people that were former FBI, I talked to criminologists, some of the folks that worked criminal profilers worked, some of the major ones, and one that was on the FBI threat assessment task right after Columbine, I talked to them and it was both validating and disturbing that they knew about as much as I could gather. And by intuition as like a 16 year old girl in terms of like what causes it, where it's like, yeah, it's not the clothes that people wear. It's a complex issue that is still so rare that there's not enough variables that you can predict the next one. Which I knew that as a 16 year old and that's basically what they told me. So I did get some insight. Especially the most insight that I got that was most valuable was through talking to some experts like that and through reading some books like Dave Cullen's. Columbine is just the idea of the myth of the bullied school shooter is like not to say that some school shooters weren't bullied, some of them were, but the percentage that have been bullied is actually pretty low. That being the main reason for why they do it is super low. I think only one cited bullying. Well, only one, sorry. Went after their own, their bully in their incident. So it's not, there's not enough incidents that show that bullying is, is a main factor at all. But I think when you see school shootings in movies or you know, TV shows, it's always a bullied weird kid. And I think that that has damaged a lot of, of social dynamics in schools for a lot of children. And I think that that's the thing I, that I kind of globbed onto the most because that explains a lot of why I felt kind of closer to people like that because I thought I'm like, well, I guess that's what I am is, is a person like that. I'm just like a misfit that I probably would have been friends with these people. And in reality, probably not. I think that they mostly were, you know, most of the people that did these events were, you know, sociopathic, narcissistic and you know, not the kind of people that are just getting revenge for being bullied.

It sounds like that myth of the bullied school shooter as you describe it is pervasive and something that people don't really question the way that they should?

Yes, I think so.

And perhaps even school officials aren't questioning it. The way that they should?

Yes. I think in my situation, you know, in the 90s, I think in some ways it was a very much more naive time. And I think it was really easy for our school officials or teachers to say, oh, well, the kid wearing a trench coat or the kid with, like, lots of black makeup. They could be the next school shooter when that was probably the least likely person to be. To be doing the next one. But I think now there is enough research and I think that teachers and school officials should be able to. Ideally, I know that funding is lacking all across the board, and this is just one little subset of that. But ideally, getting trained on what to actually look for. But even that, I think profiling is very dangerous in something like this. Even though it's become a lot more common, unfortunately, I think it's still rare enough that you can't profile people. I think it's more dangerous and does more damage to profile than to not.

Do you think there's a unique challenge with profiling, teens versus adults?

I think so. In my case, I was mainly profiled because I wrote a short creative story that was very weird and the people died in it. But there was not, there was not a gun, there wasn't a shooting, it wasn't a revenge story. It was like a bunch of 12 year olds at a dance killing each other with disco balls. And there was a monkey in it. And it was a little weird, but it wasn't. You know, this was like a budding creative person. And I think if I was maybe a weaker person, this kind of squashed my interest in writing. And it did, actually, for a while it made me afraid of my own writing and feel like what I was writing was dangerous and something to be ashamed of. And I think that when you profile kids, especially creative kids, you do run the risk of suppressing creativity or maybe some kind of interest, because especially teenagers, myself included, can be pretty dopey and like, they're gonna make mistakes when they're, when they're expressing themselves. And I definitely did. But you have to, like, understand that teenagers, yeah, they're growing into themselves and they're not gonna be perfect, they're not gonna communicate perfectly. They're. They're gonna be awkward and. But you see a lot of books that come out by adults or even the interest in true crime, and it's like, does that indicate that somebody's sick in the head or wants to hurt people? I Don't think so. I think it's just there is a. You know, humans tend to gravitate towards, you know, darker topics sometimes. And I don't think that that necessarily means that there's something wrong with them or that they have violence in them.

For sure. Yeah. I think that that's a complicated topic because a lot of writers, as you say, write things that are dark or twisted or strange that other people that know them would have no idea that's what's inside their mind. And if you squash your creativity and don't write what feels naturally to be coming out of you, it doesn't feel good. Really?

Yeah.

So you said that your creativity was obviously negatively impacted by this. How did you find your way back to your writing? And did your creativity maybe start to go off in a different place in your life? Tell us a little bit about what that looked like.

So I kind of gave up, like, my senior year of high school. I kind of just was afraid of writing in that way. And I also didn't think I had what it took to become a professional writer. So I started leaning towards TV production. I also one of the few teachers that didn't kind of. Well, I shouldn't say one of the few, but there were a lot of teachers that kind of blacklisted me or didn't want me in their class. So there was one teacher in the vocational center that let me in with open arms despite other teachers warning them not to. And that was for a TV production class and a print class. And that was where I thought that maybe TV production or film would be a good creative outlet for me because I could incorporate some writing, but it wouldn't be the main component. And so I. Yeah, I applied to film school, to film production school. And I got in and I went down that path. And after graduating, I began working in TV production, running teleprompter, eventually being a technical director, directing some news broadcasts and making graphics. So it was creative and I enjoyed it very much. And I love other people that work in TV production. They just kind of the same kind of sense of humor as me. But I felt like there was something missing from my life because I think that I am a natural writer. I think that that is my calling. If it's as cheesy as that is, that's the one thing in my life that has always called to me. And when I'm not doing it to some capacity, I don't feel like my full self. So by my late 20s, I was really just starting to feel like I need to get back into writing. I don't know how, but I need to at least try. And I just started, I just started writing at a cafe after work every day for I don't know how many months before saying, okay, maybe I'll try to like pitch some magazines, maybe I'll try to break in. And that's when I started to find more of my purpose. So before then I was, you know, self medicating a lot and not having the best stable life. And I do feel like writing sometimes to an unhealthy level has been my support system and helped me just deal with life and deal with emotions and self regulate, I guess.

Well, it sounds a little bit like when you were doing the TV production, you were in a creative field surrounded by creative people, but your own creativity wasn't what was driving the projects. You were responding to other people. And as a creative person myself, I could relate to how that is cool and good. And you're like, okay, I'm doing this thing. But it's almost like you're like a pot of boiling water with the top on, you know?

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I felt like a cog in a machine. We're collectively making something creative. But it wasn't my, it wasn't my vision or. Yeah. And so, yeah, I do feel like I was like a kettle and it was just, I was steaming and I wasn't properly able to vent. So I was kind of self sabotaging and boiling over. Right. Well.

And it can end up making you feel like there's something wrong with you or inherently messed up because you keep wanting to write this certain kind of thing or, you know, express yourself in a way that other people, you're like, oh, it's making me uncomfortable. But the thing is, is to me, when you make someone feel some kind of way, that's how you know you're actually really writing something. So yeah, if you just wrote kind of medium. Okay. Stuff, people would be like, oh, that's nice. But when you write something that really affects someone, sometimes they'll respond in a way that they don't have control over, maybe. You know what I mean? So like sometimes when you read a story and you're like, oh my God, that's making me feel some kind of way. I just don't know what.

Uncomfortable.

Yeah. And then they, they respond to the feeling that they're having and then they project it onto you. And now they think that there's something wrong with you because they're feeling some kind of way.

And Absolutely.

I think that's the saddest thing ever because you know, a good writer is going to affect people and, and surprise them. You know, it's like, you know, visual art, it's the same thing. People look at it and they're like, wow, I feel some kind of way, but I don't know what it is.

Right. That's the hope is always when you write something or put something out there, it's always a risk. But you always, yeah, you want people to feel something or change the way that they, they view themselves or the world or at least or find catharsis in your story too. And that's always like the best that that feels like, you know, obviously I'm not a like bestseller, but that what feels like success to me is when people reach out to me, strangers or acquaintances, then send me a message about how much my book made them feel less alone. That just, you know, that just makes me so happy.

Yeah, that's where the magic is. So talk a little bit about the first writing you did when you were in the coffee shop. What were you writing?

So at that point it was very much like, I guess like almost like journal entries. Like I was like, you know what I'm going to write. Forget it might have been Stephen King's on writing and mixed with some other writing advice books or things online where I was like, I'm just going to write every day. Because my writing, I knew it was a little bit janky and I could see back then that it was, you know, not super polished. I think I'm a better writer now because I mean, it's like, it's like working out as you know, you have to do it regularly to like to get better. And honestly I wasn't even that good at grammar at that point. So me writing every day, just getting stuff out, sometimes it was just venting, sometimes I would just talk about my day and other times I would do reflections about parts of my life and I would say, oh, maybe this will make it into a memoir of mine sometime or so. It was mostly non fiction memoir, somewhat journal entries at some points but. But yeah, it just became, it started becoming more and more natural, more and more comfortable and more and more like it was something I needed to do every day.

Did you talk to other people about it?

I talked to a few people, but I did hold it a little tight to my chest until I started trying to get published. There was somebody I was dating back then who, who also was interested in writing and so I would tell them that and they helped me with it as well. And they were kind of. I wanted to be held accountable to some degree, but I was still a little bit shy about my writing, I feel like. But I did start to get a little more confident when I was started to reach out to, like, magazines and blogs. I was in Brooklyn at the time, and basically anyone. Even, like, Craigslist ads, people that were looking for writers, often for free to do, like, reviews of cafes or boutiques or whatever. I was more confident telling people that I was doing that because it wasn't like, personal. It was very. I don't even wanna say bland, but it was just, you know, just exercising.

Those writing muscles without completely putting yourself out there again.

Exactly. Yeah. I wasn't very vulnerable yet. And that. That definitely took some steps. It was. I think that the Vice piece about the topic that Suspect is about that was the first time I really put myself out there. And I was so, so, so nervous and so scared. I could not sleep for a few nights. I think there was a little bit of delay before they accepted it and. And it was published. I think it was like a week or two. And I was like. I was just. Didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if people were gonna get angry or if they were gonna, like, make fun of me for, like, not being completely over it or. I just wasn't ready yet for. I just wasn't ready. But I was happily surprised with the feedback. And that just kind of gave me the courage to keep putting myself out there and eventually realize that, you know what, everyone has problematic or twisted feelings at some point in their life and embarrassed and the moments where they're ashamed of. And that was kind of what it was, was realizing that where I can shine the most is writing about moments of shame, because I have a lot of those. And people seem to really. It seems to really resonate with people, is writing about stuff that people are afraid to admit. And I started to really get comfortable with that. So it became something that I now, at this point, like, I am totally fine admitting whatever that is true. And I don't really care how people react. I don't lose sleep if I'm going to publish something.

I think a book like yours gives people that place for. To start a conversation. So maybe they've had a similar experience or something that caused them shame and a lot of, like, heartbreak in their early days. And a book like yours would give them a way to start talking about it when maybe they hadn't had one before.

Yeah, definitely. That's always my hope, is that, you know, so, like, my first memoir, for example, I talk about, like, a lot of substance use issues I used to have in my 20s. And just especially back then when it was published, that was published in, like, 2014, you know, we weren't yet referring to that as substance use disorder. People were still saying addict, and it was still a lot more stigmatized. We've become. We've really advanced as a society, I feel like, since then. But I just felt like, yeah, my hope was to feel less shame about my own actions, but also let others, you know, know that they don't have to, you know, feel as much shame as maybe they do about some of these issues.

What's the title of that memoir?

It's called you're fine. So you're fine. Like, you're fine. Because that's what people were saying to me a lot at the time, because I was very much like a functioning. I was addicted, but I was very much a functioning. I had a functioning addiction where I worked. I overworked, but I was very much suffering. And whenever I. Well, not whenever, but sometimes when I would try to say that I probably needed some help, I feel like there was a tendency for people to dismiss it because I wasn't, you know, on the streets or, like, losing my job. So that's. That's how that title came about.

What prompted you to write that one?

Honestly, so that. That was, like, a situation. It was mainly my life in 2010 and in 2012, 2011, when I was at the coffee shop a lot writing. A lot of my writing was reflections of that time. And so I started to consider that as an option. So the addiction issues I had ultimately led to me checking into a dual diagnosis inpatient center. And so that was. I was only there for, like, I think, five days. So I thought that that would be a good approach for a first memoir, because any other attempts I would make for, like, a bigger time period would just get so overwhelming. I'm like, okay, let's do five days. And with some flashback chapters, and that seemed doable. And I also always had a soft spot for psych ward memoirs or movies like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest or Girl Interrupted. It's just a aesthetic that I've always appreciated. And honestly, when I checked in, I thought it was gonna be way more advanced than the subject of those books, but I was shocked at how. I don't even want to use the word barbaric, but still backwards. It was in those places. So in Some ways I thought that me writing about it would be a good way to, like, be like, hey, a lot of these places didn't really help the people that they're. That they're trying to help. It's just basically a holding cell, and it's not helpful. I guess I was really surprised. Maybe I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was. But I think in my head, I thought that it was like, well, again.

There'S a lot of, know, film and books that kind of glamorize it and make it appealing in some kind of way. Yeah. Like, there's. We're all in this together, we're working together, and people are talking and there's, you know, people have friendships, and I can. That's. That's an interesting parallel to the other one where media has created this vision and it permeates our. Our thinking in our culture without us really taking the time to question it. So your memoir, in this case, again, gives people a way to question something that perhaps they wouldn't have ordinarily.

Right, right, Absolutely. And, like, yeah, and my memoir is very much unglamorous, very bleak. And because I was addicted to cocaine at the time and, like. Which I think can have a very glamorous appeal or. But. But basically most of the scenes of me doing it were just, like, me in my room, which was dirty and disgusting at the time, listening to music on my headphones, just, you know, afraid to shower because I felt like I was gonna have a heart attack because I was like, you know, so anxious, stuff like that. Just to try to show how unglamorous and unfun all of that really was at the end of the day.

So what. What about the second memoir?

So my second memoir is called. It was basically like a remix of. Also a bleak version of Eat Pray Love is called Eat Eat. Right. About murder. So I. I had breast cancer. This is stage one in, like, 2016, which really affected my relationship with my then boyfriend, ultimately led to us breaking up. And so we broke up in 2018, and I didn't know what to do. I was writing True Crime for Oxygen full time at the time, which was great because I had a fully remote job. I could live anywhere. So I just picked up and moved to Sicily for three months and. And wrote about murder all day. I did a lot of eating. Honestly, I only slept with two people there. But I did write about trying to get back into because of the surgeries and stuff. I had some body image issues because I had a double mastectomy. And stuff. So just trying to get back into feeling like a sexual person. So it was kind of exploring that and that I wrote very quickly. It felt like, again, it was a short duration of time, just a three month period for the most part. And me writing that just kind of felt like it just came out so quickly and so easily. I think I wrote it like a year or two after that and. And basically, yeah, just my. My travel adventures, which. Which were. Which were both amazing, but like, you know, they were amazing. Like I ate the best food of my life and. But I was still like, very much like post breakup. So I was like, not in the best headspace space, but me just living out post breakup vibes far away, so I couldn't damage relationships that I, you know, closer to home, I was working through some stuff. But it's. It's also very. I guess all my memoirs and all my books, I try to add as much humor in as possible because I think that you have to laugh at the absurd. Even like the darkest days of your life. You have to find things to laugh at. So.

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, so I have a kind of a craft question. Yeah. And something that a lot of people ask me. If you're writing a memoir and you're going to reference other people and other situations, how do you handle that? Because you may depict them in a way that they don't care for.

Always a concern. And it's so difficult. This has been what has caused me the most concern when writing memoir, especially when I'm writing about, you know, writing people in that I know do not want to be included. And that was. That was the most prevalent with Suspect, because there were some folks that were, you know, involved with that that I know didn't want to be written about. And so obviously I changed their name. And, you know, I guess my approach is always to try to be fairer to people than they might even deserve and to try to paint them as more dimensional instead of villains. Especially if it was someone that maybe even was like a villain to me at one point. I try to see the nuances in people and, you know, I realized that most people are not inherently bad or, you know, cruel for no reason. So even with Suspect, like the main bully, like, I really tried to show some of her good sides too, because I wanted to show that there was a reason why I was friends with her at some point and that, you know, she's not just some cartoon character and it's just more real too. Like, people are complex and sometimes do Horrible things because they're insecure or jealous or lacking in some way or hurting. Yeah. Have a personality disorder. Something beyond. Maybe they're just. Maybe just don't even know themselves or love themselves and yeah, hurting. So I try to be as fair as possible. And obviously a lot of the language is not always going to be verbatim because I didn't have a tape recorder with me all my life. But I try to do like, what is the emotional truth? And I always try to write without being spiteful or mean. I don't write anything because I want people to feel bad. And genuinely. And I have gotten some really nice, sweet feedback from people I went to high school with that, you know, them reading Suspect made them feel bad about it because of what they might have thought at the time or did, which is not. Which is. It's really nice to get those messages and I love it, but it's definitely not the purpose. Like, I don't. I don't want anyone to feel bad about what they did as a kid. Even the things that the, like, the actions that were like the most hurtful to me, it's so long ago. I'm in my 40s and, you know, I think that if I was writing it to make people feel bad or, or to get revenge in some kind of literary form, that is not gonna lend to realistic writing because it will be spiteful. And you know, being true to myself and saying, okay, that that did happen and that was cruel what happened. But also forgiving people enough for my own mental health to like, not approach things in a malicious or spiteful way is good because it's. People can tell. I think, like, if you are writing things, it was like, oh, okay, I'm gonna make them look worse than they were or I'm going to like paint myself as a perfect angel and they are just cruel to me for no reason is not realistic. And so yeah, I just, I try my best to have as much nuance as possible. And definitely my, My take too, with any of my memoir is to not self deprecate, just to be mean to myself, but be honest about my own flaws. And. And I always fear that I'm painting myself as like a victim too much because I don't want to do that because in many cases I created situations or I wasn't strong enough, I was weak. And so I try to definitely show the ugly sides of me as much as I can and fight against the natural tendency to want to make yourself look like the good person.

Right. If somebody wants to write a memoir, but they feel very concerned about the way that other people are going to perceive it. What would you say to them?

I'd say that actually, in reality, isn't as much of a concern as you would think. So I've never had any true backlash to any of the three books that I've written. I've never had somebody come out of the woodwork and threaten to actually sue or. And also, by the way, like, it's really hard to sue for defamation of character, especially if you're not using their name or any identifiable, you know, things about them, and they'd have to prove damage. And, you know, I'm always really careful, like, yeah, maybe some people from high school could tell who some of the players are, but they're not going to lose their job because they are mean to me when they're 13 and they're like. And I don't think that somebody we were in class with are going to try to get them fired. But, like, literally none of the things that I've done knockout on wood has led to anyone being angry. I mean, I'm sure some people are not thrilled if they read it at all. And that's the thing is, like, I think people that maybe are not that nice to you in life or that you would have to maybe depict in not the nicest way are usually not supportive enough to even want to read your books. So they typically don't know what you're writing anyway. So that's. That's been my experience. And the only real negative feedback. I mean, this. I joke about this a lot is like, so in your fine. I wrote a person in there who I really respect and, like. And I thought I was writing them in a very positive way. They were actually upset about how I depicted them because they were. They felt they were watching television too much in it, that I kind of framed them as like a couch potato. But, like, my. My idea was, like, you know, I was doing a lot of drugs at the time. I couldn't relax enough to watch tv, and I really just wanted to watch TV with them. And they didn't get that. And I think they thought that I was making them look lazy. So sometimes it's the people that. That do support you and do love you that you think you are depicting positively might, you know, nitpick a little bit how you're framing them. But, yeah, typically the villain, like, villains, I'm using that, like, as a. The people in your life that. That have maybe done things where if you're writing about them. You might not frame them that positively. They're probably not going to read it. And if they do, they might be too ashamed to come out and identify themselves as that person. So, yeah, just make sure you don't identify who they are, change their name, change their hair color, change little things about them. And yeah, maybe, you know, think about them as a whole person and don't. Just don't demonize them. Be real, be honest. I would say write it as honestly as possible and you can always pull back later. And that's what I did with your fine. I was actually really angry when I wrote you're fine. And I did have to pull back and with my editor's help because I wasn't as sophisticated as a writer as maybe I am now. And it was so close to the incidents that I was like, you know what? No, that does sound a little bitter. I don't want to be bitter and I need to give a little grace. And I have learned since then to not let bitterness cloud how I depict reality.

I would think that your approach gives more space for the reader to find themselves and connect with your experience and not get distracted by kind of like what you're saying, like a bitterness which can be distracting from a broader, more important message.

I hope so. Yeah, definitely. And like, I like to let people try to make their own interpretations and figure out who they like or don't like in a story, which is typically, typically they. Even if I do try to paint someone nicer than they maybe deserve, people typically still don't like their character. So, you know, but I think it's because I made them more well rounded. They don't just seem like some one, one dimensional evil bully. I think that people who have had these experiences know that humans are complicated and they do have good qualities, but that doesn't mean make what they did any less hurtful.

So if people want to follow you, where can they find you online?

So you can look at my website, ginatron.net. you can also follow me on Instagram. I'm very easy to find. You can google my name. Thankfully I have a very unique last name now. So you can, yeah, Google me. And you can find my email, you can find my blue sky. I'm not shy. Reach out. I'd love to hear from you.

We'll put some of those links in the show notes so if people want to find you easily, they can just head there. You are still writing articles then? On a fairly regular basis.

I've done some freelance lately, but not a whole lot. I always am kind of like a journalist at heart, so I do pitch sometimes. But right now I'm actually working on and we'll see how far I actually get is I'm trying to write my first real novel that is not a thinly cloaked version of memoir. I did write a novella that is it started off as memoir and then I switched it to novella. I'm trying to get that published. We'll see if that ever happens. But right now I am writing a speculative fiction manuscript and I'm really enjoying it. And even if it never sees a light of day or I never finish it, I'm just enjoying the creative freedom where I don't have to worry about getting things real or true and I can have the characters do whatever they want.

Yeah, that sounds awesome. Well, thank you very much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me. This has been a great conversation.

Thanks for watching. Thanks for stopping by the audio Town Square of the Washington Square Review until next time, this has been the Washington Square on air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc.edu. wSL writing is messy, but do it anyway.