David Burr Gerrard

David Burr Gerrard is the author of The Epiphany Machine and Short Century. He teaches creative writing at the 92nd Street Y, The New School, and the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop. He lives in Queens, NY with his wife.

From Gerrard's Q&A with Nicholas Mancusi for BOMB Magazine:

NM On the cover blurb, Ben Marcus says that you “channel” Kafka. What do you hope that means?

DBG Kafka said we live in a universe where there is “an infinite amount of hope, but not for us.” That squares with my feeling of existence. The fact that we are here at all is pretty astonishing, and a wonderful miracle. Still, life often feels pretty awful, even for the luckiest of us. The Epiphany Machine looks at how we handle those feelings.

NM What lesson was Kafka trying to teach us? Even though he’d probably be opposed to the idea of lessons in the first place…

DBG Every serious writer is, in some way, opposed to lessons. Despite this, I think every serious writer wants, or at least should want, to impart some kind of wisdom. If you really don’t have anything to say, why are you writing? I’ve never been a “beautiful sentences above all” kind of writer. I think there should be some kind of point, however oblique. One way to interpret Kafka’s “In The Penal Colony,” a primary inspiration for The Epiphany Machine, is that...[read on]

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The Page 69 Test: The Epiphany Machine.

My Book, The Movie: The Epiphany Machine.

Writers Read: David Burr Gerrard.

--Marshal Zeringue