Liquid Ink

The official website of Gint Aras, Finalist 2016 CWA Book Award


At the Bloghop!

I’ve been asked by fel­low author, Nancy Agabian, to par­tic­i­pate in a Blog Hop in order to intro­duce new authors to new read­ers. If you’ve come here from the link posted on Nancy’s blog, wel­come! If you’re a regular Liquid Inker or came upon my blog by chance, this is an oppor­tu­nity for you to get know some­thing about the memoir I am work­ing on and to check out some writ­ers who might be new to you by fol­low­ing the links at the end of the post. They are all fine authors whose work I would highly rec­om­mend. Again, spe­cial thanks to Nancy Agabian for ask­ing me to participate.


Ten Inter­view Ques­tions for The Next Great Read

Q: What is the work­ing title of your book?
A: Ghetto Blueblood

Q: Where did the idea come from for the book?
A: I published an essay titled Baptism Party in Antique Children’s Revolt of the Underdog issue. Another contributor, Rene Vasicek, told me I should expand it to a memoir. Then another writer, Daiva Markelis, told me to expand it into a memoir. Later on, a fan of my writing, someone who’s been following my work since before I published my first story, told me I should expand it into a memoir. I finally took the advice seriously.

Q: What genre does your book fall under?
A: Non-fiction (memoir)

A: I myself should be played by a rock star, preferably a resurrected one, maybe Kurt Cobain. My brother should be played by a young Arunas Storpirštis. The rest of the cast should be made up of Russian, Lithuanian, English and American actors currently in drama school.

A: PTSD isn’t as bad as the trauma that caused it, but you won’t know it without getting PTSD.

A: I have no way of predicting this. Just the other day I ordered a pizza and it came to my neighbor’s house. In the meantime, a young girl came to my door asking if I’d like to subscribe to some strange local newspaper advertising pizza delivery.

A: I have yet to complete the first draft. I actually haven’t finished a draft of the first chapter. Ha!

A: It’s a mix of influences, so I’ll use them to answer this question, even though comparing myself to these masters is idiotic. I can’t believe I’m doing this: Paul Auster’s Hand to Mouth, A Chronicle of Early Failure. Nabokov’s Speak, Memory. Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (He claims it’s a novel, but that’s BS). Capote’s Music for Chameleons.

Q: Who or What inspired you to write this book?
A: I was diagnosed with PTSD a short time after my daughter was born. Anyone who has the condition (or anyone close to someone with the condition) will tell you how dramatically everything changes; life becomes a 3D (truly terrifying) horror film, and one cannot tell between dream states and their alternative. I don’t want to get into the vile symptoms here. Writing through it, even gibberish, helped. I also started treating it naturally, doing yoga and practicing Zen. A completed memoir will crown my victory over PTSD, as there was a time when I had lost any ability to read and could barely write anything beyond crude e-mail messages.

A: I have a way of telling stories about the lower-middle class and the American underclass that’s extremely rare, primarily because my perspective is international, but also because I don’t pity the poor or the destitute. I don’t pity any human experience. As a student of zen, I try to reveal what’s before me, just as it is.

Here are the writ­ers whose work you can check out next: