Christina Berke is an Adjunct Professor of English and Teaching Artist. She is the inaugural Carol Shields Prize Foundation Residency Fellow. She’s been supported by Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Sewanee Writers, Hedgebrook, Storyknife, Vermont Studio Center and Ragdale. Her work is in The Sun, Teen Vogue, Khora and elsewhere. She is working on a memoir, Well, Body, an excerpt of which was Longlisted with Disquiet Literary International and the Miami Emerging Writers Contest. A former middle school English teacher and private educator, she earned her BA at UC Berkeley, M.Ed. at UCLA and MFA at UNLV. @whereischristina
How did living in California shape your view of the world and the kinds of stories you’re drawn to? I was born in the San Fernando Valley in California and moved to a quiet suburb soon after. It’s an hour outside of Los Angeles and when I was growing up, it was too quiet and boring for me. At the same time, I didn’t have many friends, so I spent a lot of time with my library books.
It was important to my father that I learned to type. He had a desktop computer in the early 90s, which was rare back then. And before that, a typewriter, so I was learning about home row and proper typing posture pretty young. After school, I looked forward to clacking out short stories and reading them aloud, sometimes acting them out. He was always teaching me about the world; an atlas by his bedside, a world map in the kitchen, the news radio on all the time. It gave me an expansive outlook on the world; that writing could be a way to reach far corners. It also planted seeds about time travel and the infinite universe and astrophysics, parallel universes, what happens when a body dies, memory, and time.
How did reading shape your childhood? Any particular books that changed everything? I was a careful reader– in elementary school, any books they loaned us had to be in these plastic baggies and only handled after a good hand washing. And of course borrowing from the library meant no dog-ears or annotations.
As the youngest of four siblings, I think some of my taste was filtered by hand-me-downs but I definitely went through phases that reflected where I was in life. The first book I ever read on my own (with my sister by my side cheering me on) was about rabbits because I really loved bunnies. She was so excited I could read that she handed me over a women’s magazine and I attempted to read something about my crush, 9020’s Dylan McKay. Then I went through my horse phase and read books about a girl and her horse, something like Blaze and moved onto typical books of the early 90s, Beverely Cleary and Babysitter Club series; I went through an Agatha Christie phase and HG Wells… my dad was into sci-fi but after he died, I stopped reading. In school, I was so sick of the standard canon that I stopped that too. It wasn’t until a community college class that I woke up again to reading for enjoyment.
But some books from childhood that come to mind were Shel Silverstein, the Little Critter series, Bernstein Bears and Goosbumps. There was You Be The Jury which I think is like a choose your own adventure series for kids who liked to be detectives. I liked Roald Dahl a lot, Matilda of course because she loved books so much and felt lonely, which I related to, and Judy Blume’s books (I was so happy to go to her book store in Key West and meet her!). I went through a horror phase so I liked reading the Scary Stories and Goosebumps and Christopher Pike, and RL Stine… I wasn’t really sure how I found books– whether they were recommended to me by a teacher or I just picked up something in the school library by its cover, but I always had to finish what I started.
What’s really special is that my first full-time teaching job was as a middle school English teacher. It was a brand new school so I helped build the curriculum and got to walk down memory lane thinking about books I loved and also researching what kids liked. I taught Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac Magee and Patricia Beatty’s Lupita Manana and Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting which got me really into middle grade books as an adult! They are so really something.
How do you balance writing with your other commitments like teaching and family? There is no typical writing day for me; sometimes I won’t be able to write for months because of work or family or life. But an ideal day is waking up, doing a grounding morning routine (meditation, stretching etc), then some free writing (morning pages or a prompt), then getting back into a piece I’m working on, a break to eat, maybe a short walk, then back at it with edits or reading or listening to an audiobook, a break to dance or walk outside or do a little colorful doodle. Sometimes I have to start a timer to get momentum going, and having a little 30-minute chunk can help me focus. But in general, I like to have as clear a head as possible in the morning to create, then more outside input later in the day (reading and outside edits and such).
I’ve worked in different genres and topics so everything has its own rhythm. An outline for me tends to give me a high-school-English-class-chill– I remember we were required to outline before we started writing. But that never worked for me. I’d write a full draft then go back to fill out the outline. And that’s still more or less a process for me. If I’m stuck and need to edit, I reverse outline. There’s a book I’ve been working on for a few years and the story is still unfolding but from that has spawned many short stories and essays. For me, it’s challenging to feel a piece is ever done. I’ll think it’s done and send it out, then re-read once rejections pile up and think, oh no. It’s not done at all. Editing as I go confuses me. I’ll have several–too many, like hoards-worth– drafts and each one is saved by date or “final final final for real” versions. I tend to have a complete draft, or as complete enough as can be, before I edit or research.
Tell us about the creative process behind your most well-known work or your current writing project. I’ve been focused on writing this memoir WELL, BODY for a few years, and originally it was a straight-forward one, nothing really different about it. But at a residency, I kept writing in the morning as a warm-up about these themes, these scenes. And I found myself excited to continue through the day in this kind of abstract way. Through conversations over shared meals with other artists, I was coming to realize the importance of water and how it all seemed to start with this photo I had tacked up on the board of me as a little girl on the beach. It seemed so obviously a pivotal point, back when I was happy and carefree, before many traumas unfolded. I kept writing into this place. When I started submitting excerpts from it, I saw clear themes and it was easier to put together shorter pieces from it. One chapter got accepted and the editor really helped clarify things; he really took his time with every detail and I’m grateful to have that partnership.
Do you keep a journal or notebook? If so, what’s in it? Oh hell yeah! I’m a notebook girlie for sure; been journaling since I was little. I love buying a new notebook and a smooth pen. Some of it is typical kid stuff– ranting about a fight with my mom or a classmate in a puffy pink lock diary. Some are just quotidian scrawlings– what I ate or did or dreams and goals. As I got older, it was more morning pages– most well known from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron– where I’m just clearing my throat. But every now and then it’s the start of a piece or something that came suddenly to me that I just had to scribble down; a wake-in-the-middle-of-the-night thought. I’ve tried other forms of journaling (like on a computer) but it’s just not the same as the pen-to-paper for me.
How do you research and what role does research play in your writing? I wish I could say I was more methodical in my research approach. But my life as a writer has been start and stop; I’ve yet to be able to pursue it wholly full-time. As a result, I’ll dig deep into research about a slice of something I’m curious about… like what did women of different social status wear during the 1930s in Santiago, Chile? I’ll do internet and image searches, take some notes, imagine my characters in that world, how the fabric might impact their posture, the texture of it. Research, too, is digging into my own archives, photos, journals, and books that inspire me. That usually comes later to fill in gaps after I let my imagination onto the page first.
If you had one night to dine with a writer who would it be? Ooooof… They say don’t meet your heroes :) I’ve been lucky to meet some writers I’ve admired on the page but in real life some have fallen short. Some have exceeded expectations! So I try to not put anyone on a pedestal. That said, I think it would be interesting to break bread with someone who moved the cultural needle like Sylvia Plath or Edith Wharton. But, okay, if I had to pick… Jesmyn Ward or Emerald Fennell are faves!
Do you draw inspiration from music, art, or other disciplines? A full-throated yes! I love going to a gallery or a play or dance production. Even going to the movie theater or craft store. I get so inspired seeing the endless iterations of creativity in different forms. And I wish I could practice more art forms; I’ve always wanted to play an instrument like piano or guitar because some pieces of art feel better suited to a different genre. In my own process, I like to dabble with watercolors or paint, dance or make a lil craft just to get some energy out.
AI and technology are changing the ways we write and receive stories. What concerns or curiosities do you have about AI’s role in writing? And why is it important that humans remain at the center of the creative process? There are some interesting aspects to technology and its advances; I love being able to video call my grandmother in Chile or plan a trip all through my laptop. But… listen, I watched Terminator growing up, and it’s a bit frightening where we are now. So many writers are being impacted by AI; their entire body of work copied and teaching AI to write books in their voice. Humans are what make life meaningful and less lonely. If we rely on AI to tell our stories, there will be this sense of loss and longing. Without this connection, I think humans will feel isolated. If everything is auto-generated, what will we be compelled to create? I think that’s why we are here– to grow and create and learn. It’s so satisfying to make something that did not exist before, to tell a story only the way that you can. And what’s that saying– there was never a you before and never will be again. You are the one and only.
What have you been reading lately that really moved or surprised you? I was so immersed in Marie Helene Bertino’s Beautyland. A close writer friend recommended it; it wouldn’t have been something I think I would have picked up otherwise. But damn, it was so surprising and tender and original. The line level prose… I just couldn’t read it fast enough but also wanted to slow it down. I felt so sad to finish it and have to leave that world. And another that I really loved (though it was devastating) was How to Say Babylon, Safiya Sinclair’s memoir. You can tell she’s a poet within each line, but the propulsion of her narrative arc is so tight– it’s what I hope to accomplish in my own memoir, that stunning balance of storytelling and poetry. T Kira Madden’s Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is another that comes to mind.
All-time favorites… that’s a challenging question because my tastes change over time; plus I can’t recall them now. But every book I’ve loved found me at the exact moment I needed.
Exploring literature, the arts, and the creative process connects me to… my true self.
