Abigail Stewart

Abigail Stewart is a fiction writer from Berkeley, California. Originally from Houston, Texas, she studied Literature and Art History at Sam Houston State University, before going on to earn an M.Ed at Lamar University. She is the author of a novel, The Drowned Woman (Whiskey Tit Books), and a short story collection, Assemblage (Alien Buddha Press). Her third book, Foundations, will be released in spring of 2023.  

Twitter: @abby_writes

Instagram: @abby_cake 

Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?

I love books that feel cinematic, but also where not much happens, so I often feel that my writing is inspired by film. While writing The Drowned Woman, I often thought of a particular scene in Wanda. While writing Foundations, I thought more about the architecture and design I had seen in films. Sofia Coppola’s buttery pastel imagery in Marie Antionette, the flower gardens in Scorsese’s Age of Innocence, even the interior design from television shows like Mad Men and The Queen’s Gambit, they all conspired together to create the imagery I used in Foundations.

What is your favorite non-reading activity?

I often say I don’t have a lot of hobbies, but the ones I do have are all-consuming. Outside of reading, writing, and my daily yoga practice — I like to walk, to explore, to experience. I love getting dropped in the middle of a walkable city and wandering into indie bookstores, homey coffee shops, exquisite hotel bars, following my feet to get rush tickets for a theater production or live music show. Just today I walked in a different direction and stood in line at a coffee shop I’d never visited and walked out with an oat milk matcha latte while rain drops dripped from the eaves. Someone once told me that repeating the same routine creates certain neural pathways in your brain and switching it up, even just walking a different way home, creates new ones. So, my hobby is wrinkling my brain, I suppose.

Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and you just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?

I usually give a book fifty pages before I call it quits. I used to push through every book until the end, but, with time and experience, I’ve realized that sometimes I just might not be in the mood for the subject matter, I might return to it later with a more open mind, or I might not — and that’s okay.

Is there a work of art that you love. Why? Have you ever visited it in person?

I am interested in female surrealist painters and the Mexican surrealist movement — I took an art course on Mexican muralism recently that mentioned Leonora Carrington and a few of her works. After reading Carrington’s The Complete Stories, I looked up everything I could about her life and art. Her Self-Portrait is one of my favorite pieces for its representation of a confined childhood and her desire to be free of it. I was lucky enough to view the Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibit last summer where Carrington’s Self-Portrait was shown. The first thing I noticed in person was the smudged area to the left of her where she’d erased something, now unavailable to the modern viewer.

If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?

Female Artists and Their Animal Avatars.