Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true crime memoir MEAN, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked MEAN as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, Time, and 4Columns. She has shown art in galleries, museums, and community centers. She lives in Pasadena, California.
Myriam Gurba will be in conversation with MariNaomi in City Lights’s Poetry Room on Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 6:00pm PT to celebrate the publication of her new book CREEP: Accusations and Confessions, published by Simon and Schuster. Register here!
Where are you writing to us from?
Sunny Los Angeles!
What is bringing you joy right now, personally/artistically/habitually?
Long walks, barbecue, my cat’s bitchy attitude, and sunflowers.
Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?
Family members have influenced my work in general and they heavily influenced CREEP. My maternal grandmother was a painter and she trained my eye. My maternal grandfather was a bibliophile and he trained my ear. I write about both of them, and my grandfather’s number one frenemy, the Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo, in CREEP.
What books are you reading right now and would you recommend any to others?
I’m reading The Other Slavery by Andrés Reséndez and would definitely recommend it to anyone seeking to learn more about the enslavement of indigenous people in the Americas.
If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?
I would call my bookstore Paper Cuts and it would function as a literary speakeasy. Instead of a bestseller, we would take pride in our most frequently stolen books.
