The Ugly Friend
An Interview
with author Lynn Kilpatrick

“Understand: I am the ugly friend,” Lynn Kilpatrick writes in her 750 word lament on the “darkness of the day or two I spent in Prague.”  How, we asked Kilpatrick, did this short essay develop? 

“My essay started with the title, “The Ugly Friend” and progressed from that initial scene in the café,” she says.  “A lot of the essay is informed by retrospective thinking.  I was surprised by where the essay ended up, though.  I hadn’t meant to mention Kafka, or the wine packs or the bridge.  Or even the jazz bar for that matter.  I just began by describing this one day and went from there.  That’s my favorite thing about writing, when I surprise myself.”  

Kilpatrick believes writing short has always come easier for her.  “I think more about each word and about how to most efficiently convey an emotion or idea,” she says.  “Sometimes I find it difficult to fit in everything I want to address, but I think the rewards of writing short far outweigh challenges.”

The Salt Lake City native cites one of her foremost difficulties in writing long as sustaining an idea until the piece’s conclusion.  With shorter pieces like “The Ugly Friend,” Kilpatrick limits herself to concentrating only on language and description, which is how, she says, she was able “to evoke the mood of that time.”  While the essay in its present form is successful in conveying a great deal of information in a short window of time, Kilpatrick eventually decided to write a longer, more complete piece about her travels throughout Europe.

“Keep writing and reading,” Kilpatrick advises young writers.  “For me, reading is the practice of writing, absorbing the genius of the writers I most admire by studying their work.  And allow yourself to write badly.  The only way to become a better writer is to write badly and then go back and revise.”

“Not every piece of writing is meant to be read or published,” Kilpatrick goes on to say.  “It’s like running wind sprints or stretching out before a big race.  You need to do it, you have to do it, but you don’t you need to share it with everyone.”

—Rob Markowski and Josh Lapekas