10 Questions for Ann Lohner

- By Edward Clifford

Emergency crews got through a week after the storm. They cleared downed power lines and sawed through fallen trees, creating a way in and out and delivering food and water. But the heat was still off, and another storm was on the way, so Kate swept the prescription bottles into a bag that she wedged in the car between the walker and the wheelchair.
—from "Postmortem," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My early fiction includes a trilogy that commences with Max pursuing Anne into debt and exile in the Rhineland, far from the shtetl where his family trades foals and theories about who fathered Anne’s child. The trilogy spans the world wars, and I wrote it during my time in Rheinland-Pfalz, where I had access to primary sources such as last words scratched into the wall of a jail cell. The three volumes are curing on a shelf now. I’ll get back to them soon.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Lately I’ve been rereading Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant.

What other professions have you worked in?
I managed technology transfer at a research institute as well as at several companies that produce avionics, aircraft engines, satellite components, and so forth. Before that, as a student, I answered phones at a call center, tended bar in a rathskeller, sold fabric at a discounter, and bussed tables at a buffet that had a seafaring theme and costumed me and the rest of the crew as pirates.

What did you want to be when you were young?
Having read a lot about nations fighting over wood, gold, and whatnot, I thought I’d do my bit for world peace by somehow attending to something in or around global trade. (I ended up on the borders-and-embargoes front, and I had negligible impact on world peace.)

What inspired you to write this piece?
Planning a funeral, after which I threw together some characters, some siblings, to see how they’d handle their dad’s death.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
The far north made a particular impression on me.

Do you have any writing rituals or traditions?
Writing first thing works best for me, and if I have a thought at night I wake up to jot it down.

If you could work in another art form what would it be?
Music, if my hands were bigger. Or painting.

What are you working on currently?
I’m finishing a novel, the tale of three sisters who try and try to quell their quarrels as they struggle to tend their parents, raise their kids, and keep their careers afloat.

What are you reading right now?
Julie Otsuka’s books.