Meet Ian Lindsay
Ian Lindsay & Ridge Anderson
Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ian was raised in St. Pete, Florida. He is a current PhD candidate at Georgia State and holds an MFA from the University of Central Florida. He is a fiction finalist for Solstice’s annual literary contest and the Steven R. Guthrie Memorial Writers' Festival Contest. As a Filipino American, he strives to examine hybridity and celebrate Fil-Am culture in writing. Once a full-time Title 1 public school teacher, he continues his work in the classroom. Ian lives in East Atlanta and enjoys NPR, Vietnamese cuisine, and serves as the inaugural fiction editor at Five Points. His work can be read in The Raleigh Review, Pembroke, Miracle Monocle, and more.
Every Chautauqua issue has a theme. The theme for our upcoming edition is Intervals. Would you mind speaking just a little on how the idea of Intervals contributed to you choosing to submit your writing?
World War II storytelling often centers the conflict, not the aftermath, and my story explores characters surviving after the conflict has ended. I feel this temporal space speaks to Chatauqua’s Intervals theme. The story glimpses into October 1945, after the war, but before the U.S. officially recognized the 1946 Philippine Independence. We should understand that after colonization, Pinoy freedom doesn’t open and close in neat intervals. This fight always continues.
Your short story “No Particular Ruin,” which appears in the Chautauqua Journal Intervals Issue, includes many location specific details that add to the realism of the story. How would you say the work of including those details affected your writing process?
My imagination honors my family. I wrote Cemut as a fictional Tondo, where my great-uncle Tiyuhin Danny grew up before graduating from the Philippine Military Academy, surviving the Battan Death March, and becoming the first Filipino Colonel in the U.S. Army. Since I can only imagine and not remember, I changed the district’s name. I hope readers feel the story’s realism and that my imagination and research are enough to shade my family’s stories with verisimilitude.
Do you have any projects that are taking priority with your time right now or that you are particularly excited about
I’m working on a novel manuscript set in WWII Philippines. My mom immigrated, and I’ve never had a chance to go back. I’m working on funding applications to live in the Quezon City and work on the next few drafts. As I’m writing now, I’m happy to interact with the many dope storytellers who are bringing Philippine stories to a global audience. Shoutout to Jessica Haggedorn, Anna Cabe, Elaine Castillo, Budjette Tan, and Januel Mercado!
As an author of both fiction and poetry, do you find the two forms interacting unexpectedly on the page?
For my fiction, I hope that voice filters a character’s consciousness. With No Particular Ruin, I think this is true. Fely is intimate with the Bible, which, of course, has books of poems. The Bible’s prose is also lovely and poetic. As far as forms interacting, the story’s war pamphlet being a poem is a chilling historical detail that is true to life and a craft intersection.
Poetry is another love. For me, poetry is play, which is also how I feel about music. I’m not great at karaoke, but maybe I can make up for this with my lyrical fiction and poetry attempts. Either way, I think reading both forms makes us more empathetic humans.
Discover more here: ianlindsaywrites.com