Check out some pieces of work, short biography and an interview with Gina Gidaro – one of the winners of our Postcard Competition!
Short Bio:
Gina Gidaro (she/her) is a creative writing graduate who loves reading, playing video games, watching dramas and being with family. Several of her writings/photographs have appeared in magazines and online zines. If she’s not obsessing over other people’s stories, she’s probably writing her own…or eating an excessive amount of fudge brownies. Her ultimate dream is to become a successful novelist.
Interview
1. What’s your name?
Gina Gidaro.
2. What’s your favorite color?
Deep red or pastel colors.
3. What’s your favorite animal?
Dogs!
4. What’s your favorite food?
Chinese.
5. What kind of hobbies do your like?
Reading, writing, photography, yoga, guitar, video games, watching Asian dramas.
6. What’s your favorite time of the year?
Summer or Fall.
7. Do you prefer tea, coffee or none?
Coffee.
8. What’s your lucky number?
I don’t think I have one…
9. How long have you been doing photography?
Since I was about thirteen.
10. What are some of your favorite things to photograph?
Animals, my niece, architecture, foggy mornings/evenings, abandoned buildings and plants.
11. Where are some of your favorite places to photograph?
My hometown and big cities.
12. Do you have a favorite photographer? (who?)
I admire Vivian Maier, Maddie McGarvey, and Gregory Crewdson.
13. Why do you enjoy photography?
My admiration for photography is something I share with my dad and older cousin. I love the stories photographs can tell and the satisfaction that comes from getting a great shot.
14. Do you have any advice for aspiring photographers?
Sure! Take photos of everything (you never know what could become a great shot). Bring your camera everywhere and try to get shots that require as little editing as possible (a personal preference). Don’t be scared to submit your photography to magazines and zines. Ask for feedback on your work, and always try new things 🙂
An Ode to the Creek in my Backyard
Here is to that lapping of green and brown,
that splash of uncertainty,
but wave of familiarity.
You are the host of the summer’s biggest party,
inviting the bathing suits, the picnic baskets
and the sunscreen to your nature-made mansion.
With boiling hot sand between the toes of your guests
and the cloudless blue skies over their heads,
the local pool could never offer turtle sightings
and sea shell pickings.
Your waters are free flowing, soft and ever changing.
When the men come to adjust your being to further their advances,
you remain at ease,
because the creek bed will still praise your name
regardless of the banks you chip away.
The trees and the scrubs know their place among your dusky
shadows, reaching their roots
for you to clench onto,
for you to mold around,
because your currents hold the stories of years gone by,
of generations seen, time spent, shoes lost, bonds unbent—
and who wouldn’t want to be a part of that
even if it was meant to slip right through our insatiable hands?
Dog Days
It’s just the two of us, sitting on the porch swing, bathed in sunlight during the fifth week of summer. It’s just the two of us and it really feels that way because no one is coming in and out of the house and my sister is lounging with her legs spread. Not is a crude way, she is just comfortable and there is no one around to tell her to shift positions. There are cows mooing across the field and neighboring horses galloping through their grassy landscape. Every couple minutes my sister turns the page of her book, the one about the girl who loved Shakespeare. Her big round eyes survey the page in wonder, while my book lay open in my lap.
A loud machine starts up at the end of the field in front of our house. It’s a giant, black and green tractor that makes a loud mechanical noise as it drags itself across the empty field, fertilizing the soil. One of our many cats shoots out from under the porch and runs passed the front of the house, startled by the monstrous growl of the tractor. She races up the steps and finds a protected spot on the swing between my sister and I.
“Is it bean or corn this year?” I ask my sister, who hasn’t glanced away from her book.
“I think it’s corn,” she answers absently.
These are the dog days, I realize. The days that seem so simple and utterly forgettable. These are the days I’ll end up missing the most when the era of missing rolls around. When the sweet smell of corn has become distant to my nose, when the hum of nearby hummingbirds and the mooing of far-a-way cows has disappeared from my ears.
My sister laughs at something in her book and flips the page, the page much thinner than the weight of the words printed on it. The sound is like wind rustling through autumn leaves, through tiny grains of sand on a sunbathed beach. I watch her laugh until she tells me the joke and then we are both laughing in the warm sun, while the corn finds its home within the Earth and the words of someone else’s story lay sprawled in our laps.