Staff Spotlight: Nina Lichenstein

Interview

What do you write?

I have an aca­d­e­m­ic pub­lish­ing back­ground, but recent­ly decided to take a cre­ative turn, because aca­d­e­m­ic lingo felt too con­form­ing, distant, and pre­ten­tious. Since I had dabbled in per­son­al essays for a while (a column about being an ex-pat, a blog, etc) it was the “natural” place to start this cre­ative journey. I have a couple of memoir-type projects in the works, but a novel has also been brewing in me for several years (read: I’m obsessed). Since I have little expe­ri­ence writing fiction, I have a few short stories in various stages that I keep return­ing to, when I feel brave, to warm me up for the big dive of tack­ling the novel. 

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

My answer to this might seem diffuse, but my lit­er­ary influ­ences are too het­ero­ge­neous both in lan­guages, cul­tures, gen­er­a­tions, and genres that I can’t isolate one, or even a few. I will say that I have felt pro­found­ly influ­enced by the writing, lan­guage, and ideas of Nor­we­gian, French, English, and Israeli authors, and that without these influ­ences I would not be who I am or write (or strive to write) the way I do today. I will admit that I am all over the place, in more ways than one.

Why did you choose Stonecoast?

See last answer! But all kidding aside, it was the fact that Stonecoast encour­ages what I call trans-genre explo­ration and inter­ests, that is what really spoke to me. Also, I had heard excep­tion­al­ly great things about the program, and it didn’t hurt that I had just moved to Maine… 

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

Haha, even this is kind of fluid: Since I am a first semes­ter student, and have only attend­ed one res­i­den­cy so far, I expect I am just at the begin­ning of build­ing and col­lect­ing favorite Stonecoast mem­o­ries. But I will say that the feeling I had during the summer res­i­den­cy was that I had landed in a really special tribe of amazing and eclec­tic minds that I felt priv­i­leged to be counted among. And that feeling is a fond memory. 

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

A Nor­we­gian author I admire, Jon Michlet, recent­ly passed away from cancer at 73. On his deathbed, full of mor­phine, he fin­ished his 48th book, and it was his best one. I hope to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing and engag­ing as a writer until the end; to be dis­ci­plined enough to finish the books and stories I have in me, and to make a dif­fer­ence in the writing lives of a few students. 

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

You’re killing me with the choices…But, I found The Story of a Brief Mar­riage by Anuk Arud­pra­gasam, to be like a perfect, tiny, gem, on so many levels; I would love to have been able to write some­thing like that.

Featured Work

A Little Man Named Leo

The fol­low­ing is a work of fiction exclu­sive­ly for Stonecoast Review.

“I can still give plea­sure, you know,” the barely 5’ tall Holo­caust sur­vivor told Nora, in his thick Polish accent. His eyes beamed at her, his chin held high as if to give the impres­sion of a certain stature, after all. “I know how to make a woman happy, even if I am not as virile as I used to be in my youth.” An 85-year old widower on dial­y­sis, Leo lived in a small effi­cien­cy apart­ment in Fed­er­a­tion Square, a housing complex for the elderly Jewish pop­u­la­tion in their com­mu­ni­ty. Nora paid him a visit now and then, after her teenage son had inter­viewed him for an essay project, match­ing sur­vivors with teens. So we will never forget. In Leo’s over-heated living room, faded black and white photos of his family lined the walls, all of who per­ished in the camps—his mother, father, broth­ers and sisters. His grand­par­ents were killed too, as were his aunts and uncles. A photo of the Polish woman who saved him hung next to theirs.

Leo was an enchant­i­ng man with his gentle manners and pos­i­tive outlook on life, despite the bru­tal­i­ty he had expe­ri­enced as a child during the war. He was socia­ble and loved to shower his women friends with choco­lates and flowers, even if it wasn’t Valentine’s Day. Now his rosy cheeks were full and warm, and his blue eyes sparkled with antic­i­pa­tion, as he crossed his arms, resting them on his dis­tend­ed belly under high-waisted blue sweat­pants layered over a loose-fitting gray sweat­shirt. He looked like a little happy gnome, she thought, his bald, round head encir­cled by a monk-like tonsure of short, gray hair. He always smelled clean, a mixture of baby powder and Old Spice. “I am sure you can,” Nora answered with a smile, not wanting to dimin­ish her octo­ge­nar­i­an suitor’s desire although she did not want to encour­age his advance either. She thought he was brave, and decided not to change the topic, despite feeling awkward. She was in her mid-40’s and just divorced, and Leo knew to seize an oppor­tu­ni­ty when it pre­sent­ed itself. An inde­fati­ga­ble opti­mist, he had escaped the Nazis at age eleven by jumping out of the cattle car trans­port­ing his family and their entire village to their deaths, and then he spent two years hiding under the base­ment stairs of his Polish neighbor’s house—a right­eous gentile—who brought him scraps when no-one was looking, under the guise of feeding her rabbits. When the war ended, he had trouble stand­ing up straight after hiding on a bed of moist hay, cam­ou­flaged by a stack of empty crates; his body full of flea-bites and his hair scrag­gly and knotted and infest­ed with lice. He was thir­teen in 1945.

Now, Nora and Leo shared a stuffed tuna Subway grinder, seated facing each other at his kitchen table covered with a plastic table cloth; a large blue log-book and a long, pink, plastic pill orga­niz­er sat in a corner. He had once shown her how he kept track of every­thing in that log: the dates, times and con­sis­ten­cies of his bowel move­ments, as well as his daily weight AM and PM, his diet, and his med­ica­tions. The payment amounts for his per­son­al assis­tants were also record­ed there—everything had its place, infor­ma­tion about the minutia of his daily rou­tines avail­able at his fin­ger­tips. Today, Leo told Nora that the indul­gence of a little added cheese on his sand­wich already felt like he was pushing his luck. He knew that restraint and order helped him survive. “You know, I’m seeing someone,” she said between bites. “I am flat­tered by your propo­si­tion, though.” With a coy smile he answered, “Just remem­ber I’m here if you change your mind.”

The last time she saw him was a beau­ti­ful but chilly day in the fall. She picked him up from his home where he was stand­ing outside with his walker. He was always ready early, never wanting to keep anyone waiting. Bundled in a warm and over sized fall jacket, a check­ered woolen scarf neatly tied around his neck, his army green cap had ear-flaps cov­er­ing his round cheeks. Nora helped him into the car, and when she stretched the seat-belt across his front, she noticed he was freshly shaved for the occa­sion. She folded up his walker and put in in the trunk. Then she brought him to the park nearby, where they sat side by side on wobbly, sun-bleached Adiron­dack chairs, bundled in the wool blan­kets she had brought along. Under the blue, cloud­less sky, they shared a tuna grinder—without cheese —while ducks and swans and Canada geese glided quietly on the pond, and col­or­ful leaves rustled in the tall, majes­tic trees. “This is nice,” he said. “In the spring I want to take you and your son out to Chinese!” “That would be great,” she answered. “We will look forward to that.”

But Leo didn’t make it through that winter, because his kidneys stopped func­tion­ing, and his heart was too weak to support his slight but declin­ing body with its massive memory. The night before he died, he called Nora from his hos­pi­tal bed. Holding his little black book with all the phone numbers to his friends, young and old, he made the rounds to say goodbye. “I love you,” he said. “I love you too, Leo,” she answered.

Nina is a native of Oslo, Norway, and blogs under the name of The Viking Jewess. She is the mother of three grown sons who recent­ly flew the nest in CT, which allowed her to migrate north to Maine. She has a back­ground in teach­ing lan­guages and lit­er­a­ture, enjoys live sto­ry­telling, and dreams of starting/joining an impov group. When she isn’t writing and busy hosting at her AirBnB, she tries to find her zen doing yoga, and vol­un­teers as an editor for The Telling Room’s online Stories page. Nina’s writing has appeared in The Wash­ing­ton Post, Brevity, Lit­er­ary Mama, and Lilith, among other places. She is a first semes­ter student at Stonecoast.