Just One Thing with Leslie Pietrzyk

Leslie Pietrzyk’s story “The End Plays Itself Out” gives us a sharp-voiced narrator who slams us into a rolling line of tiny disasters. Here she shares just one thing about the piece:

“Every Thursday, I write to prompts in the empty dining room of a restaurant busy with their prep work in the kitchen. It’s an excellent set-up for me as I don’t have to buy coffee, and I get background noise without people bugging me in their people-ish ways. Also, strange as it may seem, this space has a creative feel to it. What a tremendous gift. As I was about to head out one Thursday, I asked my husband for a dramatic prompt, and he said, “A baby left in a bathroom,” which was shockingly unexpected. As I was driving to the restaurant, I narrowly missed driving through a gigantic, sloppy mess of spilled white paint spreading across two lanes. And there we go…I drafted this entire story in the following 2 hours. A year later, that paint’s still visible at the intersection. And if you’re ever in Winston-Salem, NC, I recommend Milner’s for dinner and for writing.”

Photo credit: Matt Goias