Getting 2 Know Gurjinder Basran

Photo: James Loewen

What would readers be surprised to learn about you?

I didn’t grow up on books. In fact, I didn’t read much and other then the usual teenage angsty poetry and journaling, I didn’t write much either. I did, however, have an active imagination, and  I spent most of my youth and perhaps even a good portion of my adulthood daydreaming, but I never really thought I’d be a writer.

For me the thing about writing that was the most liberating was also the scariest. Anytime I did write, I was frightened by the profound honesty of reading my thoughts back to myself and would promptly destroy anything I wrote for fear that someone may read it. You would think this desire for truth and clarity may have actually motivated me to become a devout reader, but nothing that was being taught in school resonated with me. I didn’t have the maturity to make the connection, or find the relevance.

What is your favorite thing about writing?

I love writing, because for me writing actually feels like a place. When I write, I go somewhere else and when I am there, I forget everything about the day to day or at the very least I can reinterpret those details into story and do so without any judgement. When I write, I am most myself, I am painfully honest, non judgmental, compassionate…I can write all the things that I may never say.  It’s freeing. When I write, I access memory, intuition, information, history, knowledge, and everything that ever happened and will happen, makes sense to me.

Read about Gurjinder Basran’s book Everything was Goodbye.

Visit Gurjinder’s WEBSITE