November 2019
Dr. Heidi Breuer
- What's your favorite book to read for fun?
My favorite genres are fantasy, sci-fi, and horror (all the speculative genres, really). Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors, and I love Margaret Atwood as well, and Ursula Le Guin will always be one of my favorites. - What's your favorite book to teach?
My favorite text to teach is Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I also really enjoy teaching Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. I love teaching the Charlaine Harris novels along with the HBO series True Blood.
- Do you have a favorite film?
My favorite film of all time is The Wizard of Oz, and my other favorite film of all time is Grease. I also have a deep, abiding affinity for the film The Fifth Element, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite love stories. - How do you spend your free time?
Everything and everything at the beach: I own a stand-up paddle board, which I try to get out on most weekends when the weather permits, and I enjoy boogie boarding, as well as taking my dog to the dog beach most weeks.
I have lots of creative outlets and enjoy performing! I’ve done a lot of community theater (mostly musicals), and I have been taking improv comedy classes for about a year now. I am the captain of a brand-new musical improv team (the Basic Pitches) that will start performing after the holidays. I also love karaoke! - What's your biggest literary inspiration?
By far, the biggest influence on my literary development was the fantasy genre, as well as sci-fi (SFF). I began with a small habit, just authors like C. S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, Roald Dahl, Madeline L’Engle, and Ursula le Guin, but soon I was into the hard stuff, like David Eddings, Gene Wolf, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and, of course, George R. R. Martin. Now, I consume it all—anything with witches, vampires, zombies, werewolves, fairies, elves, trolls. I’m a full-on SFF junkie.
- What's your cure for writer's block?
If I’m having trouble completing writing for one project, what I often do is work on another project until I can get past the block. But I think the long-term solution for writer’s block is to train yourself to write every day, around the same time, so that you develop a routine in which you are accustomed to producing. Discipline is largely what overcomes writer’s block for me. It’s Pavlovian.
- What are you working on outside of class?
I’m working on two book-length projects right now. One is an analytical project analyzing the representation of witches and vampires in contemporary popular culture from a feminist perspective, including texts like Twilight, True Blood, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones. This project is still in the drafting stage. It’s because of this project that I was chosen to interview one of the actors from HBO’s Game of Thrones series, Kristian Nairn (who played Hodor).
The other project is a fantasy novel about two sisters who wake up on opposite sides of a magical land and must find their way back to one another, also grounded in a feminist perspective. This project is in the revision stage.
- Fun Fact:
I love musicals, and Wicked is one of my favorite musicals. Hamilton is probably the best musical ever written.