“There Is No Such Thing as a True Story” by Ellen Urbani (Guatemala)

I know this because my daughter insists I told her to put her dirty dishes in the sink when I know I told her to put them in the dishwasher, and because my sister swears that on a late summer night in 1990 I deliberately flicked a Japanese beetle into her mouth when—cross my heart and hope to die—I only intended to swat it off my mother’s shoulder. I know this because my former spouse will tell you nothing of note occurred on the night I feared he would kill me.

MORE AT: http://therumpus.net/2016/03/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-true-story/

Ellen Urbani is the author of Landfall (2015), a work of historical fiction set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the memoir When I Was Elena (2006), a Book Sense Notable selection documenting her life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala during the final years of that country’s civil war.

She has a bachelor’s degree from The University of Alabama and a master’s degree from Marylhurst University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and numerous anthologies, and has been widely excerpted. She’s reviewed books for The Oregonian, served as a federal disaster/trauma specialist, and has lectured nationally on this topic. Her work has been profiled in the Oscar-qualified short documentary film Paint Me a Future. A Southern expat, she now resides on a farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.