RPCV Author Guy Biederman (Guatemala)

“I began writing as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala as a form of self-defense. The goat herder’s shack where I lived had been built out of green planks by an American Baha’i. When the wood dried, huge gaps appeared in the walls. Poetry became my wallpaper and my insulation. Over the years I’ve often wondered whether writing has gotten me into more jams than it has gotten me out of.”

Guy Biederman (Guatemala 1981-82)

Guy Biederman (Guatemala 1981-82) is the author of six collections of short work, including his most recent, Translated From The Original: One-inch Punch Fiction from Nomadic Press, and 300 of his stories and poems have appeared in literary journals such as Carve, MacQueen’s Quinterly, great weather for MEDIA, Flashback Fiction, and Exposition Review, where he was twice a winner in their Flash 405 contests. His work has received a Publisher’s Choice Award, an Editor’s Choice Award, nominations for Best Micro Fiction 2023, and Best of the Net, and one of his stories took third place in Flash Frontier’s National Flash Fiction Day contest in New Zealand.

Guy was born in the Chihuahua desert near the Mexican border, raised on a stingray in Ventura, learned to write in the Peace Corps during a civil war in Guatemala, honed his craft pulling weeds and planting flowers as a gardener in San Francisco, and completed his M. A. at San Francisco State where his teaching career began. For 12 years he published the literary magazine Bust Out Stories and several books by Bay Area writers. Guy is a husband, father, and grandfather. He lives on a houseboat with his wife and salty cat and walks the planks daily.