M.J. Rose

Thank you to Erica-Lynn Huberty for answering this week’s Reincarnationist Q&A! Erica-Lynn is the author of the new book Dog Boy and Other Harrowing Tales, a collection of stories that are immersed in the Gothic tradition while told in a modern and inventive way. 

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

A penchant for, or attraction to, what I imagine other eras to be.  In other words, I believe I’d be a lot happier riding in a horse-and-carriage than in a car.  I feel much happier and less anxious listening to the sounds of nature than to the sounds of industry and technology; I am quite comfortable in a corset and petticoats.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?

The ability to waste several years on a particular person I believed was destined to be my soul-mate, due to us having been soul-mates in another life.  Luckily, I have rid myself of this defect!

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen):  because of her love of storytelling, her dedication to her home (in Africa), her stomach ulcers, her fear of having to live as a woman bound by the conventions of a male-dominated world; and because of her desire to express, in her writing, a spirit that no longer existed in her own modern times.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

I would love to have for dinner, to discuss any number of things: Thomas Jefferson, Frida Kahlo, and Agatha Christie.

What do you think happens when we die?

I hope that what happens is whatever I believe.  There are too many beliefs about the afterlife among too many cultures for any one thing to be true.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?

Myself as a ghost, walking (with a friendly atmosphere) amongst places I loved in this lifetime.

Erica-Lynn Huberty holds an M.A. in Literature from Bennington College.  Her poetry has been anthologized in Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems.  Her first book of short stories, Dog Boy and Other Harrowing Tales, is out now.

www.dogboytales.com

Thank you to Tanya Egan Gibson for answering this week’s Reincarnationist Q&A!

Tanya Egan Gibson is the author of How to Buy a Love of Reading (May 2009 – Dutton), a novel about nouveau riche parents who try to cure their teenage daughter’s hatred of books by commissioning a custom-written novel for her and dubbing themselves the Medicis of Long Island.  She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two young children.

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

I value difference/uniqueness over nearly everything (except kindness).  I rarely feel like I want to be just like someone else or look like someone else or create something that has already been created.  I have a feeling that if were, indeed, someone else previously, that person was no doubt a bit eccentric or iconoclastic.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?

That would be stubbornness.  Because it couldn’t be *my* fault.  Certainly not.  Must be a holdover from past incarnation, one that wasn’t always, you know, *right.*

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?

I’ve been thinking about this question for, well, days, and I can’t exactly answer it, maybe because “heroes” is a loaded word for me (do I think I could have been heroic?  Not sure), or perhaps because I tend to think of heroes as characters in fiction (and it wouldn’t make sense for me to think I could be the reincarnation of someone who never existed in “real life”).  What I *can* say is that I’d like to imagine that I was some sort of explorer–someone who would be willing to put it all on the line to discover new things.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

F. Scott Fitzgerald (who would undoubtedly sound less and less, er, coherent on the subject as the evening passed), Oscar Wilde, and Kurt Vonnegut.

What do you think happens when we die?

That’s a question I tried not to think too much about until recently, when my five-year-old daughter’s pet frogs died. My husband and I are blessed with an abundance of grandparents for our children, all of whom have different ideas about religion and what happens after death.  So when Dylan’s sweet little pets died, I found myself putting forth a hodgepodge of ideas taken from different belief systems.

She imagines Toady and Little Frog living now in Frog Heaven, where they tell other pets about how much she loved them.  But because one of her grandmothers told her that when things die, they return as energy to make new beings, she also imagines them becoming baby frogs all over again.  And finally, because we told her when we buried them in our yard under the Calla Lilies they were being returned to the earth to help other things grow, she tells us that she imagines Toady and Little Frog holding little gardening rakes.  She says they’re making flowers for her.  (All of which makes me cry when she’s not looking because it’s so sweet and wonderful.)

So what do *I* believe happens when we die?  Anything my little girl believes is probably right.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?

Someone who can keep houseplants alive (apparently, you are supposed to water them), enjoys cooking (rather than thinking putting that Trader Joe’s pizza in the oven is a lot of work), organizes closets (so that things don’t fall on one’s head when one opens them), and writes thank-you notes on time.  Fortunately, my sweet children and patient husband forgive me all this and more.

All of us here at The Reincarnationist blog are very excited about our Q&A with Danielle Trussoni, author of the bestselling new novel ANGELOLOGY. Enjoy!

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

My desire to write. I knew from the time I was six years old that I wanted to write books.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?

I’m not sure if this is a defect, but I am terrified of war, and believe I was probably killed in one, most likely in Vietnam.

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?

I don’t have any heroes, and so I’m not sure how to answer this. I don’t believe I’ve every been anyone famous, or a historical figure. Most likely, I was a scorpion someone stepped upon.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

Madame Blavatsky, Carl Jung and the Buddha.

What do you think happens when we die?

I don’t believe in the creation or extinction of spirit or matter and therefore it is inevitable that it translates into another form.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?

I simply hope to be human

Danielle’s links:

www.danielletrussoni.com

www.angelologist.com

www.fallingthroughtheearth.com