AUTHOR PROFILE
B. P. Gallagher has a Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from the University at Albany and is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Culture at Nazareth University. His fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Avalon Literary Review, Meniscus Literary Journal, and elsewhere.
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Brendan's work appeared in Pond 87
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Why do you write?
For the fame and major accolades, naturally! But on a more serious note, I use writing to delve into my own mind and explore human motivation through a distinct lens from my academic discipline. That said, I think there’s touch of the lay psychologist in every half-decent writer of fiction. To create convincing characters, you need to know—or at least intuit—a bit about people and how they operate!
What other creative activities are you involved in?
I play piano and sing and at one time wrote songs as prolifically as I write stories. My EP Whole In My Head, which dates back to my college days, is still floating around on the major streaming services if anyone fancies a listen. I’m also an avid martial artist; I’ve trained Muay Thai for the past five years and before that dabbled in BJJ. As a kid I trained Ishin-Ryu karate for another several years.
Who is your favorite author and why?
This is a tough one, so I’m going to cheat and name a few. Kurt Vonnegut for his incisiveness and ability to make me laugh out loud every few pages. James Joyce for his unparalleled mastery of the English language. Cormac McCarthy for his sentence structure (particularly his use of polysyndeton and the rhythm of his prose). Finally, Ray Bradbury for his poetic descriptions. Oh, and Tolkien—the list goes on!
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
I maintain a regular writing schedule with weekday evenings devoted to short stories and weekends to my longer projects. Once I’ve given a piece a solid edit, I send it along to my dad, my wife Sarah, and one of my best friends, without whose editorial comments I doubt I’d ever publish much of anything! On the academic front, I’m currently working on a textbook on the individual and group-level psychological functions of various ideologies.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
A noble creature! Something about ancient-looking lifeforms —emphasis on looking; they’ve only been around since the Holocene—evokes a sense of wonder for me. While kayaking on the Finger Lakes this summer a massive carp sideswiped me and the sight of its undulating, shovel-scaled back and flaccid fin gave me the distinct impression that it had just crawled from the primordial muck. I’d give anything to visit each epoch of life on Earth for a day or even an hour (without getting eaten or suffocated by atmospheric changes)! The closest we get are these perennial journeymen who stick around across the millennia to remind us of bygone eras.