Anyone who knows Christopher Guerin knows of his many talents. With high profile jobs, including as executive director for the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and as communication director at Sweetwater, and his work on many important boards which oversee the development of Fort Wayne’s community efforts, Guerin has made a mark on the city for more than three decades. But he’s also known as a fine writer, one who is both creative and disciplined. It’s no surprise given his background. With two degrees in English literature from Northern Illinois, Guerin’s focus was fiction writing. Even as he led two symphonies, with a stint in Colorado before helming the Philharmonic, Guerin continued to write.
“I was always writing over those years and publishing sporadically,” he said. “It was mostly poems and short fiction in various magazines around the country. It was sufficiently satisfying as I raised a family and earned an income. When I decided to leave the Philharmonic, Chuck Surack was kind enough to offer me a position at Sweetwater which gave me my weekends back and my weeknights back because there are things going on with the orchestra all the time.”
He began to write sonnets every Saturday, and with a goal to reach 600 (he's currently at 577), he published a collection, My Human Disguise, with 200 of his sonnets. By that time he had not missed a Sonnet Saturday in 10 years. Now he’s stepped up his pace with a more steady schedule for writing.
Christopher Guerin
“When I got to retire, everything switched gears, and I wrote every single day. I’ve been disciplined in writing every day but not too much every day. If I wrote four or five hours a day, I could easily dry up. I write every afternoon from 4 until 5:30, and you can write an awful lot in 90 minutes.”
Last summer Guerin published a collection of his short stories, The Story of My Universe, which received a glowing review from Kirkus.
“This volume of short stories teeters on the edge of plausibility,” they wrote, “exploring everything from sinister cults to the coteries of academia. Elegant, impactful writing in a deliciously unnerving collection.”
“The Story of My Universe has three kinds of stories,” Guerin said. “One story is more fantastical. In a way it’s like Kafka or a spoof on Kafka. There are also stories from my time in the symphony orchestra business. They’re not necessarily autobiographical, but you see an awful lot in 26 years with an orchestra. And there are a handful which are more realistic in nature. Everybody seems to like the variety.”
Guerin has another collection, Loverless Love, ready to go, hopefully for a January publication date, and he continues to work on a novel. The Story of My Universe can be purchased on Amazon. [https://www.amazon.com/Story-My-Universe-Other-Stories/dp/1937484815/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+story+of+my+universe+guerin&qid=1629220440&sr=8-1]
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