Ryan Boudinot

Hugo House: In a couple of months you will debut a brand-new piece at Hugo House; have you started working on it yet?

Ryan Boudinot: Yes, I have. Thanks for asking.

HH: What were your first thoughts on receiving an invitation to write on an assigned theme? Any regrets on having said yes?

RB: No regrets whatsoever. I feel honored to have been asked to participate.

HH: Could you tell us a little bit about your process—how you approach writing something new?

RB: Usually I don't think of it as a piece of writing right off the bat. An idea usually bubbles up as simply something that I think would be cool or interesting. For instance, say someone came to work with a beard made of bees? Then a few seconds after the initial idea, I think, hey, that might make an interesting story.

HH: Children are full of scraped knees from falling off bikes, bee stings from treating hives like piñatas or an occasional broken bone from doing that thing mom told them not to do about 100 times. What was your most harrowing injury as a child?

RB: Mine really isn't all that bad. I had a nasty spill from a bike and my dad had to pick gravel out of my hand, but the most interesting injury happened during one of my brother's birthday parties. I was climbing a tree, a Doug fir, and I fell maybe a dozen feet onto the ground. I landed on my arm on an exposed root. My parents tried to make me feel better by feeding me strawberry shortcake, but the pain got worse over the course of the evening, and weirdly began moving up my arm, eventually turning into a raging headache. That night my parents took me to the emergency room. As they were checking me in, I stood there in the hallway and explosively vomited all that strawberry shortcake, which was vividly red and bloody looking. They rushed me into a room, where I was looked at by a doctor named Dr. Shutz. As is the case with vomiting, I felt a lot better afterward, and was trying really hard not to laugh at Dr. Shutz's name.

HH: If you were a personal injury lawyer, what would your toll-free number spell?
 
RB: 1-888-THA-SHIT