Emily Marcus Gong was knee-deep in teaching Latin in Washington, D.C., when a former passion started bubbling to the surface. She had graduated with a degree in classics and thought of herself primarily as a teacher. Although she had always loved writing, she did not take a creative writing class until the final semester of her senior year in college. She was hooked.
She applied to and was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts for Poets & Writers program at UMass Amherst, graduating in 2021.
Writing became a personal form of therapy for Marcus Gong, developing into an outlet for her anxiety and a way of releasing what circled in her head.
“Fiction was the way I separated myself from what was keeping me up at night,” she explained. “With that distance, I could have sympathy for an external character and less judgement than I might have for myself.”
Marcus Gong’s love of the classics has long served as a conversation starter and a jumping-off point for her writing. She recently learned that “Goddess,” her collection of six short stories written as her MFA thesis, won the 2024 Tribe Short Story Collection Award and, as a result, would be published — nearly five years after she wrote it.
In her foreword, she writes about grappling with real-life motherhood while editing these stories, many of which explore the idea of motherhood.
“Revisiting these stories through the editing process while pregnant and in the throes of postpartum, in addition to being a wild ride, has only expanded my awe at the power of myths, the very inspiration for this collection. There is certainly much value in retelling, but maybe even more in re-listening.”
While Marcus Gong’s stories are not quite the feminist retellings of Greek and Roman myths that have grown popular in recent years — such as “Circe” by Madeline Miller — they do give voice to the voiceless. She is encouraged by the growing number of stories about women in mythology and the attention they are receiving. She believes women-centric myths — those of Lavinia, Penelope, Medea, Medusa and others — provide frameworks for contemporary situations.
In a new project, her first novel, Marcus Gong uses the story of Cassandra as a framework. Cassandra, a Trojan princess, was cursed by the god Apollo to always speak the truth and never be believed. Marcus Gong compares Cassandra’s experience to that of modern-day women navigating health care systems — particularly those with autoimmune diseases — who explain their symptoms only to be repeatedly dismissed.
In “Pomona,” one of the stories in “Goddess,” Marcus Gong draws on the lesser-known goddess of fruit trees, one of many ancient goddesses defined by motherhood, and interweaves that myth with a modern narrative about a woman who has chosen not to have children.
In another story, she examines the archetypes women are cast into by retelling the story of Tarpeia — the first traitor to Rome — four times and pairing it with a modern tale of betrayal, female friendship and society’s tendency to view women in the most negative light.
Readers do not need to be familiar with mythology to appreciate “Goddess,” and Marcus Gong hopes local book groups will consider adding the collection to their reading lists.
She believes “any woman going through a transition, which may be literally every one of them,” will connect with the fictional perspectives in her six original stories: “Huntress,” “The Good Goddess,” “Of Sirens and 20-Somethings,” “Portrait of a Lady in Pomona,” “Hera’s Spring” and “The Topography of Ruin.”
Marblehead influence
There are not-so-fictional elements in her stories as well.
“Yes, some settings will be recognizable to Marbleheaders,” she said. “I absolutely loved and spent a lot of time on the small beach near my home.”
That beach serves as the backdrop for “Sirens,” a story about the edge of early adulthood and leaving parts of childhood behind.
Marcus Gong grew up in the Clifton neighborhood and, although her family relocated a few years ago, she says her goal is to live there again someday. She graduated from Marblehead High School in 2011 and fondly remembers her high school years, crediting inspiring teachers and a close-knit group of friends she remains close to today.
“Success for me is having positive feedback on my work from those friends, when people I really know share their opinions or leave a positive review,” she said. “The opinions of those in my community mean so much more than those of a critic.”
The momentum from “Goddess” has shown Marcus Gong that she can continue on this path, and she is still writing. She is currently working on her novel while holding a full-time position as an academic adviser at Northeastern University and caring for her 8-month-old son, Charlie.
Marcus Gong will appear at the Abbot Public Library on March 30 from 7 to 8 p.m. for a conversation about “Goddess.” The book is available at Saltwater Bookstore in Marblehead and through Bookshop, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
