MEET

Charlotte "Gasp" Gasparetti Ribar


 
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Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
— Jack London

The Long of it

Currently dwelling in Chicago, she originally, and proudly, hails from Oakland, California. She received her degree in 2016 from Columbia College Chicago with a bachelors in Fiction Writing and minor in Management, all while keeping up with freelance graphic design and live music photography.

Described as lyrical, funny, haunting, and engaging, Gasp pulls you into the trenches with her characters. Unblinking, she tackles topics and emotions with honesty that aims to show the meat of humanity and growth, letting the feelings vibrate through every line. She says, “I grew up around storytellers. My grandfather was a poet, and exposed me early on to some of the best writers; Jane Austen, Jack London, and Bukowski, for instance. My parents raised me with a pen in my hand. When entering high school my first literature teacher, Nina [LaCour] opened up even more options and gave me the chance of a lifetime to edit her first novel, Hold Still. In that way the people I admired most were storytellers, and that’s what I wanted to be, without a doubt.”

Gasp has been published in Columbia College of Chicago's annual writing journal Hair Trigger. Her piece "In the Bones" (Hair Trigger 37) received first prize for essays from the Columbia Scholastic Association of New York. The short story "The Exchange" has been featured in the Lab review, and a pair of short pieces were published in the memoir "Don't Love Me, Judge Me" by Nathan Leone.

She's currently working on her first novel for young adults. Also, she’s an oxford comma loyalist. You’ll tear that extra little flick of the pen from her cold, dead fingers.

 

OUTside of writing

Besides being a writer, she is a print maker and designer, a musician for herself, and architecture enthusiast, zine collector, gamer with an equal love for PC, console, and boards, and DIY experimenter. She’s worked in body modification, the afterlife business, and social media management. Won’t say she does it all, but she’s getting there.

the short of it

Creator for anyone who's learning what it means to grow up

because it never really ends, does it?