In an interview on the Chicago Writer's Podcast, Dr. Gautier shared about short fiction's impact on her adolescence and writing:
"I actually feel that short stories were very instructional to me as an adolescent as a teenager. I always felt that I learned a lot about the adult world from reading short stories. I always felt that they sort of educated me and introduced me into adult interactions. I remember reading Katherine Mansfield’s "Bliss" in 7th or 8th grade, and just being blown away. I remember reading Toni Cade Bambara’s story, "Gorilla, My Love," around that same age, you know 18 years old reading Stuart Dybek’s story "Pet Milk," which is one of the reasons I came to Chicago because that’s like my favorite story in the whole entire world and I always just thought of short fiction as something that kind of would shine a light on a moment of a human interaction that would be able to provide illumination or enlightenment because that’s what it did for me. So, that became my form of choice for wanting to be able to write stories that could provide readers with the same sort of experiences that I had that I felt were very integral to my development."