30 November 2013

commencement essay

The combination of Thanksgiving holiday weekend and celebration of the Hanukkah Festival of Lights feels like just the right time for the publication release of my essay "Seemingly Unrelated Events" in the newest issue of December literary magazine, the Revival Issue (Vol 24) December 1, 2013. This is a version of the commencement speech I gave as the student speaker for the Pacific University MFA commencement ceremonies in June of this year.

I am honored to be included in this magazine alongside some terrific writers and friends from Pacific University, such as Marvin Bell, Peter Sears, Dawn Robinson, Jeanne Morel, Jaydn DeWald, and Karen Holman, among others. Another amazing and wonderful opportunity. 

My thanks to all who made this possible, my family, teachers, mentors and friends. And my husband who's talked me down from the metaphorical ledge more than once whenever I am faced with a writing or speaking challenge.

Subscribe to December for the current issue and much more. My opinion: literary works are always a good investment of the mind. 

~ sherri


"Exactly 444 years before the day of my birth, Hernando Cortes set fire to the
Aztec aviaries of the besieged city of Tenochtitlan, the story written in Crossing OpenGround by Barry Lopez. It is 1989. Lopez is already a renowned author and National Book Award recipient, writing about human culture in the context of the natural
world. I am a 23-year-old English undergrad at Weber State University with two small
children, living on welfare in a trailer park under the runway flight path of nearby Hill
Air Force Base, painfully aware that my marriage of three years is failing. I am instantly
connected to the images of the birds burning in their cages. Connected by my own
despair. By my birth date there on the page." [subscribe to read more]
                                                ~Sherri Hoffman, from "Seemingly Unrelated Events"