21 February 2013

february is a dervish

...if the dervish includes a funeral and a wedding, both unexpected. January—with final MFA residency, thesis, and graduation—seems calm in comparison.

I fall back on simple beliefs.

Gravity.

Relativity.

a² + b² = c². 

And George Saunders. I adore George Saunders.
"One idea that gives me a lot of comfort – and I’m aware it sounds corny – but I like the thought that any of us could find a sort of fictive corollary, in our minds, for any other of us. That is to say, since one person’s brain is actually very physically similar to any other brain, and because the neurological processes are similar, we are more alike than we might think – and fiction (reading or writing it) is a way to remind ourselves of that fact. When Tolstoy describes childbirth in 'War and Peace,' any of us who’ve been through that get a weird jolt of recognition. And what a weird thing that is – some guy who died over 100 years ago is causing intense activity in your brain. Magic, really, and hopeful – since that implies that deep and profound understanding of another’s motives and feelings is not only possible, but probable, if we just lean into it a bit."
     ~ George Saunders, interview on The Diane Rehm Show
I have a similar, less elegant theory: the Cockroach Theory. When I wake up to discover I've turned into a cockroach, I go to my community, raise my hand, say, "Hey! I've turned into a fuckin' cockroach!"

At least one person will answer. "Yes," they say. "That happened to me. Here's what I did."

Write that.

 - sherri

Relativity

I like relativity and quantum theories
because I don't understand them
and they make me feel as if space shifted about
like a swan that can't settle,
refusing to sit still and be measured;
and as if the atom were an impulsive thing
always changing its mind.

~ D. H. Lawrence

21 December 2012

graduation announcement


Sherri is pleased to announce her graduation from Pacific University with a Master of Fine Arts in Writing.



Celebrate accordingly.




22 October 2012

new craft essay: add real stuff

My craft essay, "Add Real Stuff to Your Fiction," is included in the first Forest Avenue Press' Seven Questions Series collection edited by Laura Stanfill, Brave On the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life. The book is a collection of interviews and flash essays by and about Northwest authors, why and how they write.

"Writing can be a lonely thing to love," writes Stanfill. "And yet we all commit the same brave act—confronting the blank page every day. No matter what the cost, no matter what the outcome, we set our other obligations aside to write."

I am one of those writers. Once I told my mentors Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose (from the Pinewood Table), "I quit every day. And then, every day, I start again."

I am honored to be included in Brave on the Page alongside the other 41 Northwest writers, some of them my dear friends. It is, as Stanfill says, "something to celebrate."

 - sherri