Reading and writing are my shadowy double, my alter ego, my most secret, most true self. Everything is colored by the book I am reading, the poem that I am brainstorming, the story that I am revising. I read obsessively, voraciously. I write compulsively. Recently, I found a folder stuffed with dozens of loose-leaf papers covered in poems and short stories that I had written in college. These papers were of miscellaneous origin and included discarded flyers, old rubrics, and defunct study guides. When inspired, I wrote poems and stories on any sheet of paper in front of me and then, late at night, after homework had been completed, typed them into my laptop.
Yet, I do not have an MFA degree. I do not even have a degree in literature. My desire to write was difficult to admit to myself, even harder to admit to others. I had some excellent English teachers in college who recognized my writing ability and one who even suggested that once I graduated and got a steady job, that I should write a novel, like famed novelist Thomas Pynchon did. But, they never encouraged me to actually pursue a creative writing degree or even take a creative writing class and, anyway, I shirked from exposing myself to such criticism and scrutiny. Besides, I enjoyed my major, though it did not come naturally or easily to me, and was deeply passionate about its applications.
So my foundation for creative writing came from my K-12 education. I was inspired to write fiction and poetry at a young age through the Language Arts curriculum, local library programs, writing contests, author visits, and an innovative writing program called “Power of the Pen”. Of course, I always loved reading and grew up in a home that valued and encouraged reading. I was drawn to books that involved strong female characters such as The Babysitters Club and the Nancy Drew series, and classics such as Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie. In high school, I became mesmerized by writers such as the Brontë sisters, Edith Wharton, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy and William Shakespeare. Wuthering Heights was the first “adult” literary book that I ever read, and from then on, I sped through the classics. I was spellbound by the beauty, violence, and passion of these older stories, which were unlike anything that I had ever encountered.
Now, I am drawn by writers that deal with the psychological/interior aspects of life such as Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, and Virginia Woolf. When I read these books, I feel as if I were entering a new type of experience, in which unnamed desires are revealed. My most recent fiction, which has been strongly influenced by these writers, is focused on how inequality and exterior forces manifest themselves in my characters’ psyches. My writing particularly examines the experiences of women in both the past and present. I am inspired by writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Deb Caletti who write with such breathtaking clarity and realism about women’s lived experiences. A hidden, almost unspoken aspect of life is revealed in these works. What desires, fears, motives hide behind the mundane motions of our lives? What lies behind seemingly innocuous facades? How has oppression and injustice affected our innermost selves? My own work tries to reveal what is unspoken, subtle, and fleeting in our minds.
Mainly, it was from reading that I learned how to write. From reading my favorite books, I learned how to write effective sentences, how to develop mood and tone, how to make sensitive word choices. This training has been useful in many aspects of my life. I work in a STEM field, and creative writing and reading fiction has always been the balance between my analytical, objective self, and the self that is trying to process the complexity and chaos of the world. However, writing fiction and poetry has allowed me to cultivate a creativity which has been useful in my profession.
Despite these benefits, reading and writing have been lifelines to me throughout good times and bad. After a painful, emotionally difficult time two years ago, I turned to creative writing seriously. I wrote almost every day and developed a portfolio of short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, sometimes completely re-writing pieces that I had written years before but which had been sitting in my computer, unread. I won two literary contests and began submitting regularly to literary journals. The thick skin I developed from my profession helped me to overcome the disappointment of numerous rejections.
The act of writing is a solace in itself and is something that I would continue to do, even if no one ever read it. Writing and reading are deep sources of empowerment for me. They allow me to create; they are solitary and do not require excessive monetary investment. They allow me to learn about other people’s experiences, to submerge myself in other worlds, to explore things that are unspoken and unnamed.
