This Sliver of Reality That I Know

As all writers must experience, I find difficulty in keeping things original and different enough to stand out. I’m hoping this mentorship can either help me find ways to be interesting or completely look at my writing process and goals differently.

During my last year of my undergraduate studies a friend and classmate told me about a senior level creative writing course that allowed students admitted into the course to write a creative writing project of their own. Knowing Daniel Scott Tysdal, the course’s instructor, and having been taught by him before, I was more than happy to potentially work with Daniel. The specific idea to write about a family ironically came from my own hiding from my ethnic culture. As I was studying different non-Western cultures and literatures during my studies, and seeing how scholars negotiated their personal histories with wider cultural histories, I became more interested in depicting this sliver of reality that I know.

Because I wanted to depict four different voices, I though poetry seemed the best medium for my project. While different voices have been depicted within one text of fiction, I was more interested in showing varying personalities through form as well as content.

In a perfect world, writers would be left alone to write and only meet people of their own accord, not obligation.

Ten years from now, ideally, I will have been constantly writing and researching especially about music. My lowest point(s) might be constant rejection and uncertainty about where I want to go in my career. My highest point might honestly be having the opportunity to make a living doing what I love, writing.

Zany fact about me: I play in an experimental fusion band, called Fine, That’s Ok, that doesn’t take itself seriously enough.