Getting Personal...

At the book release party and signing last weekend, all the authors were given a chance, before reading an excerpt from their newly published work, to briefly introduce themselves and the themes their books explore. I abandoned my speech to say something personal: The MFA program saved my life. Writing this book changed my life. The act of sitting down and channeling through my subconscious, my demons, my angels, my shadows, my light, always changes my life, but doing it in a community of artists with similar goals and similar visions who believed in my work as much as I believed in theirs saved my life.

I’ve battled depression on and off ever since I was a teenager, but in 2019, things were bad. I was working a dead-end job, barely making enough to live on, living in a friend's attic, in a Cold War with my family. My credit was wrecked, my job prospects abysmal, and my personal relationships in shambles. Over the summer, I lost the attic and essentially spent my days starving, teaching yoga and reading tarot cards for money, occasionally scrounging together enough change (10 cents!) to buy a packet of butter. When the MFA acceptance letter found me (complete with a scholarship offer!), it was the first piece of good news I’d had in a long time.

People who read my book on a surface level often ask me if I ever write happy stories. I see their point. There’s a lot of death, a lot of mourning, a lot of pain, but there’s also forgiveness, also comfort, also understanding–also new life.

The title of the book is Singing to the Dark because it’s about singing yourself back to the light, and while I was writing it, I never once had to sing alone for long. Before I talk about any story inspirations, any craft, any writing process dialogue, I had to acknowledge that and had to once again say:

Thank you, University of Baltimore MFA students, professors, faculty, family. You each in your own way saved my life.