Why I Hate Writing My Bio

Sharon Marshall
 

I hate writing my bio because I have not won a MacArthur grant, a Pulitzer prize, or a National book award (or even come close) but I did win Honorable Mention in The Academy of American Poets undergraduate contest while at Vassar.

I hate writing my bio because after I graduated I didn’t get into the Iowa Writers Workshop or the Creative Writing program at Cornell. I did get into Columbia, but years later, someone who was there when I was and had become a prominent academic and writer told me at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, no less, that I must have gotten in because my aunt was on the faculty.

I hate writing my bio because in a writing workshop with Lore Segal, visiting writer Robert Coover told me that nobody was interested in realistic narratives about Black women anymore.

I hate writing my bio because I took a leave of absence after the first semester and never went back to Columbia and finally received my Master’s degree 18 years later from the City University of New York.

I hate writing my bio because my short story “The Granddaughter” was published in Essence in the earlyish days of the magazine and over the years they never accepted another one of my stories, probably having mistaken me for that aunt who used to teach at Columbia, the first time around.

I hate writing my bio because those who can’t do teach and I taught my heart out at the City College of New York, Hostos Community College, The College of New Rochelle, Bard, Simon’s Rock and Lewis and Clark Colleges, The Fashion Institute of Technology, the State University at Stonybrook and at St. John’s University, and for most of that time I was anxious and harried and too busy reading other people’s writing and raising my children to write.

I hate writing my bio because I have unofficially diagnosed but ever present A.D.H.D which means I need extra time to read and process and psychological space to focus, but life is short and time is finite and the midterm grades are due on October 13th.

I hate writing my bio because my 8^th grade English teacher Mr. Tedesco said I would be famous someday after reading a story I wrote about a little girl and her father, and well...

I hate writing my bio because the “little magazines” I published poems in no longer exist

I hate writing my bio because I am not Colson Whitehead, Haruki Murakami, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, James Baldwin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Octavia Butler, etc.

I hate writing my bio because I haven’t even read all of the books those writers have written and because sometimes I have trouble recalling plots and details. I usually remember the way a book made me feel though and I can recall the exact spot where I was sitting or lying when I read certain passages. And sometimes I think of the characters I’ve met in those pages as real people that I still know.

I hate writing my bio because of conflicting messages about creative writing:

• Write every day
• Write what you know
• Don't write what you don’t know, otherwise, how can you call it fiction?
• Don't use two adjectives when one will do. 
• Cultivate a taste for Coca Cola, or bourbon, or cigarettes, or LSD, or weed.
• Have many lovers while somehow sequestering yourself in a garret.
• Make detailed outlines of each chapter and write 500 pages a day towards the ending you know is coming.
• Begin with an image.
• Listen for voices and wait for the characters to speak.
• Figure out what the book is about and what you want to say as you are writing it.
• Your first thought is your best thought. 
• Be ruthless and kill your darlings.  
• Keep  journal. 
•  Just  because it’s true doesn’t mean it belongs in the story.
• Keep a journal.
• Listen to the language you hear around you and STEAL IT. 
• Tell your own truth. 
• Consider the audience. You have to
• Speak truth to power. 
• Uplift your people.
• Follow your muse. Y
• Your characters should be complex, but sadly, they will only be as smart as you are.

I hate writing my bio because writers need agents if they want to get published and these are some of the things agents have said to me:

“The writing is terrific, but I am sorry to say I am not the right agent for the job.  Despite my admiration for the work, I lack the vision required to break this out in a meaningful way.  I will step aside and wish you the best of luck with this and all your writing.  Stay safe and well.”

“Thank you for letting us see it. Please feel free to stay in touch. I'd be interested in your nonfiction book ideas based on your scholarship and how you interpret the world through it.”

I hate writing my bio because a writing coach offered to read and make recommendations about how I could improve my book if I was willing to part with $6000, more than I would likely make when it was published.

I hate writing my bio because as poet Kim Stafford reportedly said bios are always about being a “writtener” as in what have you written, rather than being a writer as in why are you compelled to write and in my case why do you continue since you clearly have not been successful at finding an audience

I hate writing my bio because it makes me feel less than rather than all that and all that is supposed to make people want to listen to you because you are important

I hate writing my bio because what is most is most important to me now is being able to write because writing is a channel for experience that allows me to use language and become a maker of sense, of meaning, of worlds in the universal flow we call life. When I write I feel alive, dialed in, conscious, and filled with the conviction that each person and all stories matter. I hope my writing helps you feel that way, too. 

 

About writing Deep Rivers 

For me writing the novel meant being all up in my head envisioning the scenes and hearing the dialogue while at the same time feeling in my body every sensation the characters felt. Writing a novel is a kind of testimony to being alive and seeing, touching, feeling, smelling, and hearing things. You take what you witness in the world, and in your imagining you try to create a vessel for the tragedy, a ledger of the pain, a canvas for the joy and wonder, and perhaps a manifesto towards justice, or if not justice, empathy. You try to tap into the universal flow that is singing, that is dancing, that is playing and praying, loving and being present in nature. You strive to play and derive sounds from your instrument, the language, and with every sentence you aspire to become a virtuoso or at least not a hack. You take apart and refashion the elements of real life into life imagined in order to deepen your experience of living. You hope to create a space, a world, a room, a museum, a garden, a chair where a reader feels welcome and where a reader can be all up in their head envisioning the scenes and hearing the dialogue while at the same time feeling in their body every sensation the characters feel. You hope to create an opportunity for readers to see themselves in others, to see others in new ways, to view the world more clearly, and to understand more fully and savor the richness of life.