Member Spotlight: MaryAnn Shank

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? We moved a lot when I was young, but my mother always made sure I had two things: a library card and ballet slippers. They have both served me well over the years, prompting my yearnings for stories and for classics of all kinds. As an adult, I read voraciously, and I watch every live performance that passes my way. While my first novel, one about a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia, was a command performance, one that had been nudging at me for decades, my new one, a novel about Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, simmered for only five years until it found print. I knew I had to write SOR JUANA, MY BELOVED, for there was simply nothing else that told her story as I had heard it whispered, and it was a story that begged to be told. My poetry comes in private moments, sometimes written by the shoemaker’s elves, at night, when I sleep. I feel blessed when I discover a poem on my desk that I don’t recall writing. I believe Sor Juana had the same experience, many times, but this is the only small trait that she and I share. She was just so much more, so much more than I could ever dream of. We need Peace Corps Volunteers and brilliant poet-philosophers in our lives, every day.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Read. Listen. Get out of the office and listen to others. Everyone has a splendid story — find them.

What is your favorite time to write? I love mornings bursting with sunshine. There is a picnic table by a creek that I call my own, and a coffee house that has hosted many thousands of words of my writings.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Read. Read lots, both good and bad — you know the difference. Then read some more.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Part of the answer is that our writings take us out of sit-coms and commercials, allowing us to show the world — forever — who we are, and what our dreams are. The other part is being able to bring a bit of hope, peace and love to a sometimes troubled world. When a child hears a lovely story, her eyes light up. That is the feeling I dream of gifting to my readers. Should that story inspire a bit of discussion, I feel doubly blessed. We need whispers from the path to help us find our future.

MaryAnn Shank’s Sor Juana, My Beloved: The Poetry, The Passion That Is Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is out now with ‎Dippity Press.