By Devonne Tourre, Assistant Digital Media Editor
Writer Elena Passarello performed a reading of her work as part of the Seavey Reading Series on Feb. 5 in Weber Chapel Auditorium.
Hasanthika Sirisena, assistant professor of English and creative writing, invited Passarello to speak at Susquehanna.
“I’ve known Elena for a few years now,” Sirisena said. “We were scholars at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont together.”
“I wanted her to come here because she’s not only a talented and respected essayist––as evidenced by all the major awards she’s won––but she has a background in theater,” Sirisena continued.
“She’s super smart and amazingly thoughtful in a world that doesn’t seem to value either,” Sirisena said. “Her work is meticulous and pays real attention to craft. But, it’s also fun and funny.”
Passarello was introduced at the reading by senior James Hoon, who said, “Passarello’s knowledge of the essay as a form transcends the traditional.”
Passarello read from her most recent work, titled “Animals Strike Curious Poses.”
“This book is a collection of essays about… famous animals in human history, or at least that’s what I thought when I started writing it,” Passarello said. “I set that kind of goal for myself: I want to write… essays and all of them are gonna be about an animal that has been named.”
“I couldn’t write about an animal that didn’t have its name recorded in some semblance of a historical record,” Passarello explained.“You want to write a book about animals; that’s a really broad topic,” Passarello said. “You gotta kind of narrow it down a little bit, so my first narrowing was ‘We need to make sure that all of these animals have names’ and one of the reasons that I did that was because of this particular essay.”
The essay in question, “Harriet,” came from seeing the 175th birthday of a Galapagos island tortoise on the news.
“It cut to… all this footage of a 175-year-old gigantic tortoise with a party hat on her head and eating flowers… in Australia,” Passarello said.
Passarello then described the zoo’s claim that the tortoise made its way from Charles Darwin to Steve Irwin, saying they were “gerrymandering” facts to make a cohesive story.
“I said, well, if somebody can do this amount of work, this kind of gerrymandering of facts in order to sell tickets, what can I do?” Passarello said. “How can I take the same kinds of facts and maybe do even more research?”
Passarello later spoke more on her inspiration and motivation.
“I take a lot of inspiration from non-literary forms,” Passarello said. “I love playwrights.”
“I write to keep myself company,” Passarello continued. “The only way I can keep my curiosity going so that I can live with it and figure it out is to keep writing.”
Attendees noted that Passarello engaged herself with the audience.
First-year Anna Weiss said, “She had such a great personality that kept me engaged the whole time.”
First-year Monet Polny agreed, saying: “[The event] was entertaining and fascinating. When I talked to her afterwards, she was so nice and funny.”
The Seavey Reading Series will continue with Aminatta Forna on Mar. 5, who previously visited Susquehanna last March.
