By Brianna Luby, Arts & Entertainment Editor
Following the reading from Annie Liontas on Sept. 18, Susquehanna University hosted the second installment of the Seavey Reading Series on Oct. 22 in Isaac’s Auditorium.
On Tuesday, Sarah Cypher joined the extensive list of authors who have visited Susquehanna. Cypher is a short story writer, novelist and essayist who draws her work from her experiences as an Arab-American, a military spouse and a queer woman. Her interests often focus on how people identify and define themselves in relation with each other. Cypher is the author of her debut novel The Skin and Its Girl, which was a Stonewall Honor Book and was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize in fiction.
Cypher holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Creative Writing Fellow in fiction. Her work has appeared across many publications including the Washington Post, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, among others.
In an article published by the Daily Item, Cypher discussed how excited she is to be among the writers journeying to Susquehanna. To hear more about her interactions with students and faculty members, find the article here.
Sarah Ledet, a senior creative writing and publishing and editing double major, started the night by introducing Sarah Cypher. She related to The Skin and Its Girl by saying, “I landed on the Skin and Its Girl because it captures something about how we are formed or buttoned into by the skin we are born into… It is the buttoned-up culture of learning to exist how I am.” When describing the novel’s content, she pointed to two major ideas, “The novel discusses how our past informs our future. It’s a story about grief, queerness about immigrant experience, and about living within our bodies.”
Sarah Cypher began by reading the first section from her novel and read excerpts from multiple other sections. The discussion ranged from topics of difference, such as the main character of her novel being blue, to a more serious discussion of the experience of being an Arab-American during the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cypher described the acts that took place on September 11 in the United States to be the “genesis” of her now published novel. The interrogation of what it meant to be Arab-American within and outside of the U.S., and therefore what it meant for modern life and her modern community spiraled into a line of questioning she used to write her story. She now stands firm that the novel is a Queer Palestinian novel, representing two things she holds important.
Cypher continually asks questions with her writing, telling the audience, “One question I ask as a writer is, why are people so bad at being good to one another sometimes?” She uses these quizzical techniques to explore many ideas in the story. It is one of the reasons she enjoys the novel as a form. It is messy and imperfect, making it the perfect avenue to explore both the self and larger subjects. “I didn’t know who I was, and I’m always in a state of learning who I am,” Cypher said, “You never know when you are going to meet yourself in a story you didn’t expect.”
To round out the night, Cypher shared pictures of her trip to the city of Nablus in Palestine including a pair of very sweet orange cats, a soap factory and some of the city’s architecture. The reading was inspiring and was a beautiful collection of thoughts and questions. A line from her novel rings true, no matter what the subject, “All their medical instruments agree, this is not a beginning, but an ending.”
While it was the ending of our time with Sarah Cypher, it is certainly not the ending of Susquehanna’s visiting writers. For those who missed the impactful reading, be sure to attend the next event to see someone just as spectacular read their work.