So, Sarah Lyn Rogers might have moved to Bhutan, but in our minds, she will always be a San Jose writer. You might recognize her work from previous POW shows–and you’ll be lucky to catch an excerpt of her essay, “Land of the Thunder Dragon: Expectations vs. Reality,” at New Year Nouveau on January 6 at Cafe Stritch.
Sarah is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Thimphu, Bhutan. Over the past months, Sarah has grown accustomed to walking with cattle, meeting royalty, and writing poems about spells, rituals, and magical objects. Her first chapbook will be published by Sad Spell Press this spring. She is stoked. When she’s not writing, Sarah is the fiction editor for The Rumpus. For more of Sarah’s writing, doodles, and life stuff, visit sarahlynrogers.com.
Recent Publications:
Five of my On the Road erasure poems were published semi-recently in Potluck Mag for their spooky Halloween week. They are viewable here.
Upcoming projects:
One of my poems, “Drones,” will be published in the next issue of DMQ Review. A few of my illustrations and microblogs of Bhutan life will be in the premiere issue of galley, a new zine for which there is not yet a link. Mostly I’m stoked about my chapbook which will be released by Sad Spell Press, an imprint of Witch Craft Magazine.
What inspired you to participate in Play On Words?
I’ve said this one before in a different way, but my Bay Area friends are a crisscrossing community of writers and performers. How could I not get tangled up in this?
Which writers or performers inspire you?
I know I’m like five years behind here, but I recently discovered Tavi Gevinson, a nineteen-year-old powerhouse who shot to internet fame for her fashion blog at the tender age of twelve and is now a successful actress, model, and editor-in-chief of Rookie Mag. I like that she’s unapologetic about being girly and legitimizes the real questions and frustrations of being a teenage girl in her magazine by and for teenage girls.
Working in writing and publishing, for me, has made me think twice about how feminine I’m “allowed” to be in my work and public persona, and how much I’m “allowed” to write about feelings. I liked having my perspective smacked around a little by discovering someone who is successful because of—not in spite of—her femininity.
Name a book or performance that fundamentally affected you.
Madness, Rack, and Honey is an amazing book by poet Mary Ruefle. It’s a collection of essays, ostensibly about poetry, that’s really a curio cabinet of strange facts, quotations, and observations—food for writing-thought. I was delighted enough by the just intro to push my face into the spine and press the pages against my cheeks.
Play On Words 