WRITER BIO
Syrah Linsley holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Recipient of First Place awards from Bennington’s international Young Writers Awards and the Liberal Arts Network for Development, she has also been a finalist for the Annie Dillard Award and Southeast Review’s nonfiction contest as well as longlisted for the international First Pages Prize. Her work has received support in the form of residencies from various writing colonies–with an acceptance to the Orion Online Workshops–and her first published essay can be found in Hippocampus Magazine. She wakes at 4:00 am to write and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
BACKGROUND
I grew up in the Michigan countryside, a middle child in our homeschooled family of eight. The small-town library kept a separate cart for all my interlibrary loans, and I stowed away in the church library during Sunday morning sermons.
After a few years at community college, I earned my bachelor’s degree in agribusiness management from Michigan State University. A former fruitarian, I now work in the fruit industry (see Fruit Laureate).
Unapologetic in my enthusiasm for personality tests, I’m a Myers-Briggs INFJ and Enneagram 5w4 (which might explain my obsession with exploring what I call “solitude advocacy”). The manuscript I drafted during my MFA at Bennington is tentatively titled The Inner Elsewhere: A Memoir of Fruit, Abuse, and Reclaiming Solitude.
WRITING COMMUNITY
When I’m not in hermit mode at home, you can find me supporting other writers at book launch events—for example, Shze-Hui Tjoa’s The Story Game and Cait West’s Rift.
My developmental editors for The Inner Elsewhere were Lilly Dancyger, Terese Mailhot, and Kelly Sundberg, who had this to say about the manuscript:
HARROWING, FULL OF DESIRE, IMAGINATION, SOLITUDE, AND STRENGTH.
SUBLIME IN ITS CONNECTIONS AND EXACTING IN ITS REVELATIONS. TRULY TRANSCENDENT.”
AN ODE TO LOSING ONESELF AND A LOVE LETTER TO THE REGENERATIVE ACT OF SOLITUDE, SYRAH LINSLEY’S THE INNER ELSEWHERE IS EXACTING AND EXTRAORDINARY.”
I received a scholarship to the Bennington Writing Seminars MFA program, where my mentors were Doug Bauer, Eula Biss, Jenny Boully, and Marie Mutsuki Mockett (plus a dual workshop with Hugh Ryan), who can attest that I get excited to incorporate constructive feedback, approaching my revision process with “tenacity and aplomb.” Here is what my mentors there and elsewhere have had to say about my writing:
ORIGINAL AND PROVOCATIVE”
A FIRST-RATE MANUSCRIPT, BRAVE IN ITS CANDOR, SKILLED IN ITS EXECUTION”
A SENSITIVE, LYRICAL AND TREMENDOUSLY ASSIDUOUS YOUNG WRITER. [ . . .] I DON’T KNOW THAT I HAVE HAD A STUDENT WHO HAS WORKED QUITE AS HARD AS SY, OR WHO HAS WANTED TO LEARN AS MUCH, AS QUICKLY.”
SHE HAS MADE IT FEEL AS THOUGH WE HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOREVER. SHE’S AN IMPECCABLE WRITER [ . . .] GENEROUS IN HER ABILITIES TO PAY HER KNOWLEDGE FORWARD”
IN MY MULTIPLE DECADES OF TEACHING, SHE IS EASILY THE MOST EXCEPTIONAL STUDENT I EVER ENCOUNTERED. [ . . .] HER THINKING NOW IS AS ADROIT AND RIGOROUS AS IT WAS MANY YEARS AGO, BUT INFORMED AND DEEPENED BY A MATURITY GAINED THROUGH LIFE EXPERIENCE, ALL WITHOUT SACRIFICING A LYRICAL AND DELICATE FEEL FOR LANGUAGE AND IDEAS. [ . . .] SHE’S THE REAL DEAL.”
CLASSES/CONFERENCE
Accepted into the Orion Online Workshops (with The Leaving Season author Kelly McMasters) and waitlisted for writing workshops from the Kenyon Review and Tin House, I’ve taken the following classes:
Cinelle Barnes: “The Multitudes – Setting Scope, Organizing Ideas, and Playing with Form in Essay Collections” (via The Resort)
Eula Biss: classes on defining the essay and crafting essay collections (via The Shipman Agency)
Sari Botton: workshop via the Kingston Writers’ Studio
Summer Brennan: Essay Camp
Alexander Chee: “A Couple of People I Used to Be: Approaches to the Self through the Personal Essay” (via The Shipman Agency)
Joanna Penn Cooper: “Writing Beyond the Known: Speculative Nonfiction” (via Muse Writing)
Lilly Dancyger: “Essay Revision Intensive”
Vanessa Mártir: “Writing Letters: Epistolary Writing”
Dinty W. Moore: “The Pleasures of the Personal Essay” (via Jane Friedman’s courses)
Randon Billings Noble: “Diving into the Lyric Essay” (via the Lafayette Writers’ Studio)
Sejal Shah and Holly Wren Spaulding: “Dear Friend” (epistolary writing series)
Jeannie Vanasco: “7-Week Generative Memoir Writing Class”
At AWP 2024, I attended the following sessions:
“Fragments, Figments, and Flash: Unconventional Memoir and the Myth of Memory”
“Fragmented Inheritances: Lyric Essay and Intergenerational Trauma”
“Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts: Writing and Structuring Essay Collections”
“Memoir as Detective Novel: Writing the Investigative Memoir”
“Memoirs-in-Essays”
“Snap, Crackle, Prose: Telling Our Stories in 300 Words or Less”
“Stop Being So Dramatic!” (on how to write trauma without overwhelming readers)
“Women Who Leave”
WRITING RESIDENCIES
Grand Marais Art Colony (Spring 2023) – Grand Marais, Minnesota
Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (Fall 2022) – Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Rockvale Writers’ Colony (Fall 2022) – College Grove, Tennessee
WORKING WITH ME
This is what coworkers and managers (all from different employers) have said about working with me:
IT’S RARE TO FIND TALENT LIKE SY”
ONE OF SY’S GREATEST STRENGTHS IS HER SELF-MOTIVATION. SHE SHOWS GREAT INITIATIVE AND IS EXCELLENT AT TIME MANAGEMENT [ . . .] I NEVER HAVE CONCERN OVER WHETHER HER WORK IS DONE, AND I KNOW IT WILL BE DONE WELL. [ . . .] HER ABILITY TO RELATE TO OTHERS, SHOW GENUINE INTEREST AND UNDERSTAND THEIR NEEDS ENABLES HER TO BE HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL IN HER ROLE. ADDITIONALLY, SHE IS INCREDIBLY CREATIVE AND BRINGS A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE TO EVERYTHING SHE DOES.”
SHE IS CONFIDENT, ORGANIZED, AND RESOURCEFUL, ALWAYS GOING THAT ONE STEP FURTHER [ . . .] SHE ALWAYS HAD NEW IDEAS AND WASN’T AFRAID TO SHARE THEM.”
I FOUND [SYRAH] TO BE CONSCIENTIOUS, COURTEOUS, PERSONABLE AND CONSIDERATE [ . . .] SHE WAS ALWAYS ALERT, ATTENTIVE, AND IN GOOD SPIRITS.”
PROJECTS
The Leaving Lexicon: How might we build a communal language for leaving? What quotes or books were meaningful to your leaving season? What did someone say that shifted your perspective? What was the voice in your head whispering? What was an aspect or emotion of leaving that doesn’t have a word yet but deserves one?
The Epistolary Quarterly. My manuscript is full of epistolary writing, which I’ve learned to love, but I’m surprised to find that no literary magazine has yet been dedicated to the epistolary form. I am not the right person to lead the creation of a new lit mag, but I’d love to be a nonfiction reader or editor. If you have an interest in starting or collaborating on this kind of project, please reach out via comments, contact form, or Instagram DM.
The Fruit Laureate: as a writer who works in the fruit industry, I’m interested in the intersection of fruit and the arts. Named a Fruit Growers News 40-under-40, I received an inaugural USApple fellowship which included media training and travel to NYC, Chicago, and Capitol Hill.
Here is what the judge of the LAND contest had to say about my fruit-forward writing (on deconstructing Eden):
LINSLEY’S WRITING IS BOTH RIGOROUS AND DELICATE. IN THIS ESSAY, SHE GOES WAY BEYOND COMMON INTELLECTUAL REFLEXES AND REVEALS THE SECRET LAYERS OF PLANT LIFE. THE ESSAY IS BOTANY, GASTRONOMY, AND PHILOSOPHY ALL WORKING IN SOPHISTICATED HARMONY.”
FRUIT CAREER
I work remotely in the Fruit Ridge area of Michigan, one of the world’s top fruit-growing regions. I manage a bulk supply division of fruit ingredients to craft beverage producers for wine, cider, tea, low/no alcohol, and more.
My project management role involves sales, marketing, presentations, budget/event planning, launch management, website/newsletter management, team leading, consumer relations, interdepartmental collaboration, and more—all of which doubles as helpful experience for my writing career.
Two of my internships and two of my full-time jobs have resulted from me pitching a position to employers who were not hiring at the time, and that confident initiative carries over to my writing industry work. My role’s generous PTO plan allows plenty of time for writing pursuits like conferences, residencies, readings, workshops, etc.
I’ll see you there.
