A Conversation with Sixers Review

Appearing in Sixers Review today, a brief conversation with Goddard MFA graduate, Shokry Eldaly, who will someday be a literary marvel himself when he gets that half-finished novel done. Here is a sneak peek:

"Are you asking what you do when you are asked to conform? You don't. It's very simple. Why would you? Why would any person ever think that another person, or a structure (like publishing, or banking!), or a cultural assumption, knows what you need and who you are better than you do? You are the expert on you, and you have an urgency in your own preoccupations that is important for the rest of us to hear about. Otherwise, you become a bad copy of a character that someone else has made up."

Read the entire interview and take a look at the journal here.

Free in the New Year

What if there was no penalty for being who you are, and no prize either? If you didn’t have to worry about being judged, shunned, made fun of…what would you allow yourself to do? How would you act? What choices could you make? And what if there was no pressure to do the correct thing either: that you must write the bestseller, win the race, get the promotion, wear the most fashionable shoes? No approval, no praise.

Then everything you do every day, every choice you make, would be want you want to do at that moment, what you feel is right. You would be free to take risks. You would be free to play, and to find joy. You would be free to set your own priorities.

You would be free, free, free.

Happy 2012. Have a brilliant new year.