About Sarah
Sarah is an Assistant Professor of Writing & Inquiry at Michigan State University. She has sixteen years of teaching excellence in higher education. Sarah also is the summer interdisciplinary creative writing instructor at the world-renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts for the past ten years.
She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University and is currently writing her dissertation on the writer’s identity for her doctorate in writing education at the University of Central Florida. She is the former food columnist for Around Wellington Magazine. She had been published in Sliver of Stone Literary Magazine, Tampa Bay Parenting, Macaroni Kids, and John Dufresne. Her debut novel, The Summer Knows, is forthcoming in June 2025.
Sarah enjoys cooking and traveling the world with her two sons when not teaching or writing. She lives in the deep northern woods of Michigan, where she gardens and raises various farm animals with her husband and extended family.
I knew I wanted to be a writer at the tender age of seven years old.
It was the fall of second grade when we were tasked with writing a short story for class. I was filled with pure delight while my classmates all groaned. My excitement stemmed from the previous summer when I had officially read every book in the children’s section of my little seaside town’s tiny library. I remember the day I swept into the library and was met with the librarian wearing the look of a woman out of options. She told me to check out the adult fiction as nothing was left to read. I felt a strange tingling sensation wash through me. I had been given permission to venture into the rows of thick hardcover books full of stories I had yet to discover. It seemed like fate that I would gravitate right to Stephen King. I plucked the thickets, and the most sinister-looking tome there was - IT.
For the next two weeks, I did nothing but read, devouring that beast of a book. My mother nearly went mad, trying to get my attention. My eyes went red and puffy from lack of sleep. I finished the last page in the middle of the night. My heart was racing with a mixture of joy and adrenaline. Tears welled up in my eyes from the kaleidoscope of emotions that pulsed within me. I was transformed into some new being and would never be the same small girl I was before.
So, when my teacher assigned us to write a short story, my hands trembled with manic joy as I put pencil to paper. As most children do - even the great Stephen King, who has written in his memoir about doing such things as a child - I recreated a short version of IT as my own story to turn in. I envisioned the lavish praise my teacher would shower down on me once she had read it as I turned the assignment in - very reminiscent of the scene from A Christmas Story when Ralphie turns in his Christmas theme.
Sadly, I was sent to the school psychologist instead of the delicious accolades I fantasized about. My teacher was concerned about my mental state after reading my submission.
Most children would probably catalog this experience as something negative and see it as a sign they should turn away from short story writing. But not me. As I sat there listening to the counselor ask me about my home life, and if I had experienced any upsetting events in my small existence, I felt a rather pleasant thrill snake through me. I realized that my words had upset my teacher. They had made her feel things.
I was hooked.
From that day on, I knew I wanted to be a writer. The ability to make others feel and think things from my words was an addictive concept. To this day, I still relish that my words have certain effects on others. When I write now, I think about that one girl reading my story who is feeling what I felt when I was her age. That is who I write to and for.
Here’s to all the girls out there, scaring the crap out of their teachers.
