If writing does not transform, I have difficulty recognizing it as art.Ī hard choice! There are at least two: My parents’ house and land in Ann Arbor, Michigan, because our family put so much into it, and because that landscape is how I understand the world. There has to be something at risk, something that will cause the reader to question their fundamental assumptions. In order for art to move me, it has to be provocative, uncomfortable, dangerous, and beautiful. I am not of the “art for art’s sake” school, although I do recognize the importance and validity of the aesthetic. What’s the most important thing, for you, about literature?įor me, the most important aspect of a literary work is that it tells some of kind of truth - preferably one that shakes people up. It’s more like I have all these memories of reading everything I could get my hands on, and then making these little “books” about camping with my family and this crew of sibling detectives starting when I was around six or seven, I think. So I can’t think of one, formative moment that set me on the path to literature. For me, the two activities can barely be separated.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as long as I can remember, I have also been a voracious reader as well. I got my MFA in fiction writing there, and also picked up an MA in 20th century African American literature.Īs long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a writer. I choose Indiana University in Bloomington, because they had a great program that fully supported their students financially and had the most racially and culturally diverse program in the country. A few years later, I went back to school to get my MFA. I went to Carnegie Mellon (in Pittsburgh) for my undergraduate degree, where I got a double major in creative writing and Spanish. Plus, there were more bookstores than you could shake a stick at, and the library system wasn’t too shabby either. That was a great place to grow up, because the University of Michigan is there, so there was always a ton of really smart people from around the country and around the world studying and visiting, and making art and starting and finishing projects, and getting in discussions and arguments about every kind of subject you could imagine (and some that you couldn’t).

I was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer. She is on the board of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, is the director of Ananya Dance Theatre, and president of Twin Cities Black Journalists (TCBJ) Shannon Gibney is a fiction writer (and Bush fellow in fiction) as well as an arts journalist and activist. Shannon Gibney will be producing our new regular feature on literature, 'Thinking Souls.' Read her here on literature.

Her Little Flowers by Shannon Morgan