Interview with Emma Goldman-Sherman

Meet NUNUM's Contributor: Emma Goldman-Sherman

6/14/2024

NUNUM

Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Interview with Emma Goldman-Sherman

What was the first book you remember picking and reading by yourself?

I started reading too early to remember the first book, but I do remember lots of allegories and biblical stories that captured my imagination and still do.

What writer(s) or which book(s) influenced your decision to become a writer?

I was trying to write at a very young age. The early books of Beverly Cleary were inspirational, but I was upset by how passive her female protagonists were compared to her very active male protagonists. I was glad to move on to Judy Blume books, where the girls had more agency. I thought of myself as a writer, but it took me a long time to be able to think of myself as an author. I am Audhd, undiagnosed for most of my life. Without much support, it was very hard to become the writer I am now.

Is there a writing craft book that you would recommend to new writers?

I love the books of Shaun McNiff, especially Trust the Process and Art as Medicine.

Is there a writer who has influenced your current writing style?

I like to play with many different styles and rarely write in one particular style for very long. I enjoy so many different writers, and I believe the more one reads, the better one gets as a writer. Steal from everyone! But most importantly, I am interested in developing a voice that suits each project.

Why write flash fiction?

I'm mostly a playwright and teach playwriting. When the pandemic closed the theatres, I began to write more poetry. Then I discovered flash. While flash demands narrative rigor, flash is easier to write than poetry, so I've been having a lot of fun writing flash. And I love how powerful it can be.

What advice would you give someone who is just starting to send their work out to journals?

I have struggled with RSD (rejection-sensitive dysphoria), so I know it can be terrifying to send work out. I get past it by reminding myself that rejection proves I am doing my job. When rejection comes, I use the feelings that arise to propel me to send more out. That way, I always have submissions in the world. I also wrote a substack about it here: https://goldmansherman.substack.com/p/shhh-sneaking-past-my-rejection-sensitive

What do you want your writing to do?

I want my writing to help readers feel less alone, but that's just for starters. I also want my writing to push the culture forward and change the world. Most of my work is what has been labeled political because it is concerned with global ideas. But I think of these ideas as what makes us human. I think writing can change audiences or readers by showing female characters as the full humans they are and by showing trans characters (I'm trans, forced to grow up female) as the full humans that we are.

My play Abraham's Daughters includes American Zionists and Palestinian Muslims. It was set during the first Intifada in 1993. The play offers some context for what is happening today. It also shows how politics affect us on an individual and a family level. My play Counting in Sha'ab is about Iraqis in the aftermath of a car bomb. People we don't get to see typically are just as human as we are.

You can listen to these as podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/abrahams-daughters-by-emma-goldman-sherman/id1329778196?i=1000462709862 and https://playingonair.org/new-releases/counting-in-shaab#gsc.tab=0

Writing can be a way to converse with your own concerns, and those concerns can be part of a larger conversation with big consequences. I want more people to know that they can have big goals for the writing they do. Even with flash.