Erin Stoodley: HSWC Profiles

This week we are presenting Erin Stoodley, the local’s prize winner in fiction for her story “Ghost.” Here is her response to our interview.

When I was younger, I wrote because I needed to write. Writing served as a means to better understand humans and our complexities.

My mother exposed me to the literary realm at an early age. When I was a child, she read to me from her favorite Victorian novels. Many afternoons, we would pick through the books at the local library. My mother introduced me to a world that, as Faulkner wrote, recognized the prevailing of the human spirit. Today, I write to be a part of that world.

In addition to desiring to study the human experience, I also want to produce work that resonates with an audience. We have all experienced loss, but we may feel emotionally detached from the world until we read of someone else’s pain. For example, after finishing such books as The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich, I was able to place my suffering into context and realize that my experiences only reinforced my humanity.

Receiving such validation as I have in the Sierra Nevada Review High School Writing Contest has greatly motivated me in pursuing a writing career. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in the contest.

*

Erin Stoodley is a student residing in Ventura, California. She has received recognition from such organizations as the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, and the National YoungArts Foundation. Her poetry is published or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Belleville Park Pages, and Euphony Journal, among others.