10 Questions for Sejal Shah
I expect you would be surprised that your death affected me so much that I spoke at two services for you, that I am writing about you now. We were friends, but we had not stayed in touch. So, it surprises me too. But you were a friend to me during a difficult time.
—from Sejal Shah’s “You Know You Can’t Help It, Who You Are,” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first poem I wrote and published that got some traction was called “Through the Eyes of the Dark-Eyed Americans.” I was sixteen. My poem won lots of awards, appeared in my high school literary magazine, Galaxy, was later published in the “writers of high school age” section of Brooklyn-based Hanging Loose magazine, and then republished in an anthology put out by Hanging Loose Press called Bullseye. “Through the Eyes of the Dark-Eyed Americans” is a persona poem—the speaker is Native American, which I am not—but a lot of readers assumed it was autobiographical. This still happens to me in fiction—the assumption that the first-person narrator is me—and it still drives me crazy. Writers of color, writers who are women, and writers who are both can and do write persona poems and use our imagination to create characters in our fiction.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
That’s a hard question to answer as I’ve been influenced in one way or another by everything I’ve ever read. Recently, I taught Margaret Atwood’s essay, “Nine Beginnings” and I also wrote an essay based on its structure. I’ve read and re-read “Nine Beginnings,” and I’ve been thinking about it for nearly 30 years! Audre Lorde’s “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” is another essay I return to often and which has influenced me for even longer, as I first encountered it during my first year of college.
What other professions have you worked in?
I’ve taught high school and middle school English, and I was a professor of creative writing for many years. Now I teach creative writing part-time for community-based organizations.
What inspired you to write this piece?
I was inspired and driven to write “You Know You Can’t Help It, Who You Are,” because of my response to the horror and tragedy of James Foley’s death—his murder by the Islamic State (ISIS) in August of 2014. I wanted people to know something about him other than his death—to know something more of Jim’s life—and to memorialize the kind of friend he was to me and to so many. Jim is best known as a conflict journalist, but I wanted to also highlight his creative writing. Jim’s mom, the incredible Diane Foley, wrote in her book American Mother that she felt Jim really found his voice as a journalist. That may be true, but I admired Jim as a fiction writer as well. (Jim and I met as graduate students in the MFA program in creative writing at UMass.) I began this essay in 2014 as a blog post back when I had a blog, because I couldn’t not write about Jim and what had happened. It took me many years of working on the essay, setting it aside, and then returning to it before I finally finished it.
I am so grateful I sent my essay to the Massachusetts Review. The editors at MR helped me complete the piece. Some of my essay had been in third person and some of it was written as a letter to Jim. Taking the editors’ feedback, I changed it so that the whole essay became a letter to Jim. There were also other key edits the editors suggested, which made the piece stronger. And it was through the editing process that I found the title of the piece. For a decade I had been calling the essay “Leavetaking” (this made more sense in the earlier drafts when I wrote about the season of autumn and leaves).
It was really important to me that the essay was published in 2024 for the 10-year anniversary of Jim’s death. (“You Know You Can’t Help It…” was originally published online in MR in August of 2024). As a writer and as his friend, I felt I owed it to Jim and to our friendship to write something substantial for him and about him. Last year I also published my short story collection, How to Make Your Mother Cry, and this book is dedicated to Jim. “You Know You Can’t Help It, Who You Are” is a companion essay to my book, which, while it’s primarily a story collection, also includes a ghazal about Jim.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
I have lived in my hometown of Rochester, New York, for a long time. I moved in and out of Rochester many times (college, graduate school, jobs) before coming back here to settle down after eighteen years away. This area is my home place and has certainly influenced my writing. Both of my books—the essay collection, This Is One Way to Dance: Essays, and the story collection/hybrid text, How to Make Your Mother Cry: fictions—are set in part in and outside of Rochester.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
I used to listen to music while writing more than I am at the moment. I think that’s in part because there’s a problem with making playlists within my iTunes. (I have only been meaning to call Apple Care about this for many years!) Lately, I’ve been listening to Tired Pony’s lovely song “All Things All at Once” on repeat. When I find a song that’s at the pitch of something I’m writing I often listen to it on repeat. This question is reminding me to look for more music that can help me. And to call Apple Care!
Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
I write morning pages in my journal. I light candles. I co-work with other writer friends over Zoom or in person.
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
One of my writing groups typically reads my work first. I’ve also traded writing with writer and editor Wendy Call for over 20 years. Wendy happens to be in that group now, but we have also been reading each other’s work for years before the writing group existed. Sometimes my husband is also an early or first reader.
What are you working on currently?
I am currently working on a late middle grade / early young adult book based on my experiences of growing up Gujarati in the Rochester area in the 1980s. I’m also compiling essays toward a second essay collection, which has a focus on the epistolary mode. “You Know You Can’t Help It, What You Are” is one of these essays.
What are you reading right now?
I’m always reading a lot of different things—usually nonfiction, but right now I’m reading fiction as well. I recently finished Lisa Ko’s novel, The Leavers, which is powerful and intense and particularly relevant right now. I’m currently reading Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs; Stephen King’s On Writing; Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel; and Kristen Felicetti’s novel, Log Off. I also just finished listening to E.B. White’s amazing Charlotte’s Web, which I loved and was really moved by. I had not read it since I was a kid, and the writing is incredible. E.B. White is masterful.
SEJAL SHAH is the author of two books, most recently How to Make Your Mother Cry: Fictions(West Virginia University Press), a short story collection dedicated in part to journalist James Foley. The full text of “Dicot, Monocot” and more of Jim’s workshop comments are included in her book. Jim’s family later established the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation to promote journalist safety and to advocate for the return of American hostages. To learn more about Jim’s story, please visit JamesFoleyFoundation.org.
