Meet Our Newest Intern: Miriam

Hello friends! My name is Miriam and I have been welcomed on as a Spring placement at Book*hug! It is my final step in completing the Centennial College Publishing Program certificate that I began last September, as well as a longstanding dream of mine. I have always loved being part of the process that brings other people’s’ words and stories to light. At just a week into my placement, I know for certain that publishing is exactly where I should be.

With both a BA and an MFA in Creative Writing, I have been a writer for a while now. I primarily write short fiction and am obsessed with incorporating music directly into my stories. Likewise, I love reading stories that do the same. A very talented mentor once said that my writing “reads like a poet’s prose” and ever since, I’ve been wondering if I’m really a poet in prose’s clothing.

Speaking of poetry, as we are in National Poetry Month, I thought I might share a few titles of brilliant poetry that I have had the pleasure of being positively ruined and renewed by in my life. A heavy-weight champion, likely on everyone’s lists, is choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. Reading this was like finding a door into a language I have known so long, and never knew I hadn’t really had full access to.  Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip – one of the hardest and sharpest poems I have ever experienced. You will not be the same on the other side. And something new to the list: Dream Rooms by River Halen. River’s poetry sheds identity and actualizes as something so new, it doesn’t have a name yet – and might not need or want one. After reading it, I found myself wanting the exact same thing.

That’s all for now! Thanks for allowing me to introduce myself, and thank you Book*hug for letting me into your magical world.