We were lucky to catch up with Barbara Seyda recently and have shared our conversation below.

Barbara, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

When I was five years old, I remember painting a boat. I was in kindergarten standing at an easel. It was a ship with swirls of blue and several masts. That was the moment I knew I was an artist. I also remember making crude but exuberant Easter hats. The teacher told my mother I was ‘selfish’ and more interested in making things than socializing with other children. That stuck for many years – the belief that being creative was a self-centered act.

I never aspired to be a writer, but eventually began painting with words. My birth as a writer was during the AIDS epidemic in ’80s New York City. I was a member of ACT UP and Queer Nation living in Park Slope. One night an inter-racial, queer female couple was attacked at the Purity Diner. Several NYPD were eating burgers and fries at the counter and did nothing as the couple was assaulted. I asked ‘Outweek’ news editor Andrew Miller if someone would cover this bias crime. No one did. So I interviewed the women, police officers and diner owner. ‘Violence, Silence and Lesbians’ was published the following week. The D.A.’s office got behind the women, prosecuted the assailants and I’ve been writing ever since.

My new book GAUDY SORROW will be released by Finishing Line Press (May, 2024). It’s about my Basque friend who died of Covid on Christmas Eve, 2020. It’s a rant elegy of over 200 short, blunt letters written to my dead friend. I didn’t know what to do with my grief except write. The blank page was a trampoline and refuge. The letters are confessional, but also interrogate addiction, deception and desire. I wanted to explore love as a disruptive force. And s*x with all it’s exquisite mystery and ruthless vulgarity. I dissect shame, resentment, loss, memory and vulnerability. Also death rituals and the afterlife. I hope this book disrupts language used to discuss grief and creates a new vernacular for sorrow.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Initially, I didn’t know why I was writing GAUDY SORROW. It didn’t begin as a book. It felt like a desperate act. A puke fest. A quagmire of sadness. It didn’t feel cathartic or transcendent. It hurt. I bought a bunch of spiral notebooks from Walgreen’s and began writing one sentence a day.

I kept filling up notebooks. Back in 2020, there were no vaccines. People were dying alone everywhere, laying in mobile morgues and body bags. We couldn’t hug or touch. You couldn’t share a meal with a friend or see your family. Everyone was terrified of the next shutdown or variant. But I kept writing. It was a bleak time. I was afraid of everything. I yelled at my dead friend in the kitchen and wailed at night. I was furious he died at age 45. There was no goodbye. Nothing. I was shattered.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was also in my first Queer/Trans poetry class with T.C. Tolbert, poet laureate of Tucson. It was offered by the University of Arizona tuition-free. We met at 4 pm on zoom every Wednesday. Poems began flying out of my mouth like a flock of doves. We turned the chat box into a subconscious river of images and sounds. I wrote voraciously and began to read my work aloud. I wrote poems in 5 or 10 minutes without revisions and heard my voice, in a way for the first time. It’s a stunning thing to un-silence yourself.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I have an intense relationship with my own creative process. It’s the most intimate relationship I have. Most people have a spouse, children or a pet that fulfills them. I need outlets. Art is a place for fear, beauty, wounds, uncertainty and endless expression. I adore being astounded by my own imagination.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.barbaraseyda.com

Image Credits
Photographs of Barbara Seyda at DeGrazia Chapel, Tucson, Arizona by A.T. Willett. www.atwillett.com Book cover is ‘Ethereal Night’ by Valerie Galloway, a French painter and photographer. @valeriegallowayarts