Emma Rose Ryan: Writing Around Memories
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Emma Rose Ryan is a writer, freelance social media consultant, and graduate student, pursuing her Masters in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the Director of Chapter One Young Writer's Conference and the Vice-President of Chapter One Events. Her family, friends, and green tea notwithstanding, she loves stories more than anything in the world. She writes short stories, personal essays, tweets, and fantasy novels. When not writing, Emma can be found reciting Shakespeare, watching The Good Place, or petting a cat.
Charissa Roberson and Olivia Samimy speak with Emma about her essay below.
I found this story incredibly poignant. You described your family members, and especially your uncle, so realistically that I felt I knew them too. From your writing, it is clear how important your Uncle Mike is to you. What prompted you to write this essay about him?
Well, I’ve sort of been writing about Mike for my whole life, in the sense that a lot of my earliest journal entries and poems were about how my family was coping with his illness and death. That said, this essay in particular was written for a college class I took called Trauma Writing, taught at the University of Illinois by the incomparable Julie Price. In this class, we were encouraged to put the most impactful, difficult, and traumatic moments of our lives on paper as a way to both create and grieve. Part workshop, part group therapy session, this class really encouraged me to explore Mike’s story (and my own) in a safe environment, and this is one of the many little essays that came of it.
Your uncle’s tattoos tie the whole story together. Did you always intend to use his tattoos as a way to tell the story, or was that something that made itself clear in the writing process?
This is the first proper essay I wrote for the trauma writing workshop I took, and the advice our professor gave us was to “write around” the traumatic memories we wanted to address if we were having trouble facing them head-on. She also suggested that we ruminate on what she called the “shimmering images” in our memory from the time in question. The images I most associate with my uncle are, of course, his tattoos, so I used them as a jumping off point to begin writing about his life, his illness, and his death.
What was your favorite tattoo that your Uncle Mike had?
That is a really tough one, but I think I have to say the Cookie Monster. Like I say in the essay, I don’t know if I’ll ever fully comprehend the love it must have taken to tattoo mine and my siblings' names on his body. He wanted everyone who saw that cookie monster to know how much he loved us, and I wanted to write this essay in return, almost.
I love your use of footnotes. Is that something you’ve played with before, or was it new for this piece? How did you make the decision to include footnotes?
I love using footnotes. I’ll put them in anything I can, and I was so thrilled that Roanoke was willing to keep them. I’m the kind of person who likes to go off on tangents and include little extemporaneous details in stories. With footnotes, I can include these things without interrupting the flow of my prose, so it’s a win-win.
Was it challenging to write about material that is so personal to you? Or did that make it easier?
The things I find easy and difficult about writing fiction are flipped on their head when I’m writing CNF. I don’t have to struggle in an essay to decide what happens next or figure out what my narrator might be feeling, which makes things a lot easier. However, writing about my personal life takes a lot more emotional labor. I find myself needing to take extended breaks from personal projects, not because I don’t know where the story is going, but because I do know, and reliving hard things is hard. Perhaps I’m just stating the obvious here, but that’s been my experience.
Can you tell us more about your writing and revision process for this work?
Like I said, this essay was workshopped in a college class and read by a couple dozen people who all gave their notes and thoughts. The class was magical in the sense that everyone, to a person, was respectful of each other's experiences and was extremely kind and empathetic while also giving helpful critiques. My first draft of this essay was initially much shorter, but my classmates in the workshop asked for more details about certain moments that I was able to include in later drafts.
I see from your bio that you are interested in Shakespeare. Do you find your own writing is sometimes influenced or inspired by his work?
I do love Shakespeare! As an undergraduate I was a part of a student theater group that does three Shakespeare shows a semester, and my mother has been a massive fan of The Bard since I can remember. I don’t know that my essays are all that influenced by Shakespeare, but my sorta-macabre disposition and my tendency to ruminate on the meaning of life or whatever is definitely reaffirmed by a lot of Shakespeare’s work.
What are your aspirations/goals for the future now that you have finished your undergraduate studies?
I have actually jumped right back into school to acquire my masters in library and information science. I’m enjoying my classes very much so far and hope someday to work in a school with kids who are about the same age as I was during the events of the essay. I think we tend to forget what a formative, lonely, and difficult time middle school can be, and the things we read and learn during that time really do shape the rest of our lives. I hope I can do my part to help young people who suffer major losses or are faced with tough questions.
Thank you for speaking with us! Is there anything else you want to share?
I’m so happy I got to share this essay with you all! It is obviously a little piece of my heart, and I thank you so much for being gentle with it.
Read Ryan’s most recent Roanoke Review publication here.
