Upon careful review, the Editorial Board of the Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series recommends Sidework by Sasha Hom for publication through Black Lawrence Press.
About the Author
Sasha Hom lives off-grid in small canvas and wooden structures on a 600-acre land co-op amid 5,800 acres of conserved land situated within Vermont, an odd-shaped state (but aren’t they all?) upon a very large continent amid oceans. She has four children, many goats, fowl, and a dog. In addition to homeschooling her children and herding small ruminants, she runs Bottomless Well, a refuge/laboratory for arts and ecologically oriented folx, and works on the farms of others. She was a Holden Minority Scholar at Warren Wilson College where she earned her MFA. She is a recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant, a Brink Hybrid Literary Award, and a 2023 Justice, Activism and Localization Grant.
Her work can be found at: Exposition Review, Brink, The Leon Literary Review, The Millions, Literary Mama, Kweli Journal, Viz. Inter-Arts, Journal of Korean Adoption Studies, and anthologies.
Artist Statement
I had a really fun time writing this piece, between shifts, on the precipice of a pandemic. At one point, I wanted to illustrate it, after reading The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V and Filipe Andrade. But my 7-year old wouldn’t hand over her sketchbook, as I’m no artist.
It was tricky trying to create a distinct texture – using tone, color, shape, rhythm etc. – for each section, while still making a legible forward-moving story that said what I wanted it to say of our world – without just saying it outright, because a), that’s no story, and b) then it’s just said and not felt. And, the things of our world must be felt, are, actually, already felt, just not yet narratized.
Excerpt
In the winter, when I open, there is no sunrise. At least, not yet. I have to remember to turn on the porch light. Because, as my old manager said to me one slow morning, “No wonder there isn’t anyone in here. They can’t even see the front door!” Until the night lifts its skirt to reveal a strip – kind of pinky, like medium rare.
Sometimes I like to imagine that I’m inside of a snow globe, silver glitter raining on my hair, a homeless Korean American adoptee (and mother of four) in braids – an Ajumah, really, but that’s not how I like to think of myself – standing on the restaurant’s front porch that creaks and crackles beneath my clogs like walking across an old ship’s deck. Where, just the other day, my boss noticed a board, a one by one, dangling from above, threatening to impale the next customer who tries to Come Again.