Alysia Sawchyn
Alysia is a features editor for The Rumpus and a writer. Her book is A Fish Growing Lungs.
Tell us about A Fish Growing Lungs! How did you decide on this format (which I love, by the way) to tell your story?
I knew from the get-go that I wanted this to be an essay collection. Aside from a few moments where I got frustrated and threatened my advisor that I'd just turn it into a novel, it's always how I've thought of Fish. The braided essays (like "Dog-Brain") came first; I like the form a lot and it works well with the way that I think naturally. I may have also threatened to write a collection of braided essays at one point? But as I kept drafting I wanted more variety in approach, so while some shapes were more organic ("Withdrawal") others were structured with the intention of including something different as part of the collection ("Wellness Index").
So many of us struggle with mental illness and it can look a thousand different ways. What is something you'd like people who might not grapple with mental illness (are there such people? :) to understand?
I don't want to say that everyone I know has mental illness, but I do think that everyone I know could benefit from at least a little bit of talk therapy. This is in part, of course, a reflection of the people I spend time with, but the point I'm trying to make is that I think life is just difficult, especially in *gestures around this late-stage capitalist hellscape*. Everyone wants to be a bit happier, for life to be a bit easier. It doesn't matter (for the most part) if there's a DSM code attached to that desire.
When you’ve had a hard day, month, or year what has been in your toolkit to help you move through it?
What a question to answer in March of 2021. HAH. I adopted a cat just under a year ago, and my partner describes him as charcoal for the soul. My phone is full of cat photos. I also try to stay physically active--for me, that mostly looks like yoga and occasional running. Those are the healthy things. Less healthy but most honest is overworking so that I don't have time to think about the hard things.
What is an act of kindness that you’ve received that felt transformative or that had an impact on you?
Many years ago, a stranger gave up their seat on a plane for me. It was this oddly informal thing where the airline schedule was so jacked up that she literally pushed me in front of her and said to the flight attendant that she was giving me her seat, and they just let me on the plane.
Can you think of a time in your life when something you really wanted didn’t work out but then something better came in its place?
My ex-fiancé (who I had moved across several states to live with) called off our wedding the day I got home from AWP 2019. It was a disaster, and I was devastated, but I'm ultimately glad we didn't get married. My current partner + cat life is much more authentically me.
These are a few of my favorite things…
Book: I'm usually reading about 10-ish books at any given time between my teaching, my writing, and just being the way that I am. I'm going to dodge your question and instead just give a few titles that I'm reading/rereading or have recently read/reread that have impacted me greatly: The Other Side (Lacey Johnson), The Largesse of the Sea Maiden (Denis Johnson), Several Short Sentences on Writing (Verlyn Klinkenborg), They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us (Hanif Abdurraqib).
Song or album: Incesticide by Nirvana, but the most recent songs in my Spotify include Johnny Cash, Screaming Females, Rancid, and Air.
Place: There's this gorgeous old print shop in Haarlem that was converted into a house, and I will probably never go back there, but it's one of the most magical places I've been.