Interview with Sandra Shwayder Sanchez, Author and Co-publisher of The Wessex Collective
Published November 18, 2007
As soon as I finished Snow I started what would later be my first published novel. I interrupted work on this to get a divorce, return to college and then law school and I finished this 124 page book about twelve years after I started it. The Nun was published by Plain View Press in 1992, three years after I finished it. I also started writing more serious short stories and the first of these was published in The Long Story in 1986. I have since had stories published in The Long Story, Monocacy Valley Review, Zone 3, The Healing Muse and some online publications: Storyglossia # 17, The Dublin Quarterly, and Cantaraville.
In 1994 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and put on an unpaid medical leave of absence from my job in a small law office. My boss had died of cancer the year before and I think his son was afraid of having me die on him as well. In any case, the leave of absence became a layoff and I later returned to private practice but during the months I was undergoing chemotherapy I wrote two novels and started a third. The first one was a finalist in a novel contest but not the winner and I'm just as glad it was not published as, looking back, it was not the work by which I'd want to be known. The second was Stillbird which I consider my best work and when I started Wessex Collective with R. P. Burnham this was the work of my own I felt most confident publishing. In fact it was when I had a say in the selection process that I threw out that other novel. The third novel involved some historical research before I could finish it. I recently queried a University Press about that one and they are seriously considering it.
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The Wessex Collective was recently redesigned by our talented friend, Christine Potter.
- Interview with Sandra Shwayder Sanchez, Author and Co-publisher of The Wessex Collective
- Published: November 18, 2007
- Type: Interview
- Section: Books
- Filed Under: Books: Literature and Fiction, Books: The Writing Life, Interviews
- Writer: Mayra Calvani
- Mayra Calvani's BC Writer page
- Mayra Calvani's personal site
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