'Stay Brave' with Sarah Gerard
‘Stay Brave’ is an interview series by woman-identifying creatives for woman-identifying creatives to inspire bravery in the creative life. [Created and curated by Leah Umansky]
How do you interpret the phrase, "Stay Brave?"
Fear isn't a reason to give up. Neither is criticism. Or disapproval. Or not knowing how to do it yet. Or not being perfect. Part of bravery is forgiving yourself when you mess up.
As a woman-identifying writer, what are the ways that you “stay brave” in your life?
I don't identify as a woman all the time but I was born with a female body and have lived in it for many years, and have written about a lot of the things that go along with that. Like gendered violence, sexual assault, and abortion. None of those are easy to write about and some people haven't liked what I wrote about them. I keep writing about them anyway.
Who is someone in your life who models “staying brave” for you?
This can be someone you know personally, or someone you never met in real life.
Leah Umansky. Always. She is so brave and such an ally for so many writers.
In Leah's new project, a hybrid memoir, Delicate Machine, that I had the pleasure of reading in one of its drafts, I see her bravery on display — while the world was shutting down, she was pursuing a life path that so many would find terrifying at any time in human history, let alone in the face of apocalypse.
What writers, artists, and/or musicians do you look to to foster a sense of “bravery?”
Vidhu Aggarwal is an artist and poet I had the pleasure of meeting and seeing perform recently, and she really blew me away. Same with Gabrielle Civil—her performances carry so much power and weight.
What’s a piece of advice you would pass on to your younger self about “staying brave?” What’s something you know now, that you didn’t know in the past?
You'll never please everyone, so stop trying, and do what needs to be done.
Can you remember a time in your life where you realized your own bravery? How did you use it to propel you forward?
Anytime I stand up for myself when someone tries to pressure me to be smaller, I feel brave. I'm such a natural people-pleaser that it's hard for me not to back down. I really have to challenge that inclination and be brave, even when I know someone isn't going to be happy with me. I had the opportunity to do this recently, when someone I was working for tried to make me do something I consider very unethical. I put into writing how I felt in that conversation, and I resigned from my position because for me, it's not just a paycheck. Knowing I was doing the right thing helped me to be brave in that choice.
What do you do when you aren’t feeling brave? What inspires you or motivates you?
My husband, knowing he believes in me, and my family. Also, believing in my project, whatever it may be, that it may reach other people and help them, if anything, to feel less alone. I don't make work in a vacuum; I make work in a community, so I have to be brave on behalf of a larger body of people, or a larger cause, beyond myself.
In what ways would you like to be more brave in your creative life?
I want to challenge myself to make stories in new forms and formats. A feature-length film or a documentary, or a podcast. I always want to make more visual art this year.
What is your proudest moment of bravery?
In my early 20s, I was in a life-threatening accident that took me years to recover from. I definitely wanted to give up at times. I didn't. Instead, I started writing, and I found the healing that came from it. I had a Word document to come back to every day, and I had myself to come back to, in those pages. I started writing about how I had almost died, simply telling the story of what had happened, putting down the facts, and trying to turn those facts into a story, something that validated what I had gone through. I finished something like a novel, but it wasn't "good" at all, and at that point I could have again chosen to give up, but I didn't. I kept writing, and recently I came back to that "novel" I had written in my early 20s, to finish it. It's one of the books I'm writing now, and I'm glad that, instead of giving up back then, I kept trying to stay alive, stay brave, and write. I'm glad I didn't throw that first novel in the garbage, and that now, returning to it, I have the raw emotion and raw experience of that time in my life, to finally write about that near-death accident, and how it influenced the course of my life.
What are you currently working on?
A book of journalism, a novel, a tarot deck of handmade paper collages, and a documentary about health insurance.
Thank you to Sarah Gerard!
Sarah Gerard is an artist and an author of novels and essays. She can also be found on twitter, here.
Leah Umansky is the author of three books of poems, most recently the forthcomin OF TYRANT, (The Word Works in 2024.) She is currently working on a memoir DELICATE MACHINE, a exploration of womanhood, hope, and heart in the face of grief and a global pandemic. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her creative work can be found in such places as The New York Times, POETRY, The Bennington Review, The Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day and others. She can be found at www.leahumansky.com or @leah.umansky on IG.