Sylvia J. Shipp

I’ve probably moved more than 50 times in my life from the time I was born in Portland, Oregon until now. When I was young, my father worked as an editor for the Associated Press and got moved around in his job a lot. My mother took us to California when I was nine. Maybe she was looking for the ultimate rent/square footage ratio, but she also had a penchant for moving a lot. Sometimes our moves led us simply to a house across the street.

I've always been interested in lots of things, which keeps me interested and excited about life, but is also distracting since interests foil any easily distracted writer such as myself.

I spent most of my twenties either attending university or traveling to Germany to be with my partner at that time. At UC Santa Barbara, I studied cultural anthropology. Years later, I started, then quickly abandoned, a PhD program in Primatology at UC Davis. Soon after I got a 2nd BA in English Literature at CSU Northridge. Finally, the following year I got an MA in Linguistics at Monterey Institute so that I could work abroad by teaching EFL. My twenties and early thirties were the most exciting years of my life on many levels. The love and passion between my partner and I were intensely reciprocal. We traveled to many countries with the little money we earned from working odd jobs in Munich. It was this relationship that inspired me to write my nonfiction book The Long Distance Relationship Guidebook.

I spent most of my thirties, this past decade, living and teaching English at a university in the United Arab Emirates. Life is easy here in this oil-wealthy nation. I found my husband here and we have two very wonderful fun little boys who I love dearly. Ironically, pregnancy and child-rearing has helped me greatly structure my writing time.

I am currently working on a historical fiction novel set in the 19th century Galicia, Spain and current day northern Mexico. It has several themes, including love, identity, coming of age, and aspects of the mother-daughter relationship. But its primary theme is forgiveness, and in this book I focus on the relationship dynamics between spouses, siblings, and parents and children. I ask the question, what is forgivable? What cannot be forgiven? As per my January 2007 New Year resolution, I plan to have the historical fiction novel finished by the end of December 2007. You can read about my progress with that in my Historical Fiction Novel Vox blog: sylviashipp.vox.com.