Sylvia J. Shipp

I’ve moved more than 50 times from the time I was born in Portland, Oregon until now. When I was young, my dad worked as an editor for the Associated Press and got moved around in his job a lot. My mom 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 keep me interested and excited about life, but also distract me from the one or two things I’d like to do well, such as writing.

I spent most of my 20s 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, but then quickly abandoned, a PhD program in Biological Anthropology at UC Davis. I couldn't stand the smell of formaldehyde. Soon afterwards, 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 20s and early 30s were the most exciting years of my life on many levels. The love and passion between my partner and I were intensely romantic. 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-rich nation. I found my husband here and we have two 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 novel with current day and historical day storylines, set in the 19th century Galicia, Spain and modern day. It has several themes, including love, identity, the importance of being connected to family and friends, the importance of having meaning and purpose in life, 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. CORRECTION: I reached around 70K words by May 2008, attended a writing workshop led by a well respected literary agent and editors and proceeded not to write for a little over a year. During this time, I've spent time reading good novels very closely.

I am now ready to pick up where I left off, turn my backstory into flashbacks and so on, and make a magical novel happen :) (Cross your fingers, please) I am now targeting the end of November 2009 to finish writing the novel.

Root for me anytime; I'll need the support.

You can read about my progress with the novel on my Novel Vox blog: sylviashipp.vox.com.