Writer J. Sanders-Nelson, sat out to publish a novella of
small confessions. She thought she had a grip on life enough to reveal tid-bits
of her life. So, she bundled together writings from over a ten year span and
publish them.
However, J. struggled with the title, she struggled with
coming up with what exactly it was she was publishing. This went on for about a
week and finally, she settled on SCHNICTION. Her choice of the title, in her
mind encompassed every aspect of her work, fiction, creative non-fiction,
poetry and prose. It was a hodge-podge of musings, ranting, ravings,
journaling, poetic and fictional longing of unrequited love…so abstract, so cohesive
that she had to come up with her own name for the compilation. Then, she
stumbled upon a post from Brevity magazine’s Facebook page about “hybrid”
writing. The door opened and clarity rushed in; her writing was of a hybrid
nature, in that it contained influence from all formats, forms and even genres
of writing.
Hybrid writing is a relatively new term and articles regarding this
kind of writing are limited. However, Jessica Dewberry’s article, “In the
Trenches with Hybrid at AWP 2014” was very enlightening and offered some solace
regarding hybrid writing. In the end, however, Dewberry simply calls herself a
writer and not a hybrid writer. Because the terms was just too broad, too complex
to try and fully explain:
“When people used to ask, “What do
you write?” I found myself always wanting to include hybrid in my response. I
would start the hot breath sound of the letter “h” before inhaling it back and
then just describe a piece I was working on, hoping they got the picture. When
I got back from the AWP, I deleted hybrid from my online profiles, leaving
writer to speak for itself.” Dewberry
It was at this point that J. Sanders-Nelson, decided that
perhaps adding “hybrid” to brand her writing might give a better impression of
her style or at least get someone to crack open a page out of shear curiosity.
She however, still simply refers to herself as, a writer.
