Episode 131: Reading Sabrina Orah Mark’s Happily

a “Reading with Rachel”/ Commonplace School creation

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Rachel speaks with Sabrina Orah Mark about Happily, her collection of essays on fairytales and motherhood which began as a monthly column in The Paris Review. Rachel and Sabrina speak one-on-one over Zoom and then, a few weeks later, at the live-virtual Reading with Rachel salon. Sabrina talks about the fire in her home, writing in the dark, writing in real time, writing about sacred things, the veil of surrealism,  teaching outside the academy, writing about kids and parents as a form of protection and what it felt like to—finally—directly write what she really feels. 

Books by Sabrina Orah Mark:

• Happily (Random House, 2023)

• Wild Milk (Dorothy, 2018)

• The Babies (Saturnalia, 2004)

• Tsim Tsum (Saturnalia, 2009)

Also mentioned:

• Episode 33: Sabrina Orah Mark 

• Nadja Speigleman

• Bruno Schultz’s fairytale murals

• “Borges and I” by Jorges Louis Borges

• Grimm’s fairytales

• Lidia Yuknavitch

• Bella Baxter

• The Golden Key

• Angela Carter

• “The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges

• Reading with Rachel (2024-2025 cycle)

Bio

Raised in Brooklyn, NY, Sabrina Orah Mark earned a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. She also earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in English from the University of Georgia. She is the author of the poetry collections Tsim Tsum, and The Babies. Her collection of stories, Wild Milk, won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Short Story and was a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction.

Mark’s accomplishments include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center, and a Creative Capital Award. In addition to teaching private workshops she currently teaches nonfiction, fiction, and poetry for the Bennington Writing Seminars. She lives in Athens, Georgia, with her husband, Reginald McKnight, and their two sons.

In honor of this episode, our charitable partner will donate $250 to Sweet Olive Farm, chosen by Sabrina Orah Mark

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