Syrah Linsley: Literary Nonfiction Writer
Keep scrolling for information about my manuscripts, credentials, testimonials, and more.
Syrah Linsley holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is an alum of the Kenyon Review and Orion writing workshops. Recipient of First Place awards from Bennington’s international Young Writers Awards and the Liberal Arts Network for Development, she has also been a finalist for the Annie Dillard Award and Southeast Review’s nonfiction contest as well as longlisted for the international First Pages Prize. Her work–which has received support in the form of residencies from various writing colonies–is published in Hippocampus Magazine and elsewhere. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In Their Words
I received a scholarship to the Bennington Writing Seminars MFA program, where my mentors were Doug Bauer, Eula Biss, Jenny Boully, and Marie Mutsuki Mockett (plus a dual workshop with Hugh Ryan), who can attest that I get excited to incorporate constructive feedback, approaching my revision process with “tenacity and aplomb.” Here is what my mentors there and elsewhere have said about my writing:
“ORIGINAL AND PROVOCATIVE”
“[THE INNER ELSEWHERE IS] A FIRST-RATE MANUSCRIPT, BRAVE IN ITS CANDOR, SKILLED IN ITS EXECUTION”
“A SENSITIVE, LYRICAL AND TREMENDOUSLY ASSIDUOUS YOUNG WRITER. [ . . .] I DON’T KNOW THAT I HAVE HAD A STUDENT WHO HAS WORKED QUITE AS HARD AS SY, OR WHO HAS WANTED TO LEARN AS MUCH, AS QUICKLY.”
“SHE HAS MADE IT FEEL AS THOUGH WE HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOREVER. SHE’S AN IMPECCABLE WRITER [ . . .] GENEROUS IN HER ABILITIES TO PAY HER KNOWLEDGE FORWARD”
“IN MY MULTIPLE DECADES OF TEACHING, SHE IS EASILY THE MOST EXCEPTIONAL STUDENT I EVER ENCOUNTERED. [ . . .] HER THINKING NOW IS AS ADROIT AND RIGOROUS AS IT WAS MANY YEARS AGO, BUT INFORMED AND DEEPENED BY A MATURITY GAINED THROUGH LIFE EXPERIENCE, ALL WITHOUT SACRIFICING A LYRICAL AND DELICATE FEEL FOR LANGUAGE AND IDEAS. [ . . .] SHE’S THE REAL DEAL.”
SEEKING LITERARY AGENT REPRESENTATION
Despite everything I’d escaped, what I feared most was this: forgetting how to be alone. THE INNER ELSEWHERE is a 72,000-word memoir interweaving a harrowing abuse* narrative with reflections on solitude’s role in surviving harm and healing from it. By learning the love language of distance, I finally hear “the sound of me calling to myself years ago. And then, after all this time: the sound of me answering.” THE INNER ELSEWHERE is a timely testament to autonomy, inviting readers to consider how we make space to love and be loved without losing our sense of self–without forgetting that “I was someone before I was with someone.”
*Note: details from the abuse narrative are available in the query letter and book proposal, but I am refraining from sharing those details publicly until securing an agent and aligning on a legal review.
COMP TITLES:
- A WELL-TRAINED WIFE (Tia Levings)
- THE DRY SEASON (Melissa Febos)
- THE LEAVING SEASON (Kelly McMasters)
- HOW TO SAY BABYLON (Safiya Sinclair)
- WINTERING (Katherine May)
- IN THE DREAMHOUSE (Carmen Maria Machado)
“HARROWING, FULL OF DESIRE, IMAGINATION, SOLITUDE, AND STRENGTH. SUBLIME IN ITS CONNECTIONS AND EXACTING IN ITS REVELATIONS. TRULY TRANSCENDENT.”
Terese Mailhot, author of Heart Berries, a New York Times bestselling memoir
“AN ODE TO LOSING ONESELF AND A LOVE LETTER TO THE REGENERATIVE ACT OF SOLITUDE, SYRAH LINSLEY’S THE INNER ELSEWHERE IS EXACTING AND EXTRAORDINARY.”
Kelly Sundberg, author of Goodbye, Sweet Girl and The Answer Is in the Wound
PUBLICATIONS
(excerpts from memoir manuscript, The Inner Elsewhere)
Hippocampus Magazine
The closer you approach the world around you, the louder you hear your own voice. “Bird Bouquet” is a lyric navigation of isolation and intimacy.
The Palisades Review
How does one study distance, then, become a connoisseur of it? Microscopes will not work, only telescopes. “Infinite Distance” is a flash reflection on distance as a love language.
Pictura Journal
I want to pull the years tight against my chest like a gown, feel them bright and ridged at the seams. I want each year to indent my skin like a bead. I want to wear time itself like a garment. “Beads Between” is an ekphrastic meditation visualizing time as a glass tapestry.
Litmosphere
Their unfolded papers—their inner worlds, like ours—could be mistaken for mountain ranges. “Pages to the Ages” uses origami imagery to illustrate the unknown within relationships and within ourselves.
Writing Residencies
I dedicate much of my PTO to writing projects and events.
Millay Arts (Upcoming in 2026)
Austerlitz, New York
AgArts “Farm-to-Art”
Oxford, Iowa
Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Ragdale
Lake Forest, Illinois
Grand Marais Art Colony
Grand Marais, Minnesota
Rockvale Writers’ Colony
College Grove, Tennessee
Other Manuscripts in Process
While seeking representation for The Inner Elsewhere manuscript, I’m writing others.
SELFSAME: Essays on Perception from an Eye Doctor’s Daughter
- Starter essays drafted in workshops (Orion & Kenyon Review)
- Further drafting/revision at Ragdale
- On schedule to complete first full draft in 2026
THE OTHER SIDE OF RIPENESS: Reflections from a Former Fruitarian
- First draft completed at AgArts residency in Iowa
- Why me? Former fruitarian, Fruit Laureate, Fruit Growers News 40 Under 40, with a career in the fruit industry
- A writing contest judge had this to say about selecting my fruit-forward writing (which was about deconstructing Eden):
“LINSLEY’S WRITING IS BOTH RIGOROUS AND DELICATE. IN THIS ESSAY, SHE GOES WAY BEYOND COMMON INTELLECTUAL REFLEXES AND REVEALS THE SECRET LAYERS OF PLANT LIFE. THE ESSAY IS BOTANY, GASTRONOMY, AND PHILOSOPHY ALL WORKING IN SOPHISTICATED HARMONY.”
Literary citizenship over the years:
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