Zachariah Claypole White, MFA ’23

Zachariah Claypole White was born and raised in North Carolina and currently resides in Philadelphia, where he teaches at the city’s community college. He holds a B.A. in creative writing and English literature from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, where he was a Jane Cooper Poetry Fellow. Zachariah’s work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Southeast Review, The Rumpus, and The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, amongst others. He has received awards from Palette Poetry, Flying South, Writer’s Digest, and The Fifth Corner. Zachariah’s poetry and prose have also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net, the O. Henry Prize, the Orison Spiritual Prize, and the Best American Short Stories.

Can you tell us a little bit about your path to the MFA? What did your life look like before applying?

I’ve been writing my whole life and, to be honest, always suspected I would end up pursuing an MFA. But after completing my undergraduate degree, most of my energy was directed towards composing and performing music. Then Covid hit and there were no more shows to play.

Not for the first time, the world stopped making sense, or rather, I was struggling to make sense of my own place within the chaos. I did what I’ve always done in moments of collapse, I wrote. Writing provided me with—if not an escape—then a means to navigate the uncertainties and grief of that year.

At the time, I was working at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC. I loved being a bookseller but retail during the pandemic was a special kind of hell. I began to consider other career options (besides insanity). Simultaneously, even though I was writing every day, I wanted to push myself further. I could see the shape of my poems—the direction in which they wanted to take me—but I couldn’t fully excavate them (to steal a term from Stephen King). I decided I needed to surround myself with writers and re-enter the writing community full-time. So, I applied to MFA programs.

Why did you choose Sarah Lawrence?

I was excited that the program brought so many speakers and industry professionals to campus. In addition, I’d always loved speculative fiction and Sarah Lawrence not only allowed, but seemed to encourage, cross-genre experimentation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there was the conference system. I’ve always sought out mentors, and I have been lucky enough to work with some incredible writers in that capacity. The fact that Sarah Lawrence built mentorship and individualized attention into their workshops was an opportunity I couldn’t resist.

Who or what influenced you most during your time in the program? Was there a professor, mentor, or class that was particularly impactful?

That’s a difficult question to answer because so many people in the program had a huge impact on my work.

First and foremost were my peers. I don’t know if I was just lucky but everyone in my cohort was talented beyond belief. Whatever success I’ve had as a writer is in no small part due to the incredible community that we created during my time there. In particular, I would give a shout out to Anna Cain, Holly Dyer, Madisen Gummer, and Makayla Gay. (Makayla’s debut chapbook, Hackles, from Girl Noise press, is a brilliant, luminous read. I can’t recommend it enough.)

In terms of professors, Marie Howe taught my first workshop and it was largely due to her guidance that the poems I wrote began to resemble the ones I had heard in my head. My thesis advisor, Sally Wen Mao, and Matthea Harvey both pushed me to read, write, and understand the craft of poetry in ways I had never considered. Finally, R.A. Villanueva guided me not only in terms of writing and navigating our industry but also shaped how I teach writing in my own classrooms.

On the fiction side, I am indebted to Nelly Reifler. As I mentioned, I’ve always loved speculative fiction but struggled to turn that love into words on the page. Nelly saw my fiction more clearly than I did. Her guidance was, and remains, invaluable.

Do you have any advice for current or prospective students?

I’m not sure who articulated this to me, but I think it was Marie: Let your writing be smarter than you are. Follow it. Even if you are unsure or afraid of where it might take you. Flannery O'Connor said, “I write to discover what I know." Be brave enough to let your writing lead you to that moment of discovery.

Finally, find the people whose writing you love and hold them close. We often talk about writing as a solitary endeavor, but if you’re reading this, you probably know that’s not true. Find the people who push you to be a better storyteller and, perhaps, a better person. And then, to quote Italo Calvino, “Make them endure, give them space.”

What does your post-MFA life look like?

I write and teach in Philadelphia and just joined the city’s community college as full-time faculty in the English department.

I’m still in touch with many of my peers from SLC and am lucky enough to have ongoing zoom writing workshops with many of them.

Beyond that, I live with my incredible partner (a labor organizer and researcher) and a tubby cat who I think is plotting to take over the world (assuming she doesn’t have to leave the couch to do so)..  

How do you find yourself engaging with the literary world these days?

I write as often as I can, although teaching takes up most of my time during the academic year. I also have at least two books in my bag at any given moment, usually one fiction and one poetry. You cannot be a writer without being an avid reader.

And you cannot be a writer without expanding your community, which means I’ve been attending conferences (like AWP), and working to find my own place within Philadelphia’s incredible writing communities.

And, as I said, I’m also usually editing a friend’s work or waiting for them to edit mine.

Where can we find your work?

You can find some of my recent fiction in Weird Horror and The Fifth Corner. I also have a story forthcoming in HEXFILED, and several poems will be appearing in the next issue of the Cape Code Review. (Go read the stunning Retrovirology by their founding editor, John Bonanni).

A full and updated list of my publications can be found on my website: https://www.zachariahclaypolewhite.com

My first full-length poetry collection, Anxiety and Other Mythologies, is currently on submission. It’s my archive of navigating a disordered world as a disordered person. It charts the journey from finding myself overwhelmed with chaos (both psychological—in the form of severe OCD—and social) to embracing the possibilities of resilience and survival. The poems in the collection use the surreal, speculative, and the divine to explore disability, identity, and belonging in the age of climate crisis and resurgent fascism. They reach for joy not in spite of disability, but in conversation with it.

I’m also currently working on a collection of short fiction. Or rather the collection is emerging out of recent stories. Most of them can best be described as weird fiction, usually tinted with sci-fi and horror. If Anxiety and Other Mythologies is an archive of navigating the disordered world, this project is perhaps a catacomb of disordered moments, cosmic fever dreams in which the disorder overtakes the world.

So cheery stuff overall!