Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandee Gertz.
Hi Sandee, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Completely by accident! At least that’s how I ended up in Tennessee. I was a diehard Northerner all my life and very rooted to Western Pennsylvania, as I grew up in Johnstown and lived many years in Pittsburgh. Much of my poetry book, The Pattern Maker’s Daughter, (Bottom Dog Press) is a reflection of that area and the steel cities that inspired me. I always say I bleed Black and Gold, though I realize that’s not popular in the South!
I was married and had raised two grown sons, Jordan and Christian, and had a vibrant family life and public life volunteering to run an arts non-profit that served the underserved. I had a beautiful old home I loved- a 1903 Dutch Colonial (fun fact: my former house is the setting on the Netflix Series, “The Chair” about a university English Department. It’s “Bill’s” house on the show.) I adored that house and we’d renovated it from head to toe, and I had no plans on leaving.
But one day early in 2013, I was picked up by the wind and landed in Nashville. Crazy but true: I really was hurled by the wind one day. I wasn’t hurt, but was shaken. And later I found it must have been an omen because when I first arrived in Nashville for what I thought was going to be a three-week visit to help my singer-songwriter son, Jordan Umbach, get established and moved in, it turned into 8 years and I haven’t gone back yet.
I found out my long-time marriage was over the day I landed here. When people ask me why I stayed, I tell them that it was the music. The original songs I heard in all the writer’s rounds around town, the loss people wrote about, seemed to match mine in some way and it touched a “chord” in me, I guess. I’ve come to find the Southern Hospitality down here to be a real blessing, as well. Now, I’m writing about my “North/South” divide and doing a lot of research for new writing and poems where I weave the story of Tennessee into my own life and exile here.
I love being amidst the history of the State Parks, and I also love living in East Nashville and being near Shelby Park where I walk every day. When I first moved here, I lived in Printers Alley- underneath the neon sign of the “P” in the Exchange Lofts. It was a magical time of getting to know myself again and I finished another book there, where there was so much color and life in the streets.
When I lifted open the huge windows one day shortly after moving into my loft, I could see a sign on the building across the alley: it was faded on the brick, but it said: “Blank Book Manufacturer’s,” and I took that as a sign too. I was a completely new and blank book after moving here. Now I work as an Assistant Professor at Cumberland University in the English and Creative Writing departments. I love it there and the commute is an easy 40 minutes door to door from East Nashville. I feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world being able to work with students and share my passion for writing.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, it’s definitely been a wild ride here in Nashville. I loved running in Shelby Park, but one day in 2018, I started collapsing on the trails and couldn’t make it back to my house. I had no idea why. That led to a long odyssey of trying to figure out what was happening to my body. That entire year was my most challenging year I ever experienced. I lost my father suddenly while on a plane coming back from Paris. I had an emergency appendectomy alone, while no family members were around and was at one point treated for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever because I had so many tick bites from the trails. I was in and out of ambulances and picked up from the side of the road more times than I can count.
I had three hospital stays and a lot of misdiagnoses. I finally found out in late November of that year that I had a neurological condition, likely from a tick bite. I’m a lot better now and feel very fortunate that that time is behind me.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Currently, I’m working on some big literary projects for our university. I have the opportunity to manage the literary journal, Novus, which has gone international in the last year, and I’m honored to be able to bring in visiting poets and authors to campus to engage with the students.
This October we are hosting my literary hero, National Book Award winner, Colum McCann, for a visit as part of our Cordell Hull Peace Forum and 150th Anniversary of the university. I’m beyond thrilled to host him and for our students to be able to interact with such a famous and celebrated literary author. The semesters are intense, but I love it, and then I’m off over the summers to write and work on my own projects.
I’m mainly known as the “poet in residence” at Cumberland and I teach all the poetry courses, but I do love writing memoir, and now fiction, as well. I’m currently involved in completing a novel in magical realism about my hometown- “The Republic of Jerusalem’s Trumpets.” And I’m always writing poems or finding bits of inspiration here in my new home in the South. I’m also sending out to agents a completed memoir: a coming of age work about growing up with an atypical seizure disorder, “Some Girls Have Auras of Bright Colors.”
I love the balance of being a writer outside of my position as a professor and each part of me feeds the other. I am constantly inspired by my students, and I get to work with a lot of them for all four years, seeing them grow into advanced poets. That is one of my favorite parts of my job. And I have to say I love working at a small university as it truly feels like a family to me.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Never to be jaded. I tell my students never to be “over everything.” Always stay curious and observant- be open to the potential that each day can hold; even if the one before has been challenging. I think that’s the key to staying and feeling young and vibrant. Be open to the magic.
Contact Info:
- Email: sandeegertz@gmail.com
- Website: www.sandeegertz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydaycanbeapoem/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/sandeegertz
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/sandeegertz
- Other: www.novusliterary.com
Image Credits
Amanda Crame
