Meet Autumn Shah - Inaugural Winner of the SCMF-SWF 2021 Scholarship

“It is a great honor to accept the SCMF-SWF Ohio Writers Scholarship award. Sandra’s legacy of sharing her passions and inspiring a worldview in others through writing is inspirational. This award means so much to me, not only for the opportunities it includes, but for the significance to Sandra’s memory.”

~ Autumn Shah

The Sandra Carpenter Memorial Fund-Stockholm Writers Festival Ohio Writers Scholarship offers a promising female writer with strong Ohio ties (e.g., Ohio native, long-time resident, Ohio-educated) special access to the Stockholm Writers Festival and a monetary award to support their writing post-festival. Sandra Carpenter was an early SWF supporter and board member (2017-2019). She actively mentored and supported writers throughout her life and career.

All of us that knew Sandra are deeply honored to be part of her legacy, and we welcome Autumn Shah into the circle of friends and family that Sandra has touched.

Autumn is the inaugural winner of the SCMF-SWF Ohio Writers Scholarship, and so we wanted to touch base with her - to find out what the award meant to her, personally, but also ask about her experiences as one of the attendees of the Digital SWF2021 Stockholm Writers Festival.

You can connect with Autumn on Instagram or follower her blog Shameless Wonder.

What was this digital festival experience like for you?

I’d love to have met Sandra’s friends, family, and colleagues that I had been talking to long-distance, and of course I would love to visit Stockholm. But I think the SWF committee did an excellent job of making the experience feel intimate and inclusive, and fun. The breakout rooms were helpful in getting to know fellow attendees. And actually, participating in Pitchapalooza online was less terrifying because I could pretend it was just the three of us on a Zoom call and not 50+ other people watching!

How did winning this scholarship affect your overall confidence as a writer?

Most of us deal with Imposter Syndrome to some degree and I fight those voices in my head constantly. Being honored by the SCMF-SWF made me feel I have potential, and that others believe in me, and my writing. Knowing this award is given in Sandra’s memory also keeps me going amidst all the setbacks in plot and character (and those pesky voices in my head). Sandra set out to champion writers, to encourage and support them, and that is what the award has done, and continues to do for me, through those who love her.

Did taking part in the festival change your perspective on the international writing community, writing groups, or reveal any universal truths about writers around the world?

I’m not sure it changed my perspective on the international writing community, but it definitely opened it up to me. I did learn about the sizable, and seemingly close-knit ex-pat community of writers in Stockholm, as well as in other parts of the world. And since SWF 2021 was a digital experience, writers from all over the world were able to attend. It was amazing to meet and talk with writers from Europe, Australia, and Africa.

What is your primary creative writing genre, and did this change over the years, or has this always been your main focus? Historical fiction is my primary genre. I’ve always loved reading historical fiction, ever since I was a child. I had been writing creative nonfiction pieces, and what you might call mainstream fiction. When I had readers read my writing, the one adjective that was most often used was ‘nostalgic.’ I thought about this as I struggled with where I wanted to go with my writing, and made the connection to the fact that my favorite genre is historical fiction.

A fairly common thread in the SWF community is that many of us have dreamed of writing for years before we ever had the time, resources, or ability to sit down and actually do it. When did you first decide writing was something that you wanted to actively pursue, and then how long was it before you started writing seriously?

I have been journaling and writing stories, poems, and “books” since I was a child. Once I “grew up” and had to support myself and then a family, it never occurred to me to take writing seriously. It wasn’t until I had kids and I was losing myself to mush and diapers that I realized I needed something to stimulate my mind, so I started writing again. For years I treated it as a hobby; it was the last thing on the list, and something I did on the sly, and alone. About eight years ago, as my children became tweens, I decided I wanted, and needed to do more for myself, and that I wanted to focus on my writing. I came out of the closet and I made more time to write, began to study the craft on my own, found other writers, and started on my journey.

What would you say were the biggest takeaways from SWF21, or moments that helped clarify things in a new way, or provided new insights into specific areas of the craft? What sticks out the most for you?

There are so many! But here’s a couple: Cassie (Gonzales) introduced me to the concept of the author’s promise and to be mindful of the expectations being set up for the reader right in the first few paragraphs. Another, is that we can all benefit and contribute from each other no matter what stage of the writing journey we are in.

Can you tell us a little about a piece you’ve written that you are particularly proud of, published or not — just something that still moves you every time you revisit it?

Well, that would have to be the current novel I’m working on, and the story I submitted for the SCMF award. I just love the time period, and the main character, Miriam, and I love the Theda Bara thread. I also have a half-finished novel currently in a drawer that I also can’t get out of my head and heart. I titled it The Weight of Snow and it takes place chiefly in Bulgaria (a place I’ve never been), and revolves around a family who lost a son and is trying to find their place back in the world and with each other after the tragedy.

The Weight of Snow (Novel Halted in Progress)

It’s confounding how life can change so quickly, at the turn of a head, the flick of the eyes, in less than half a second. You can never be vigilant enough. No matter how careful you are, the precautions you take, things happen out of your control. You wake up one morning not knowing that today your life will be changed forever. There are times when I have felt unsettled, when there is an ominous feeling to the day. Have I skirted disaster by listening to my instincts, cancelling our after-school errands, moving about more cautiously, or holding my kids close on those days? Or was it just a false premonition to begin with?

Maybe that morning I was too busy to pay attention to intuition or shifts in the universe.

I thought that living a middle-of-the-road life would protect me from tragedy, make me invisible to the universe, or the gods I don’t believe in enough, keep me off their radar. I appreciated everyday, barring moments in between, so that the universe would have no need to mess with my life and teach me a lesson. If your wheel of fortune is never all the way up, how can it crash all the way down?

But it can. In unfathomable ways, it can.

Bran is gone. It’s been nine days and I cannot wrap my head around it, cannot accept it. I leap up suddenly, realizing the hospital must have made a mistake. He’s waiting there for me; the hospital staff hasn’t been able to get hold of me, or they’ve been too busy to call. Or, I think maybe one of these mornings I’ll find him in his bed hiding under the covers, and he’ll reveal himself with a flourish and say, “I tricked you, Mommy!” Any of this is more real, more conceivable than the fact that my son is dead.