Sakena Patterson

About Me

I'm a writer (duh), except no one pays me to write fiction, yet. I do clinical research by day and that takes care of the bills. When my student loans aren't haunting me, I also love getting lost on foot, eating, sleeping, knitting, researching my family tree, and daydreaming excessively. I just published a short story in Scissors & Spackle (my first) and I'm still doing cartwheels: http://www.scissorsandspackle.com/index.php/april/sakena-jwan-patterson/

Why do you write?

I write because my brain would explode if I didn't empty it out onto the page every now and then.

Any favorite authors? Books?

Favorite Authors: Edward P. Jones, Junot Diaz, Toni Morrison, Paul Beatty, Alice Walker, Rob Roberge, Dana Johnson, Tim O'Brien, Antonya Nelson, Sherman Alexie, Raymond Carver, Padgett Powell, Alice Munro, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, JD Salinger, Alice Walker, Chuck Klosterman, ZZ Packer, Richard Yates, Emily Rapp, Caroline Knapp, and David Foster Wallace. And the list goes on...

Favorite Books: Their Eyes Are Watching God, Sula, The Toughest Indian In The World, Lost In The City, Drinking: A Love Story, The Brief & Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Dark Half, Hearts In Atlantis, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Rum Diary, Invisible Man, Singin' & Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, At Home In The World, Black Boy, The Bell Jar, More Than They Could Chew, Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust, Daddy Was a Number Runner, In the Lake of the Woods, The Things They Carried, Chemical Pink, The Manikin, Bird by Bird, Cane River, Stiff, Ceremony, Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage, and Chemical Pink. There's more, but you get the picture.