updated bio.docx (Or, Another Possible Explanation For What My Problem Is)

by Misha Scott

Nisha Stock is a writer and filmmaker from a small town in Washington State. Her work can be found in several highly-regarded and medium-regarded journals and publications. In her spare time she goes on hikes and cooks elaborate meals with her devoted partner. In her other spare time she reads the classics. If she has any spare time left over she can be found pushing a large boulder up a steep and slippery mountainside. Actually, that’s not true. She has very little spare time. Nisha has several friends in medical school. She has one former classmate who prosecutes the heads of big oil companies. She has another friend who has received hundreds of death threats from Christian nationalists. Nisha dreams of someday finding out once and for all whether all of her friends know something she doesn’t. In her spare time Nisha mostly thinks diligent thoughts about death. When and how it will come, for whom, etc. Nisha’s earliest dream was to work in a sawmill at the edge of town. She just liked the way the wood chips smelled. Then the meaning of a hard day’s work dawned on her and now she has a job in advertising. Still, Nisha would like to contribute something to the world, and she would like to avoid being forgotten. Nisha is so aware that her life and everything in it is absurd. As a child, Nisha’s parents almost never fought. In her spare time, she fights tooth and nail. As a child, Nisha read a book that changed her life and this gave her big philosophical-type ideas about the power of art to impact the world. Now she suspects that the importance of art is purely personal, if at all. These days, her grand ideas about all sorts of things have shrunk down to about the size of a Tweet. In short, Nisha moved to the big city to change the world and the world said no thank you. Nisha used to believe that a well-told story could unlock in others the power to see each other more truly, authentically, and compassionately (et cetera). Now she considers herself lucky if she is able to stop the pounding in her ears long enough to pop open a beer and rewatch an episode of Friends. In short, Nisha isn’t so sure about anything, anymore. In her spare time, Nisha watches the news and she calls her representatives. In her spare time, Nisha wonders about the etymology of the phrase darkest before the dawn. It may surprise you to learn, given all of this, that in her spare time Nisha still derives a deep and almost religious pleasure from typing up her most private thoughts and imagining what they might mean to someone else. Just this morning, another person told Nisha that she should never, ever! write another word, and she was inclined to agree with them. But now here she is again, in front of the computer, polishing up her bio.

Misha Scott is a writer and filmmaker based in Seattle by way of the backwoods of Washington state. She runs a blog for music and creative writing called Hullabaloo and her work has appeared in Hobart, Gold Flake Paint, and The Smart Set, among others.