About the Work: Lindsey Pharr

In our “About the Work” series, Olga Mexina and Tom Sokolowski ask recent contributors for insight into their writing or for current sources of inspiration. Read Lindsey Pharr's work in SER Vol. 42.2.

This essay grew from a true lightning bolt moment in the spring of 2023. I was finally reading Melissa Febos’ essay collection Girlhood after putting it off because I just knew it was going to hit close to home. I was sitting in the grass reading the section of “The Mirror Test” in which Febos refers to the Malleus Malificarum’s description of women as “unfinished animals” and the phrase sounded familiar. I’d heard something like it before. Then I remembered: a decade ago I’d read an article about the domesticated fox experiments and was briefly obsessed with the unfinished foxes. I snapped the book shut, ran barefoot back to my desk, and began piecing it all together.

Some of the personal narrative was so emotionally intense for me to write that the research threads served as life buoys when I feared I might drown. Honestly, I would’ve happily dog paddled from buoy to buoy of researched material if my mentor, Jason Kyle Howard, hadn’t encouraged me to keep diving down into those cold, dark waters of memory. I’ve received feedback from readers that this essay mirrored their own experiences of abuse, and that’s been really affirming for me. It tells me that I’m on the right track.

LINDSEY PHARR lives and writes outside of Asheville, NC. Her work has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Longleaf Review, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing an MFA through the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. A full list of publications and honors is on her website www.lindsey-pharr.com and you can find her on Twitter and Instagram @lindsey_a_pharr.