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| Jade Sharma |
Jade Sharma
“Don’t ever be boring”
Posted by Sue Leonard on Sunday 17th June 2018
As a child Jade wanted to be a comedian. She used humour to get her mum to laugh when she was in a bad mood.
She spent her teenage years in Japan.
“It was the perfect place to rebel. You could get beer and cigarettes out of vending machines and it was safe.”
Jade toyed with the idea of film, but then she started performing spoken word.
“I liked it a lot, and made people laugh by saying shocking things, like, ‘Why can’t I just masturbate instead of getting another job?’”
She won contests, and performed in Seattle for an International competition. Then, starting to read poetry, she realised there was a huge gap in her literary education. So she returned to university, taking an MA then an MFA.
“I have a need for validation and to show off. I’ll stay up all night thinking how to capture and keep someone’s attention.”
Who is Jade Sharma
Date of birth: 1980, Saint Louise Missouri.
Education: An army school in Japan; Hunter College: MA in English; The New School: MFA in creative writing.
Home: Manhattan, New York.
Family: Currently single.
The Day Job: “I teach creative writing in a private college. I love it. I like improving people’s sentences.”
In Another Life: “I’d be a singer. I remember discovering Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waites. It’s visceral.”
Favourite Writers: George Saunders; Lorrie Moore; Paul Beatty; Jane Austen. “She’s so funny. Nobody tells you that.”
Second Novel: A Novella coming out in the Autumn. “And I’m working on my second novel.”
Top Tip: “Don’t ever be boring.”
Twitter: @JadeRSharma
The Debut: Problems. Tramp Press: €15.00 Kindle: €9.78
Maya has problems. Married for seven months, she’s embroiled in an affair with a professor of over sixty. The mother who is mean to her has terminal MS – her job in a bookshop is going nowhere, and she can’t quite manage to complete her thesis.
Underlying all this is her reliance on drugs. And when her husband leaves, everything spirals.
“My goal is to take all the ugliness and banality of life and craft it into something meaningful. Seeing things through a different point of view can help you go through life.”
The Verdict: Beyond Brilliant. Funny, poignant and compulsive, with one-liners to die for.
Published in The Irish Examiner on 12th May
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