Cameron Dezen Hammon
Cameron Dezen Hammon is a writer and musician whose essays and poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Kiss Anthology (W.W. Norton, 2018), The Rumpus, Ecotone, Houston Chronicle, The Butter, The Literary Review, Brevity's Nonfiction Blog, Columbia Poetry Review, Literary Orphans, and elsewhere. Her essay "Infirmary Music" was named a notable in the Best American Essays 2017, and she is the host of The Ish podcast. Cameron earned her MFA from Seattle Pacific University in Creative Nonfiction, and is at work on a memoir about religious and romantic obsession, forthcoming in 2019.
Excerpt from Cameron's story, "Infirmary Music," published by The Literary Review
There was a song that I sang in church that Sarah liked. Once, when she was too sick to get out of bed, she Skyped into the church service and I could see her face on a laptop screen on the front row, angled so she could see me, too. Her face on the laptop made me nervous, but I sang the song. It was a bluesy gospel song about making it up the mountain, even if you never get there. I tried not to look at her face as I sang, because I knew that if I did I would cry and if I cried I couldn’t sing. I would cry because of all the hope in her face, and because I felt complicit in something that wasn’t helping, not in the way she needed. The healing services—a half dozen of us begging God to heal Sarah, holding doubt at bay just for 30 more minutes, until she was back in her wheelchair, until they were driving home, away from us and from the sense that anything could be done to help her—these gatherings were themselves a kind of metaphor, but I didn’t know that then. It was only when I was singing that I felt free from the expectations and fear. Hers and my own.
Recommended Books
Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose (HarperCollins, 2006)
The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2001)
The Boys of My Youth, Jo Ann Beard (Little, Brown and Company, 1998)
The Color of Water, James McBride (Riverhead Books, 1996)
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, (Vintage International, 1982)
Teaching Philosophy
My teaching philosophy focuses on developing skill through carefully selected readings, targeted writing prompts and peer review, all fostered within the environment of a supportive yet rigorous workshop.
There was a song that I sang in church that Sarah liked. Once, when she was too sick to get out of bed, she Skyped into the church service and I could see her face on a laptop screen on the front row, angled so she could see me, too. Her face on the laptop made me nervous, but I sang the song. It was a bluesy gospel song about making it up the mountain, even if you never get there. I tried not to look at her face as I sang, because I knew that if I did I would cry and if I cried I couldn’t sing. I would cry because of all the hope in her face, and because I felt complicit in something that wasn’t helping, not in the way she needed. The healing services—a half dozen of us begging God to heal Sarah, holding doubt at bay just for 30 more minutes, until she was back in her wheelchair, until they were driving home, away from us and from the sense that anything could be done to help her—these gatherings were themselves a kind of metaphor, but I didn’t know that then. It was only when I was singing that I felt free from the expectations and fear. Hers and my own.
Recommended Books
Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose (HarperCollins, 2006)
The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2001)
The Boys of My Youth, Jo Ann Beard (Little, Brown and Company, 1998)
The Color of Water, James McBride (Riverhead Books, 1996)
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, (Vintage International, 1982)
Teaching Philosophy
My teaching philosophy focuses on developing skill through carefully selected readings, targeted writing prompts and peer review, all fostered within the environment of a supportive yet rigorous workshop.
