Experiencing Loss Changed How I Write

By Shayna Goodman

Just before the pandemic I experienced two major, simultaneous life ruptures: my partner left me for a mutual friend and my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Lewy Body Dementia. I moved out of our apartment, dropped the classes I was supposed to teach that semester, and several weeks later, left New York when the city went into lockdown. I am permanently changed by these intersecting traumas. Included in these changes are the ways I create and consume art.

I was 2...