Interview by Victor Garate
Did you plan to use the “she-and-I” format before writing this piece, or did it come naturally as you wrote?
I wrote “She and I” as an assignment for my creative writing class. We were asked to write an imitation of a piece and I chose Natalia Ginzburg’s “He and I.” I imitated Ginzburg’s format.
What was your thought process behind the use of the “she-and-I” format?
In Ginzburg’s piece, she lists all of the differences between her and her husband, beginning most of her sentences with either “he” or “I.” Imitating Ginzburg’s format was a little difficult because I had to use the same sentence structure for nearly every sentence. I had to keep reminding myself to use the words “she” and “I” because I’m so used to changing up the wording in my writing.
Do you feel it captured your main idea of your piece well?
Ginzburg’s original piece was about how different she and her husband were so I decided to write about the many differences between my partner and I. I wanted my piece to be about how two people who are so different can love each other, flaws and all. I feel like I captured that idea
Click here to read Victoria Segarra’s essay “She and I”
Victoria Segarra is a Creative Writing alum from LaGuardia Community College. She is a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx, where she discovered a love for writing while in middle school.
