Nychelle Schneider
What do you write?
I write popular fiction, poetry, and analog game design.
Is there an author or artist who has most profoundly influenced your work?
Authors who elevate BIPOC voices, such as Pam Punzalan, a ttrpg game developer and author.
Why did you choose Stonecoast for your MFA?
Stonecoast helps me hone my skills in the writing spaces I find myself.
What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?
Monthly zoom calls with my cohorts. We discuss methods, curate reading lists and resources, and laugh together as we play games.
What do you hope to accomplish in the future?
I will continue to advocate for those with disabilities and BIPOC, to let our voices be heard in every field and valued as equal stakeholders in endeavors. If I can do that with my writing? Well, here I am.
If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?
The story of sdukʷalbixʷ čəɫ, my people, and our re-recognition. Many do not know the true history of Indigenous peoples and the struggles we continue to fight daily. Our re-recognition was a monumental step towards acknowledgment and reconciliation.
Prayer of Silence
Pure, deafening silence.
A journey comes to an end, no footprints walking forward. No hands to guide smaller hands as they explore—to hold during the soft and tough times.
A voice. Silenced. An oral witness to history now stands within the trees. Rooted in our memories, yet dying in time.
I will remember you, the one who slumbers with our ancestors. As I walk among the silent trees I am shaded by your legacy–your branches are many. My feet are guided by your roots. Those roots which broke mountains into pebbles so those after you may journey easier. To make my path softer atop the rushes.
Grains of pollen christen my brow as I walk beneath your shadow—like whispers of mentorship to help carry my burdens as I walk alone. Yet, I still find tender sunlight caressing other saplings under your care. Though you slumber, you still protect our people through the storms of life.
The scent of you comes on the wind, like a fleeting memory of a moment long ago. A silent reminder peppered with emotion and drowned in tears. Your laughter and songs lost, scattered over the ground in bitter sorrow of the silence that replaced them. No longer does that voice carry anything but silence.
Silence burdens me. Walks with me.
Many do not hear it, some choose to ignore it, yet I find that silence comforts me. For it is heard. I can hear all of you, among the trees… for you are the forest. I hear your timbre, the wind in your branches, the lark nesting in your bark. You have returned to me, to nature, to watch over us as we carry on that silence you held your entire life.
The silence of those who came before us. Our ancestors, our guides, our trees—our earth. I hear you. I will give voice to your silence so you may rest.
Our journey is renewed in those you nurtured, For life is ever-evolving and growing. Here I stand among the forest of my brethren, my family, my ancestors.
Hear our song.