On Being an Artist: Author Sarah Manguso Comes to Deerfield

The Academy welcomed author, poet, and essayist Sarah Manguso on October 8 in an allschool meeting and in two Q&A sessions: the first open to all students and the second reserved for sophomore declamation winners.

Student responses varied deeply—some walked away from her all-school presentation and Q&A sessions with respect and inspiration, while other students admitted to being bored and uncomfortable listening to Ms. Manguso speak. Maura Glynn ’28 believed she was “oversharing,” both in her work and when she spoke. At many points in Ms. Manguso’s allschool meeting presentation, students burst into laughter, sounds of disbelief, and heavy whispers.

A recent article for the New York Times titled “The Intimacy of Anonymity” calls out a 21st century increase in oversharing, articulating a false sense of authenticity with the exposure of personal information and experience online. However, in contrast to the comfort with oversharing through social media, students are often uncomfortable with in-person authenticity—English Teacher Stu Wilson credited student outburst during Ms. Manguso’s school meeting presentation to nervous laughter, rather than high school immaturity. “It is an act of respect … to be like, I’m going to tell you something that is very personal, but I think you can handle it,” he added.

Head of Graphics of the Scroll Ryan Bai ’26, one of the Co-Editor in Chief of Albany Road, Deerfield’s literary magazine, explained a theory he’d talked about last year in his Philosophy of Art class: artists expose themselves, and to someone who isn’t an artist, that can feel embarrassing. “It’s really brave for … Ms. Manguso not only to say these [statements] but also to publish them,” he said.

In Ms. Manguso’s Thursday morning Q&A session, a student asked her why she chose to skip over certain sections of her prepared reading in her all-school meeting presentation, something she acknowledged at the time. It’s about the “emotional tenor,” she answered—when she reads, she’s aware of her audience’s engagement and energy.

As Ms. Manguso admitted, she’s not used to speaking with high school students; her audience, she described, is often adults— in her writing—or college students, when she teaches creative writing classes. “She’s speaking more to my demographic,” Dean of Studies Lydia Hemphill said.

Dean of Teaching & Learning and English Teacher Hadley Westman expressed a similar sentiment: “I think I’m more the target audience of Ongoingness than any of our students. I’m a parent of young children [and] a middle aged woman, so I found myself really enjoying reading her as somebody that I likely identify with more than tenth graders do,” she said. However, both Ms. Westman and Mr. Wilson touched on the larger meaning and impact Ms. Manguso’s writing can have on students.

“A lot of [Ongoingness] is about the feeling of becoming a parent … so there was a part of me that was like, will this resonate with a sophomore class?” Mr. Wilson said. He added that his own experience influenced the impact Ms. Manguso’s memoir, The Two Kinds of Decay, had on him: his grandmother went through a similar neurological disease as Ms. Manguso, something he’s slowly learning about as an adult. “Hearing her be so raw and vulnerable about that experience … that definitely resonated,” he said.

At the same time, he felt that the message students take away doesn’t necessarily need to be specific to the content, but he found instead that Ms. Manguso’s simple articulation of “something happening in your life that changes you” resonated with his students.

English Teacher and Interim English Department Chair Christian Austin said, from his view, “The response [to her work] has been more … curious and surprised, because her form is so unique,” adding, “I think students are probably surprised and taken aback at how authentic and forthcoming she is in her writing.” In part, the English department’s decision to invite Ms. Manguso to Deerfield was grounded in a hope for a lesson in form, rather than content. “Art is great from an instructive standpoint,” Mr. Austin said—he hopes that students will learn from her unique brief but deeply impactful style, and, as he described, the way she is able to trace ideas and play with a sense of time while coming back to a central narrative and theme.

“Exposure is really important,” Ms. Hemphill said. In Mr. Wilson’s experience, he often finds that a lesson may not land in the immediate moment, but it sticks with students going forward—as he put it, there’s often a “lightbulb down the road.”

Ms. Westman articulated an idea of “multiple selves.” As a teacher, part of her philosophy is to encourage students to explore aspects of themselves they might not have been aware of—Ms. Manguso’s visit is another moment to find a new self, she explained. A student may find that her specific content emotionally resonates, but they may also find an interest in her profession and the type of writer she chose to become. “You kind of never know what text or writer will inspire a possible self in a student or a group of students,” she said, adding, “[Manguso] certainly was a really different representative of the writer.”

In art, Ms. Manguso said, honesty isn’t inherently necessary—she believes it’s simply more interesting. “It feels more powerful if you make a piece of art and you witness people having feelings,” she said. Her work, as Bai said, is authentic and raw. “Think about the things you know to be true that no one’s saying,” Sarah Manguso told her audience.