a true story about a hospice nurse turned science fiction writer and what it means to be wild

I met Miah at my final MFA residency in January 2023, just before I graduated, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. As part of the program, a few times each year we disappear from our normal lives and spend 10 days with other writers on a forest-y college campus going to workshops and lectures. 

This was my fifth and final MFA residency, and Miah’s second, but in all my time, I’d never seen someone ask such sincere questions about writing (we were in workshop together).

I was drawn in by how unafraid and open she seemed. The kind of open-hearted sincerity that’s rare to see in anyone over 11, let alone over 40. 

When walking together to workshop one afternoon, she told me about how she was a hospice nurse and only recently started writing science fiction and how she applied to the MFA on a whim and how she rides a motorcycle and how she lived in Brazil alone once and how she lost her twin in a tragic accident. I asked her right then if I could interview her later that week.

I didn’t know what I would do with the interview then, but I was exploring the next phase of my own artistic journey, and I wanted to try a more spontaneous interview, without writing any questions ahead of time; I wanted to just show up and see what would happen. I would figure out how to write it later.

She kindly agreed to an interview at the campus coffee shop, and we met up a few days later and talked and talked and talked. 

I never forgot some of the things she said, and held them close for the year-and-a-half that followed.

But I just didn’t know what to do with it yet. It was so special to me, but I didn’t know what it should be.

And then, finally, when I read through it a few days ago, I realized why I hadn’t written it yet: it didn’t need to be written. Just edited. Because there weren’t any of Miah’s words I wanted to leave out, write around. I wanted to take you straight through, give you the same experience I had in that warm cafe, scarves on  backs of chairs, snow outside.

So welcome my friend. For the next few thousand words you are an MFA grad student. Grab some tea, sit with us, meet Miah, and maybe you too will hold something she says close to you for the next few years.

Before we start, can you tell me about what you’re wearing? 

This T-shirt is from the Harley Davidson in Arkansas, which is full of surprisingly nice people. I find most bikers to be surprisingly nice people.

I love this shirt because it says Freedom Machine which is what I think a motorcycle is exactly.  

What made you first decide to get a motorcycle?

I had ridden on the back of motorcycles for many years, and I just think I decided that I didn’t want to be on the back anymore. A lot of women I talk to who ride motorcycles describe this feeling of at some point wanting to be in the driver’s seat.

What led to you living in Brazil?

I vacationed there in 2018 and decided I didn’t want to leave. I was there for a month and had actually quit my job to go because they wouldn’t give me vacation time.  And so when I was down there I just decided I was coming back to live. Before I left I bought a one way for one month later and said I’m going to go back home, sell everything, and move back here. And I did. 

I also belonged to a Facebook group called the Wild Woman Sisterhood.  They talked about wilding and someone had posted a photographic essay of a woman in mud, embracing trees and plants.

And I was like, I could do that if I want to. Nobody can stop me. So I’ll move to the rainforest and I’ll be like a feral, wild woman. 

Have you always had that sort of instinct towards wildness in your life?  

I think so. I’ve always liked relating to animals and plants and spending time in nature.

But I think in American society, and especially for women, there’s this emphasis on civility, and wildness is seen as something that’s not acceptable; savage and uncivilized, and for people of certain classes and ethnic groups. And so I thought about that too; how we’re not encouraged to be wild. And why not?

When did you start writing? 

I started a nonfiction book for other expats about how to move to Brazil.

And then I sat down and wrote a short story. It was about a character who in the time of a virus moves from the U.S. to Brazil. And I couldn’t believe this story came out of me. I was like, what just happened here?

 I remember this tumult of feelings, like a volcano full of lava. I was overwhelmed by feelings of sadness, a kind of enormity. Feelings that maybe had been trapped in there for a long time.

And it just kind of exploded. I opened a new page and started writing. At first it was a little autobiographically based, but then it became fictionalized and took on a life of its own.

I was really moved when you mentioned losing your twin in workshop. As you’re talking about this kind of being alone in the rainforest during COVID, it sounds like such an intense kind of alone. And when I think about what it might be like to have a twin, it feels like a it would be very much a feeling of not alone. I’m curious, as much as you’re comfortable sharing, what did like having a twin feel like for you and how did that contrast with this rainforest aloneness? 

Actually that first story that I wrote about the virus and the character’s move to Brazil, the instigating incident that causes her to move is that her twin dies.

And so in the story she’s alone, and alone is the worst word she can think of.

People keep saying it to her, like “Oh I’m sorry your twin died and you’re alone now.” And every time she thinks about her there’s this word “alone” and she’s punctured by it and it’s so painful.

And that’s obviously somewhat autobiographical. There were some points that were very therapeutic for me, in the rainforest, and I was like, this is the most alone I’ve ever been before, and will I ever not be alone again?

Will I ever have a connection to anybody like I had with my twin? 

And the obvious answer was no, and that hurt me a lot.  

What did it feel like to have a twin?

I knew a woman once who was from a tribe.  And the way she described being from a tribe, because I asked her, was how I felt about being a twin: to be part of something, and for it to be completely unquestionable that you’re part of each other, irrevocably, no matter whether you get mad at each other, or whatever happens, or geographical distance: you’re part of each other.

How did you lose her, if you don’t mind me asking?

She was killed in a boxing accident. 

I felt angry at first at the person who had, of course accidentally, taken her life. I actually googled this person just to see what kind of awful, awful person is this.

And then I read this piece she wrote about what it was like to have accidentally killed someone. It just was heartbreaking, the sadness she seemed to feel about it. 

How did you feel after learning that your twin was gone?  

I didn’t feel. I didn’t have any reaction at all to it at first.

For like maybe two weeks, I just didn’t even react to it. 

When I found out she had died, I knew something had happened, but I just couldn’t.  Part of my brain was like, Nope, I’ll see her again. She’s just not here now. I’ll just see her again soon. 

And then I had a come apart in a retail store.

I was shopping and I saw a shirt, and I thought, Oh, my sister would like this shirt. This is something that she would really wear. And I started crying in the store. Like, fell on the floor.  Was faced with it. That I will never see her again. She’s gone. Anything that needed to be fixed can’t be fixed now.

Anything that was good is not going to be good anymore. 

I actually was seen as a psychiatric inpatient at the hospital after that.

 What helped you come through that?

At the time that it happened, I was in nursing school and I was surrounded by a bunch of women who pretty much were like, We accept you even if you’re a horrible mess. And they were all caregivers.

So if I cried and had panic attacks, they were accepting of it, and that helped a lot to know that society wasn’t going to shun me because I was falling apart.

How old were you at this time when this happened, and what kind of nursing degree were you pursuing at that time?

I think I was 36 when she passed away. 

I had worked in film production prior to that and I went back to school to do a nursing degree because I wanted more stability in my life. I thought it would be something interesting that I could do. And I thought, I had provided care for sick people, sick family members and stuff like that, so I thought maybe it would come naturally to me. 

I was so wrong. 

Because being a caregiver is really emotionally demanding and difficult.  

But I got my bachelors and worked as a nurse, and then when I was in Brazil I was working on my masters in nursing, which I subsequently flunked out of big time.

When did that happen in relation to your writing life?

 I was taking semesters off of nursing school because I hated it so much and it was so stressful.

And I wanted to finish it because I had started it and because it would mean a good job. 

But I hated it so much. 

And so just this past year was when I failed out with one semester left to go. And the program I was in was closing.  No way to transfer all of that stuff out. 

And so…I had another come apart about that.

And my best friend said, ‘Think about it this way, maybe that’s not for you.’

 And those words were really strong to me, that that’s not for you, and that maybe it’s okay that some things aren’t for you. And she suggested that ‘nobody’s gonna stop you if you think about something else you want to do and try to do that.’ 

And I was really emboldened by that. I was like, ‘Nobody can stop me. I can do it if I want to.’

So I started thinking to myself, what might I want to do? And I was like, okay, okay, crazy idea.  I wrote these two short stories. What if I apply to writing school? And I was like, I know I won’t get in. Like, they won’t take me seriously.

But at least I’ll say I tried it. 

And so [VCFA] was the only school I submitted an application to. And someone called me and said technically this semester is closed for applications, but we can squeeze you in, but you would be starting in a very short time. And I was like, let’s do it. 

How did you feel when you found out you got in to an MFA program? 

I couldn’t believe it, and I was like, ‘Well, no take backs.’ Like, if there’s been a mistake, you already told me that I’m in, so it’s too late now. 

And then I had this big emotional thing about it, where I was like, maybe everything terrible that has happened to me has all led up to this moment, and it’s all okay now because I’m where I’m supposed to be. 

And do you mind me asking how old you are?

 I’m 47 now. 

47, so cool. And this was just your first semester then? 

I just finished my first semester, yeah. 

How has that felt, and are you working while you’re doing this?

I wish I wasn’t working. I would like to get out of nursing pretty soon.

It’s really exhausting, and it’s a lot to try to do writing and work at the same time.

My patients are entrusting me to give them really good care, and I don’t want to short them. I also don’t want to short my efforts in writing. 

I’ve kind of thought about different things, like maybe if I get up early before work and I write; maybe that will be easier than writing when I get done with work because I’m too tired to think straight.  Things like that. 

How did this semester go for you?

I feel like I’m learning at such a rapid pace, and at the same time, I’m just constantly being filled with questions. The more information I take in and synthesize, the more questions are generated in my mind. 

I think that’s one of the things that drew me to you. It was just so refreshing to see someone asking so many questions. It was so beautiful to see someone that interested and genuinely curious. 

And it reminded me of what the college president said in one of his opening residency speeches, that thing he said about how we usually hear we should treat every day like it’s your last, but he recounted the wonder he felt on his first day of school and how we should really treat every day like it’s our first. 

And I think you’re such an embodiment of what that looks like, and I really admire it. 

When it comes to treating every day like it’s your last, I’m curious, how long have you been a travel nurse for terminal patients and what has that experience been like for you?  

I started nursing in 2014 and transitioned the very next year from oncology to hospice because of a hospice nurse I met when I was working in the hospital. I had a cancer patient who we were having a lot of difficulty managing his pain, and somebody had called a hospice nurse. I didn’t even know what that was at the time. And here comes this nurse, and she basically, in my mind, saved the day. She was like, We’re gonna take this patient home so he can pass in dignity. And I was like, who are you? What do you, what is this? Cause I wanna do that.

And then everybody told me working in hospice is basically like the death of your career, that nobody respects it, that it’s not considered as respectable as, like, cardiac nursing or something like that.

But I didn’t care. 

So I started working in staff positions in hospice, and it was harder than I thought it was going to be.

I thought I was just going to be able to be objective and I cried about every single patient and it was so difficult. 

And then I started doing on call because I really liked the pharmacology, and the idea that I could like, swoop in and make something better; that was really therapeutic for me.

Because I feel like this world is so dark, so full of difficulty and suffering. And I’m often really overwhelmed by what a hostile world we live in; how difficult it is and how painful. So the idea of being able to fix any small part of that is so uplifting to me. And it helps me so much with like, not being depressed.

So working in on call provided that for me. Although it was still a lot of crying sometimes. 

On call?

Oh, so on call is a nurse who works at night, and you sit in your house, and you wait for patients to call who are having emergencies.  And then you drive out, to see them. They’re usually having a lot of pain or can’t breathe. Usually something really terrible has happened and you’re the person who’s gotta fix it. 

And you’re doing that alone when you’re on call? 

Yeah.

What has that process been like for you to be in those homes and be that problem solver? How do you feel about that?

It’s weird to be in other people’s houses.  You feel almost like it’s a violation of their privacy. So I try to be really mindful of that and try to treat it like a fragile thing.

For example, this might be a little weird, but I don’t use people’s bathrooms when I’m working. Like I’ll stop at a gas station if I have to use a bathroom. I try to always  kind of hold in reverence this place that is providing a sanctuary for them during their last moments. 

What has it felt like for you to be with so many people in their last moments?

 I just hope I’m doing a good enough job for them. And, surprisingly, I often am confident I’m doing what needs to be done. And what I want for people is, I want everybody to have a good death. And what that means to me is that they’re relaxed, they’re not scared, and they’re not in pain or uncomfortable.

The part of that I think is most difficult is making sure they’re not scared.

Because people, often times, they don’t want to go.

If it’s a younger person, they really don’t want to go. 

And people will ask me things like, ‘Is there any way you can give me more time?’

And that’s heartbreaking for me, because there’s not anything I can do to give them more time.

So that’s…that’s difficult. 

When you say young, what’s the youngest you think that you’ve cared for?

The youngest patient I’ve had was 18. A cancer patient. And that was pretty difficult. He was really, really angry.

I read that anger is often the bodyguard of sadness, and to try to get that person to release that anger with you, they need to trust you to be able to hold their sadness and care for it. 

And you have to build that. You have to really provide a therapeutic presence where they feel they can trust you.  

What are some other questions that people ask or things that they’ve said that you remember?  

People ask me a lot about death, like what I believe happens when we die, and what is it going to be like, what are they going to feel, is it going to be scary, is it going to be bad?

And I always tell them, with complete confidence, that it’s not going to be scary or bad because I’ll make sure that it’s not, and that is my task. 

And I’ve had doubts sometimes that I will be able to, but I think it’s really important to convey that to people and to let them trust you, because the last thing that they deserve is to be burdened with the thought that you might not be able to get them through this.  

How do you think being in this intimate space and being so close to death has impacted you as a writer? 

I’ve been told that I write about death, like non-stop. And I think that it hurts me a lot emotionally to see so much death, but it’s also like this deep wellspring of material that, whether I like it or not, is there and has gotta be written about now.  

What else have you been writing about since your first short story?

I’ve been writing a lot about different kinds of love, like relationships that are not romantic love.

Romantic love gets all the attention, I think, and so one thing that really interests me that has maybe a little to do with hospice, but not entirely, is the relationship of person and animal. 

People talk so much about what it’s like to lose a beloved animal and it’s not often taken that seriously by people.  

I also had a best friendship end and I thought about what it’s like when a best friendship breaks up, the pain of that, and how that’s not talked about, and how that can be worse and more difficult for people than a romantic relationship breakup, which is always considered to have a lot of gravity.

So I started thinking about how to write about those relationships, and how they can be so intense, and how that’s not really acknowledged, and how it’s difficult to write about and ask people to take it seriously. 

There is a tradition of writing about certain kinds of relationships, like a girl and her horse kind of stories. And that’s taken seriously, but it’s also considered juvenile, and I hate that.  So I wanted to write about relationships that evoke that level of gravity.  Because I think they really do for people in real life.

They absolutely do. I talked to a friend who had just lost her dog. I have one dog, he’s eight. And I’ve already said I will have exactly one dog because I’m already dreading ever losing him. And so it gives me comfort to know at least I’ll only have to do that once because I think I can only do it once.

But I’d asked her, what’s it really like to lose a dog? I’d never asked someone this before for whatever reason. And I’ll never forget it. We were just sitting around a banquet table at a work retreat. And I was like, ‘What’s it really like?’ She said, ‘If you’ve ever lost a person, it was just like that. I grieved the same way.’ And that really blew my mind. And of course I was like, ‘Oh no.’ But it also was a comfort to know that, Well this is real, you know? And not juvenile, right? Like that kind of love and that kind of relationship.

Do you have a special animal now or one you’ve lost?  

Oh yeah. I’ve lost many animals over the years. I’m a cat person, and I’ve lost many cats. And I’ve taken in a lot of cats who I knew at the time [didn’t have long to live]. I had a cat a number of years ago who had feline leukemia, and they told me when I adopted him that he will pass away, he won’t be with you for long. But I wanted to. 

He deserved for somebody to love him as hard as they could during that last part of his life, and I wanted to give that to him. But he really broke my heart at the same time.

A lot of animals have. And I’m a sensitive person. I’m the kind of person that if I see a dead bird I have to stop and put it under the tree and pay some respect and tell it, you know, I’m sorry this has happened to you.  

I’m really susceptible to feeling the importance of those individual lives.

We moved into a house in 2020, we moved from California to Florida because of my father in law’s dementia mostly. And it was really tumultuous. And I woke up the first morning and I saw a bunny in our backyard and I felt like so happy and so like, oh, I don’t know if I wanna call it a good sign, but it just felt like that moment of peace and joy, like it’s gonna be okay.  

And long story short, that bunny crawled up into a dryer vent in our house that was broken before we moved in and it couldn’t get back out.

Because there was only one way in, and it got stuck and it died. 

We didn’t know until we started smelling something. And I’d never, to my knowledge, smelled death before, but my husband and I both, without conferring, were like, this smells like death. Like some human thing knew in us that this is the smell of death.

And then it was a long process to figure it out what it was that died in our walls, but it still haunts me, and the idea that it couldn’t turn around.

So hearing you talk about that connection is comforting, because sometimes I think ‘Oh, no one would get that’ or ‘I’m crazy’ or ‘I’m too sensitive.’ So it’s comforting to hear someone, especially who has been around so much human death, to say, Yes, this is big too. 

What do you hope for next when you think about your writing, your career, where you’re going to live? 

I’m hoping that this next coming up year is going to be my last year of nursing  and that I will be able to, ya know I just bought a very modest property in Arkansas, in a beautiful area that not a lot of people know about.

I’m thinking about buying a mobile home and making a modest little life for myself.

I think at some point we have to decide what’s more important: being presentable to society or living the life we want?

And in my case, I feel being presentable to society is I keep working until I can’t anymore. I get a mortgage on a house. That’s like something impressive I can show off to people.

Or I can take the money I have saved up and live a more modest life that allows me to do more interesting things.

And there’s pros and cons to both of those. 

But I think it’s a good conversation to have with people and to decide for ourselves, to know you have a choice. 

Some people just go along with the presentable one and don’t even know that they have a choice. They don’t even know there’s the other option.

And so when other people take those other options it can be really inspiring to other people to realize, ‘Oh wait,  you can be a little wild?’

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You can learn more about Miah at her on her “not well tended” Instagram. We did this interview a year-and-a-half ago at time of publication, and upon review Miah told me she did indeed buy a small mobile home and is working only part-time hours and has had four stories accepted to literary journals. She’s also about to graduate with her MFA in a few days.