Meet writer MD Marcus
Story by: Anita Purnell
Photo by Dreamfiendzmedia
This month’s cover girl, MD Marcus, will be the first
to tell you she’s no model. “I’m a writer,” she clarifies,
and as a staff writer for both Simply Elevate Magazine and PBSNet, she enjoys interviewing artists and
profiling local hot spots. In addition to these articles,
she is currently penning a memoir that touches on both
losing her sister to an aggressive and merciless cancer
and also on the struggles maintaining mental stability.
Ultimately, she attests that poetry is her first and truest
literary love. On writing poetry, MD Marcus describes
an inner conflict to find a balance between learning
and refining the technical skills of writing and the rawness and purity of emotion and creation.
“I was given advice from a noted writer, publisher,
etc. who also happens to be a particularly brilliant,
pun intended, human being. Alan Brilliant once told
me that ‘what fundamentally makes a poem good is
that it shakes something inside of you.’ That’s what
poetry, and writing in general, does for me- it shakes
something inside of me, it makes me feel that I am not
alone, it’s completely magical. That’s what I hope to
give to other people someday, a feeling that someone
else has been where they’ve been, walked where they
may find themselves walking, to make them hold up
this ordinary object and view it in a way they have
never seen it before, and to feel a little less alone. I
also know that I write because I sometimes find it difficult to express myself verbally. Writing is a way for
me to get all of the things going on inside of me out
and to try and make sense of it all.”
When asked where she is from, she hesitates while debating how to answer the question. “Kind of all over.”
She explains that she was born in Wheeling, WV but
has no recollection of the town or state because her
parents moved when she was still an infant. From
there, she moved to her mother’s home, Kentucky.
Relocating again at age 4, she found herself in Grand
Rapids MI until the age of 11. “This was the place
I was saddest to move from,” she reminisces. After
Michigan, she’s lived in several cities in North Carolina, before finally settling in Raleigh.
Although MD Marcus never quite felt at home in any
one location, she’s found solace in books which were
a source of consistent companionship. “I made friends
with librarians everywhere I moved,” she jokes.
This passion for books was evident since childhood. “I
can look back through the years of my life, and I know
I’ve always had a deep love and appreciate for books.
I have vivid memories of the libraries I visited in my
youth and the feelings of wonder and infinite possibilities while browsing their rows of bookcases, of
the bookstores I would walk to whenever I was lucky
enough to have money of my own to spend, of faking
sick to stay home from school just to read the newest
Babysitter’s Club book, of playing ‘library’ during the
summer and challenging myself to read at least 100
books over the break...really I could go on all day and
make myself sound like the biggest nerd in the world!
www.simplyelevate.com
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