Mia Kirsi Stageberg

It’s scary and exhilarating to revisit my work that’s out of print! Reworking “Nisio and Shula” (1974) I found the original ending abrupt, had to go into it deeper though I couldn’t change its DNA, and it remained mysterious. In the original piece I’d held to a groove where psychic interactions carry the weight. Today I needed to show more of what Nisio and Shula hope for, suffer from, and need. The formatting process helps because you see it up close. Like Anaïs Nin said about typesetting by hand.

First I lived in Minneapolis, later other cities from East Coast to Southwest—also Haifa, Israel and Toronto. Along the way I loved working in Washington, DC to get the Americans With Disabilities Act passed. That said, I need artist friends, and I’d yearned for crazy-beautiful San Francisco for years. I finally made it early 1990s: ever-seething ocean, hills that defy streetcars, the intense Mission, vibrancy of North Beach, and now I’m glad to live in Japantown. I belong in this city, San Francisco.