Sandee Gertz Wrote About Being An Accidental Transplant From North To South

For Pittsburgh Quarterly, Sandee Gertz wrote about her experience moving from Pittsburgh to Nashville. She told Study Hall, “Tennessee is the Volunteer State, but I never raised my hand. As a native Western Pennsylvanian, I thought I’d never live anywhere else. I wrote poems and essays, and an entire poetry collection, about ‘being part of this (PA) earth’  and researched geology and geography for much of my place-based writing.”

She added, “But suddenly exiled to the South just over a decade ago, I started a new life in Music City, landing in a loft in the midst of the once-bustling publishing district, Printers Alley. I rebuilt myself, but the longings still stirred for home. This essay makes peace with the uneasiness of home being in two distinct places.”

Gertz’s work has been published in Poets Quarterly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and numerous other outlets.