Sheri Booker
Sheri Booker
Sheri Booker is an American author, poet, spoken word artist, and teacher. She is the author of Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home, a memoir about the near-decade she spent working at an inner-city funeral home in West Baltimore. Following the book's publication, she won an NAACP Image Award in the category of "Outstanding Literary Work from a Debut Author." She was nomi
"In urban culture, funeral directors have a certain level of prestige. Theyre right up there with preachers and politicians. They wear suits and drive Cadillacs and Lincolns. In the era of segregation, running a funeral home was one of the only ways that African-American men could legally make money and rise up…"
"Youth can be a great asset. When you’re young, if you have what is called a ‘crazy’ dream, no one is going to question it...Instead, if you are sincere and willing to do the work that prepares the way for your journey, others will often be inspired by you and partner with you to help you achieve your dreams."
"…I had to be in a different frame of mind to be able to deal with those families who were grieving, and a lot of emotions. But the rule was that I wasnt allowed to cry or be emotional regardless of what I saw on a day-to-day basis. So if it was a baby, if it was a homicide, if there was someone who died naturally, a cute, little old lady, I wasnt allowed to cry."
"The hardest lesson that I learned is that “rejection is protection”. Rejection never feels good, but as artists I think we tend to take rejection so personally. It can cause us to doubt our work or talent. However, rejection isn’t always someone saying we don’t like your work or you’re not talented. Sometimes it’s someone else recognizing that they can’t give you what you need to fly. It’s a venue saying this is not quite the right fit for you right now. That doesn’t mean that you won’t find home for your work. That doesn’t mean that venue won’t come looking for you one day. It means you have to keep working hard until you find the perfect fit and when the time is right it will work itself out."
