We recently had the chance to connect with Sharisse Coulter and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Sharisse, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Integrity, for sure. Inspired by Rachel E. Cargle’s A Renaissance of Our Own, I set a three-word intention for the year: Integrity, Empathy, Ease.
Those words are more than vague ideas to me. So many things are entirely outside of my control. Living within my integrity—following through on commitments, helping those in need, being truthful even when it’s inconvenient, and speaking truth to power—is within my control. And every day I try to live in a way that my future self can be proud of.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Sharisse Coulter and I am a storyteller. Specifically, an author, photographer, and filmmaker based in San Diego. Whether writing fictional stories about women who are the heroines in their own lives, creating custom fantasy composites that capture the imagination, or capturing real-life people, events, and stories for clients and businesses, the cornerstone of everything I do is storytelling.
Right now I’m really excited to be finishing a second draft of my third novel, which will be the start of a feminist mystery series. This has been my favorite character to write and I can’t wait to release it into the world. It’s a light multi-generational romp about taking down the patriarchy.
I’m also stoked to be reading a newly released memoir I helped edit called The Book of Bipolar According to Veronica, by my friend Veronica May. It offers a unique perspective to explore what it is to have or to love someone who has this diagnosis. Parts of the book were even written in mania, and I love how the blending of the lucid with the manic sheds light on something most of us only ever see from the outside. Whenever we get a glimpse into someone else’s reality, we build our capacity for empathy.
My other unexpected joy recently has been my portrait photography business. I’ve had the immense honor of getting to be part of so many family’s big moments: newborn shoots, engagements, family reunions, kid composites, and big life events. I never take for granted what a special thing it is for someone to trust me to capture the beauty and emotion of these moments. Walking into people’s homes and seeing photos I’ve taken printed and displayed for them to enjoy daily is so gratifying.
At the heart of my business, I’m always trying to figure out: what is the story you want to tell and how can I help?
Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
What a great yet tough question to answer. As it happens, I’ve spent the last number of years deconstructing and unlearning a lot of toxic messages of womanhood and misogyny that I was raised with, trying to uncover the real “me” beneath it all.
Before I knew what was expected of me, I was a confident, happy, creative kid, who wanted to climb trees, swim in the ocean, and make up worlds in my head. That girl believed in herself completely. She believed in her athletic abilities. She delighted in her imagination. She was empathetic. Kind. Optimistic. She loved to read. And the one thing she could never tolerate was injustice.
I’m still working to rebuild that confidence I had early on, that society told me I didn’t deserve. I no longer see trees and think I need to climb them, but I do still love to play in the ocean. I get lost in my imagination daily. And I have never learned to tolerate injustice.
Every day I strive to be a little truer to that girl than the day before. To bring back that unfettered joy and optimism. To be a person that girl would have looked up to. Maybe that’s all any of us can do.
When did you last change your mind about something important?
For 35 years, I’d always been straight. And then suddenly, I found myself falling in love with a woman. I’d never so much as had a crush on a woman before.
So many of my gay friends told me their stories of a-ha! moments, when they followed their sexuality and finally everything made sense. I didn’t have that.
I had always crushed on and dated men. I even married one. I loved them fully. Nothing about those experiences changed for me. I mean yeah, I’d also experienced plenty of disappointment dating men. During my post-divorce dating period, after a particularly terrible experience, I remember lamenting to my friend that “It would be so much easier if I just liked women!”
But I’d never been attracted to women. Until I was. And now I’m married to an extraordinary woman and we are blissfully happy. No one in my life, least of all me, expected this turn of events.
I am exceedingly aware of and grateful for the all the activists and brave souls who paved the way for me to have the privilege to openly explore this new side of myself. At no other point in history could I have safely followed this whim.
I didn’t have an a-ha! moment. I don’t feel like any of the LGBTQ+ designations quite fit how I feel, despite the fact that I am married to a lesbian. When people ask me now, I just say: I’m not straight. I’m curvy.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
Empowering women. Any one of my friends would laugh and tell you at least one story I have told them (unprompted, most likely) about some terrible thing the patriarchy has done to disempower women. I started learning more and more about all the ways that our gender has been intentionally held back and, back to my issue with injustice, I can’t let it go. It’s probably good that I have writing and photography as outlets, because otherwise I would be insufferable.
Instead, it’s led to me being the photographer and videographer for the empowerment camp, Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls San Diego for the past ten years. It’s an incredible nonprofit that serves girls and nonbinary youth ages 8-17.
I also created a series of composite images during the pandemic highlighting the everyday Sheros whose vital contributions are often overlooked in our society.
And in my writing I am very intentional in creating female characters who have full lives, struggles, and romances, but are always the heroines of their own stories.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What light inside you have you been dimming?
Around ten years ago, I looked at a photo of myself and could no longer see the light in my eyes. I was lost. Not unhappy in any specific way, but no longer myself. I felt nihilistic, like nothing really mattered.
After much inner exploration (and therapy) I realized that I had been trying to fit other people’s narratives of who I should be, what I should do, what I should want. None of them were me. And honestly, I didn’t even know what I DID want.
I wasn’t raised in an artistic family. It’s not that I was discouraged, it just wasn’t a topic of conversation. Ever. So it took me a long time to value that part of myself. To stop believing in the starving artist myth. To believe that the weird way I see and interpret the world is valuable and important, rather than self-indulgent.
After experiencing quite a lot of trauma throughout my young life, I coped by adapting to the needs and expectations of others. It insured my safety, which was the most important thing to me. But as I’ve grown into myself, I have cultivated a safe environment with supportive people around me. I can let those expectations go.
What matters to me now is making sure that whatever I do, whatever I create, fully aligns with my personal integrity. I don’t have to understand the source of my own light to value it. I’ll never know how many people will benefit from the light I put out into the world. None of us do. But I would love to live in a world where none of us can see where our light ends and anyone else’s begins because we are all emitting our brightest light possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sharissecoulter.com
- Instagram: @SharisseCoulter
Image Credits
Sharisse Coulter
