Raised in an orthodox neighborhood in Flushing, Queens, Cheryl's writing often intertwines yiddishe kopf with a certain kind of New Yawk flair. She is working on the tentatively titled photo-novel called Mutant Beauty, in which she explores tumultuous love via the famed love affair of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton through photographs, photographs of their photographs, excerpts from their love letters, and ephemera. The piece revolves around an old Hollywood collector who begins conversing with the ghost of Elizabeth Taylor. The collector seeks to find some universal answer to what love, passion, and desire is. Surely Elizabeth should know.

An excerpt from Mutant Beauty

“Elizabeth, I won the photo. The one of you in a leopard coat and matching cloche, holding Richard’s arm. Look at his swagger. That was the night you decided to chase down the paparazzi instead of waiting for them to pounce.

Look at those ankles, those kitten heels to match your kitten coat and hat. Look at how your right leg angles to the side. You make it look so natural. Perhaps it just is. Your perfect oval face, and raven hair concealed on said big cat hat, eyes heavily kohled, eyebrows inky perfection.

But let us not forget about Richard and his swagger, his left leg a few paces ahead of your petite legs. The squinting, the displeasure, the indecency of a life encircled by life camera lights. But Liz, Liz, you’re serene. You’re used to the spotlight. Richard just looks grumpy, a grumpy escort to the queen of Hollywood.”

“Oh, yes. I remember that. It was Rome. The very beginning of the scandal. We just didn’t care. We really didn’t. When you’re drawn to someone in that way, you start forgetting that there are people in this world you are connected to who have preceded this person. Like my husband at the time, Eddie Fischer, or Richard’s Sybil. We didn’t mean any harm. We just got wrapped up with other. It was that facockeda chemistry, I tell you. As if we were tied together by invisible sparks that lit up our each other only to obscure everyone else around. But what of the chemistry of the dead? Where is Richard? This is very unlike him. When did I die?”

“March 23, 2011. I had just started high school.

“That fucker, it’s been seven years. Where the hell is he? Richard? Where the fuck are you?

Liz and I order Chinese takeout.  I get vegetable lo main and steamed dumplings. We sit on the floor. “You know, they loved talking about my weight. It was never stable, I know, but I enjoyed food too much. And I knew that regardless of what my form looked like I’d still have those mesmerizing eyes and Richard would still want me. He’d often lay his head between my legs. I comforted the sad Welshman, he clung to me, he thrived off of my love for life.—This sesame chicken is delicious, by the way.” “Yeah, I like their food.” “It’s just delicious. Absolutely delicious.” She stops suddenly and recites the following in a trance:

Kabbalistic incantation, Summon your Solomon, His words and his dreams and his visions, Bring forth the maiden. Bring her forth. Whisper the incantation of death. Die by Kabbalistic word. Let the word undo you until you are no longer here, but here, and we shall bring forth the mathematics of creation. The word “Vayihi”—and so it was—the complexity of mathematical summation. Love is a product of this incantation. Ahava. Read it. In the beginning there was love. No in the beginning there was obsession. No in the beginning there was nothingness. Nothingness beget somethingness. And that girl is love. Like the speed of light flows past us, that we can never catch up with. The living swim in time—perhaps the ultimate creation—wadding in it until they can no longer breath. Eigenrau is the German word for the grey they see when their eyelids close.  A nothingness that is a somethingness. Love is the grey we seen when we close our eyelids.

And now Liz is nowhere to be seen. I am left shaking.

Cheryl has also written a fictional series revolved around a Jewish tattoo-artist name Raizel Rosengarten. Here are two selections from this which has been published in the online literary journal, The Squawk Back.

Selection from  "ו , ז , ח," Issue 114, The Squawk Back:         

Raizel had moved out and lived in an area of Williamsburg where beards bumped beards, where a hipster might be confused for a Chasid and vice versa. The men themselves often paused, looking each other in the eye, past the beard, scoping out the rest of the attire, to discern who was who. Things had gotten so confusing that a special meeting of the Chasidim in Williamsburg was convened to discuss “the question of the beard.” Some asked what use was the beard if they were beginning to become indistinguishable from the goyim? Others argued that the Torah says a yid may not bring a razor to his face and so it should stay. Taking both arguments into account, the council of Rabbanim that presided over the event concluded that the fashion of goyishe culture is always changing and therefore should not be a reason to alter their time-honored ways. “Recall,” they said, the 1960’s, “with the hippie-men who invaded the Catskills—our summer and weekend retreats—with their long beards. The current time is of course more dangerous because it has become “attractive” for a man to wear a beard, which means our men will just have to be more careful around the women who may throw themselves at them. This is a new nishayon that Hashem has given us. We will be strong.

Selection from " א , ב , ג , ד, ﬣ," Issue 62, The Squawk Back:

Ava finally reached the apex of the vertical incline of the building made of the self-same stone as she, making her upwards crawl almost imperceptible to the crowds below. She perched the globe at top and looked beneath it at a plaque with a passage struck in gold that when deciphered from of its original language read as follows:

She wasn’t sure of its significance but it seemed to recall some something in her memory, gnawing at it with great big claws. Had she forgotten something critical? She had a lingering suspicion that she had. Why had she come here in the first place? The statue could not say. So she crept back down the building and letting go of her finger grip purposely plunged herself down those many stories of rising air and shattered on the concrete, of the self-same material out of which she had been struck.

Publications

Spinner, Cheryl. "Snellen Chart." Gadfly. http://www.gadflyonline.com/home/index.php/snellen-chart/

Spinner, Cheryl. “Gagworthy.” The Garbage Issue. 01 June 2011. Squawk Back(thesquawkback.com). http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/06/gagworthy.html

Spinner, Cheryl. “The Art of Preservation. Issue 21, 07 September 2011. Squawk Back(thesquawkback.com). http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/09/art-of-preservation.html

Spinner, Cheryl. “Stoned Pigeons.” Issue 21, 07 September 2011. Squawk Back(thesquawkback.com). http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/09/stoned-pigeons.html

Spinner, Cheryl. “The Puddle Shrine. “The Art of Preservation. Issue 21, 07 September 2011. Squawk Back (thesquawkback.com). http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/09/puddle-shrine.html

Spinner, Cheryl. “The Art of Preservation. Issue 21, 07 September 2011. Squawk Back(thesquawkback.com). http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/09/art-of-preservation.html

Spinner, Cheryl. “Orson, La Di Dah.” Issue 32. 2012. Squawk Back (thesquawkback.com).http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/11/orson-la-di-dah.html

Spinner, Cheryl. “What a Spectacle.” Issue 32. 2012. Squawk Back (thesquawkback.com).http://www.thesquawkback.com/2011/11/what-spectacle.html

Spinner, Cheryl. ”א , ב , ג , ד, ﬣ .” Issue 56, 05 June 2012. Squawk Back (the squawkback.com).http://www.thesquawkback.com/2012/05/by-cheryl-spinner.html

Spinner, Cheryl “I’m a Hipster Lady.” Brittle Paper (brittlepaper.com).http://brittlepaper.com/2012/04/hipster-lady/