Austin Daily Herald — Sammi Jones ’08 knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer but being part of a women’s roller derby team — well, that was a bit of a surprise.
So much so, that even today, some eight years later, the Austin native’s voice still holds a hitch of astonishment when she speaks of it.
After she earned her bachelor’s degree at St. Cloud State University, Jones worked for two years on her master’s thesis in creative writing at Minnesota State University at Moorhead. Then, she got her first look at the Fargo-Moorhead Roller Derby Girls.
Fascinated by the sport and its players, she decided in 2010 that she was “going to go out and try it myself — it was just so far-fetched,” she emphasized with a chuckle.
Her subsequent experiences as a member of the team — and how her life tracked with the sport and off the sport’s track — are the stuff of “Derby Girl,” her memoir of that time.
