Author: princess1289 (Page 1 of 4)

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

Name: Matthew Murrey
Title of Piece published in Sweet:  Smoke
Issue:  9.3

Find him:

Twitter

Matthew is the librarian at Urban High School in Urbana, Illinois.  We can’t imagine a more perfect day than being surrounded by books.  You can find out more about him on his website https://www.matthewmurrey.net/.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

My biggest – which I’m still in disbelief over – is that Bulletproof, my first-book manuscript, was chosen this spring by Marilyn Nelson as the winner of Jacar Press’ full-length poetry manuscript competition.  It should be published by early 2019.  I had been trying to get a first-book published for over twenty years!

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I spent the summer working on a second book manuscript, and I’ve started sending it out.  I’m expecting it to get accepted by 2038!

Who is your favorite author?

Right now,  Ada Limón.  I just read her latest, The Carrying.  Ask me next month and I’m sure it will be someone else.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

The best book I’ve read in the last 3 years was The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist. Cotton, slavery, capitalism, cruelty and greed – blew me away.

What inspires you to write?

The pleasure of finishing a poem where it feels like I somehow got it right and the happiness that comes when someone else enjoys it too.

What is your favorite sweet?

I’m still into my weekend waffles made at home and eaten with butter and honey.

Thank you, Matthew, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future! Hopefully before 2038!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

Name: Stephanie Anderson
Title of Piece published in Sweet:  Flight Animals
Issue:  9.1

Find her:
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Instagram

Stephanie teaches creative and expository writing and literature interpretation at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

“I have the privilege of working with one of the most diverse student bodies in the country and serving alongside many excellent writers and scholars. Teaching is incredibly rewarding not only because of these students and colleagues, but also because the job allows me to help young people recognize and harness the power of writing – an act that empowers them in creative, social, emotional, and political terms.”

You can find out more about Stephanie and learn of upcoming events and appearances on her website.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

I am thrilled to share that my debut nonfiction book, One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture, will appear in January 2019 with University of Nebraska Press. Sweet readers might know from my essay “Flight Animals” that I grew up on a cattle ranch in South Dakota. After college, I worked as a farm journalist, and this book arose from my dismay over the disastrous effects of industrial agriculture. In One Size Fits None, I tell the stories of exceptional farmers from four states who practice various forms of regenerative agriculture, which means agriculture tailored to local environments that renews, rather than depletes or simply sustains, our nation’s degraded land. Regenerative agriculture also fights climate change and results in nutritious, ethically produced food for consumers. The book also traces a bit of my family’s history. You can read a synopsis and, if you feel so moved, order a copy here.

Since publishing in Sweet in 2016, I contributed to the essay collection Permanent Vacation: Eighteen Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks, Vol. 2 from Bona Fide Books and placed work in Kudzu House Quarterly, Midwestern Gothic, saltfront, and Foliate Oak. I also have pieces forthcoming this fall with Hotel Amerika and The Pinch, so stay tuned for new work!

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I am working on a collection of essays that explores rural life, the prairie, farm families (including mine), the Midwest generally, and other related themes. I am excited about this project because the essays vary in form and voice to include traditional narrative pieces, lyric and braided essays, and research-driven work. I hope to build a collection that stretches my creative limits and keeps the reader engaged through diversity and experimentation.

Who is your favorite author?

I’m not sure I can narrow it down to one, since “favorite” is highly dependent on my mood, what I’m currently working on, and the evolution of my understanding and taste. Since I often engage with the environment in my work, I’m going to name just a handful of the many talented people whose nature-driven nonfiction has influenced me: John McPhee, Annie Dillard, Michael Pollan, Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, and Terry Tempest Williams. 

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Another tough question! Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels,” Anthony Doerr’s short story “The Shell Collector,” and John McPhee’s essay “Travels in Georgia” are go-to works when I need a quick boost, no matter what I’m working on. 

What inspires you to write?

Often the need to understand or examine a thing, such as a life event or an emotion, inspires me to write. Sometimes writing arises from indignation over injustice, as with my book and several of my essays. Lately climate change, intolerance, and bigotry demand that I write. All writing, even the most personal memoir, is a reflection of the world, and now more than ever writers are obligated to respond to, critique, and make sense of that world. 

What is your favorite sweet?

My mom’s Christmas sugar cookies are my favorite sweet. I enjoy them most without frosting, so I always hold a few (okay, more like a dozen) off to the side when my siblings and I decorate them. Rolling the dough out thin will result in a crispier cookie that bakes very quickly, so keep an eye on them. I prefer to roll the dough out a bit thicker, around ¼ inch or more, for a cookie that’s soft on the inside but pleasantly crisp on the outside.

Cathy’s Sugar Cookies
2/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Thoroughly cream shortening, sugar, and vanilla using a mixer. Add egg and milk; beat until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients; blend into creamed mixture. Form dough into a ball, then divide in half. Cover and chill at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough on a floured surface to desired thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool slightly, then remove and cool completely.

Thank you, Stephanie, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

Name: Melanie McCabe
Title of Piece published in Sweet:  The Secret She Knows — Or Does Not
Issue:  9.3

Find her:

Facebook

Melanie teaches high school in Arlington, VA where she is trying to keep up with the writing pace “I maintained this summer, now that I have all these papers to grade.”
You deserve a gold star in our book, Melanie.

You can find out more about her on her website.

 What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

My memoir, His Other Life: Searching For My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams, which won the University of New Orleans Publishing Lab Prize, was published in September of 2017, and a piece that I wrote about it appeared in The Washington Post  in December.

I have also had new essays out in The Forge Literary Magazine, Barely South Review, and The Smart Set. 

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I am currently at work on a novel and made it through two-thirds of a rough draft before my teaching life resumed this September.

Who is your favorite author?

I don’t have a favorite, but I have many that are beloved. As an English teacher, I am usually far more immersed in the classics I teach than in contemporary work — by necessity. I am currently teaching Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and have always loved her work.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

I can never narrow choices down to a single favorite. A novel I admire a lot — and that I’ve taught– is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. I love what he does in that book with the balance between truth and storytelling.

What inspires you to write?

The opportunity it affords me to express my thoughts and to create something out of those thoughts. I don’t need to be inspired. I write because I can’t help but do so.

 What is your favorite sweet?

The best sweet she ever had was a piña colada cake her mother made one year for her birthday, and never made again.  That cake has achieved mythic status in her memory.

Although we can’t compare, Taste of Home thinks this piña colada cake tastes just like the drink. We think everyone should give it a try and share a piece with you.

Thank you, Melanie, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

 Name: Amber Rogers
Title of Piece published in Sweet:  Coiled
Issue:  9.1

Find her:
Twitter
Instagram

Amber teaches composition and creative nonfiction writing at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “I’m still challenging and engaging students through their writing processes. As for myself, I’m in a place of healing. After a year of personal loss, I’m spending this year writing to grow and heal.”  You can find out more about her on her website.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

I have recently been focusing more on the effectiveness of hybrid models in the composition and creative nonfiction classrooms. I have since presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication this past spring on the topic.

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I am currently part of a community of practice through my university, where I am pushed by my colleagues to write and submit more. I have two essays that are currently being polished by this committee.

Who is your favorite author?

I think my childhood heart will always adore Louis May Alcott and her characters in Little Women.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Favorite essay of the moment (that I now have the pleasure to teach) would have to be “White Horse” by Sarah Baird.

What inspires you to write?

I write to understand my own life and the people in it. There’s also a simple “high” I get off of writing, especially further on in the process when the sentences are building themselves, complicating and evolving.

What is your favorite sweet?

My favorite sweet is my mother’s Red Velvet cake. It has a roasted walnut cream cheese frosting, and, even though I’m in my thirties, she still dutifully makes it for me for my birthday. No link to the recipe; it’s a family secret!

I checked with Bon Appétit and they didn’t list your mother as the best in America, but since it’s a family secret, I’m guessing that is why they deferred to Macrina Bakery in Kent, Washington.  I’m sure it doesn’t even compare to your mom’s!

Thank you, Amber, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

 Name: Kristine Langley Mahler
Title of Piece published in Sweet:  Dominant/recessive
Issue:  9.2

Find her:

Twitter

Kristine can be found in the suburban prairie just outside Omaha, Nebraska. You can find out more about her on her website www.kristinelangleymahler.com.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

I completed my master’s degree!

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I’m still doggedly pursuing the privilege of home by examining my family’s four-hundred-year occupation on native land in Quebec, Wisconsin and Minnesota, but I am also nearing the completion of my book-length erasure of a 1963 Seventeen etiquette guide for teen girls

Who is your favorite author?

To look at my shelves, I’d have to say Margaret Atwood since I’ve got nearly every book she’s ever written, but I prize the two books Jo Ann Beard has written like gold.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

House of Rain by Craig Childs

What inspires you to write?

Shifts in memory

What is your favorite sweet?

Peach-blueberry pie with pecan crumble topping

3C blueberries
3C peeled/sliced peaches
1/2C sugar
zest + juice of one lime—combine and let it juice for 10 minutes.

Mix 3T cornstarch + 2T sugar, stir into the juiced fruit.

Cook in a basic pie crust at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

While it’s cooking, combine 3/4C flour, 3/4C pecan halves, 1/2C sugar, 1/4t salt + 6T cold, chopped butter in a food processor and pulse until it becomes crumbly. Add 1T milk, transfer the crumbs to a bowl, and rub between fingers until they make large crumbs. Refrigerate and spread on the top of the pie after the 30 minutes have elapsed. Reduce oven to 375 and cook for another 35 minutes.

Heaven.

That pie is gorgeous! Thanks for sharing the recipe!

Thank you, Kristine, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

Name: Ashley Inguanta
Title of Piece published in Sweet:
7 Ways of Unfolding and Dedication: To The One I Will Marry
Issue:  6.2 and 8.2

Photo by Delila Smalley

Find her:

Instagram

You can find Ashley in the Florida wilderness, on her friend’s farm teaching her daughter how to talk to horses. You can find out more about Ashley on her website www.ashleyinguanta.net or check out her art store Echo and Dime.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

I published a hardcover art and poetry collection, For the Woman Alone, with Ampersand Books in 2014. In 2016, Ampersand published my first full-length collection of poetry, Bomb.  I’ve also had the honor of working on my newest manuscript at Sundress Academy for the Arts.

Bomb, Ampersand Books, 2016

For the Woman Alone, Ampersand Books, 2014

The Way Home, Dancing Girl Press, 2013

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

For quite some time now I have been working on The Flower, a full-length collection of linked writings that explore time travel, the relationship between language and experience, and a house that changes with death. I am hoping this book will be out in 2019, but I am not in a rush.

 Who is your favorite author?

Francesca Lia Block

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Echo by Francesca Lia Block will always be very important to me.

What inspires you to write?

Windows. I love windows–metaphorical and physical. I’m not sure how to answer this question because it is so personal. Metaphorical windows as in perspectives, as in leaving and entering worlds, inspire me. Physical windows are also fascinating to me. In Florida there are lots of homes from the ’50s with very small windows, but then you have homes from the ’20s with rooms that are all windows. In one of my classrooms two walls are basically all windows. We keep the shades open, and when it rains, the mood changes in the room, and it may shift their writing. That shift–whether it’s large or subtle, and that connection to windows–inspires me.

What is your favorite sweet?

The last time you asked, it was chocolate cake. But now that the holidays are approaching, I have to say my favorite sweet is pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Pie always reminds me of my grandmother, so it’s one of my favorites. It just feels like home.

Thank you, Ashley, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

Name: Jill Kolongowski
Title of Piece published in Sweet:  Drought, Tuesday Afternoon
Issue:  9.1

Find her:
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook

Jill can be found “on my couch, commenting on terrific essays for my teaching gig at College of San Mateo, reading the next book in the Expanse series, or watching the Great British Baking Show.” Us too!  Love that show.

You can find out more about Jill on her website www.jillkwrites.com – which is super cool, by the way.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

I published my first book, a collection of essays (part personal essay, part literary criticism) called Life Lessons Harry Potter Taught Me. Each essay treats a theme in the series (like friendship, food, or feminism) both as a writing professor and as a Hufflepuff who’s loved the series since childhood.

Purchase Here

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I’m doing research for my second book, tentatively called Tiny Disasters, a collection of essays about how we respond to disasters both large and small.

Who is your favorite author?

That’s always changing! But I come back to two for their sentences over and over: Jo Ann Beard and Joan Didion.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

This, too, is always changing! I refuse to pick just one: Eula Biss’s essay “Notes from No Man’s Land,” Brian Doyle’s essay “Joyas Voladoras,” and Jo Ann Beard’s book The Boys of My Youth.

What inspires you to write?

Truthfully, I rarely feel inspired to write. The act of writing itself inspires me–I write to find those moments of discovery and connection, when something new and unexpected arises and the piece starts to tell me what it’s about. Failing that, only reading can inspire me.

What is your favorite sweet?

I rarely eat sweets because I have no self-control, but I love the Secret Breakfast ice cream at Humphrey Slocombe in San Francisco (bourbon ice cream with cornflake cookies), and the raspberry rosemary old-fashioned doughnut at Blue Star Donuts in Portland, Oregon.

Thank you, Jill, for taking the time to reconnect with us.  We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.

Name: Leslie Salas
Title of Piece published in Sweet: ”Picky Eater”
Issue: 4.3

Find her:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

Leslie is now an instructor of Humanities & Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.  You can follow her on social media or check out her website https://lesliesalas.com/.

What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?

I have two book anthologies out now: Other Orlandos (Burrow Press, 2017) and Condoms & Hot Tubs Don’t Mix: An Anthology of Awkward Sexcapades (Beating Windward Press, 2018).

Other Orlandos

Condoms and Hot Tubs

Podcast of Interview

I also joined the Sweet masthead as the editor for graphic narrative (and comics poems) and have helped create and/or run three different creative writing conferences. I’ve also presented my creative and pedagogical works at several regional and national conferences such as AWP, CEA, and more.

Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?

I’m helping edit a collection of academic essays about Florida literature, and I’m really excited about the scope of the project (as well as the particular chapter I’ll be contributing). I’ve also been slowly chipping away at an academic textbook (written in comics format) but it will probably be a while before that particular project becomes a finished reality. In terms of my own creative endeavors, I’m working on a novel and have been putting the final touches on a poetry manuscript.

Who is your favorite author?

I love a lot of different authors for different reasons; don’t make me choose!

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

See above. But I will say that I do have Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” hanging in my office, and I keep recommending David Mazzuchelli’s Asterios Polyp and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. So those are some of my favorites, but in no way is this a comprehensive list.

What inspires you to write?

I can’t not write. It is part of how I process the world around me, especially in terms of digesting any reactions I have to current events.

What is your favorite sweet?

I recently learned that I’m allergic to dairy! As in, cannot process casein, so it isn’t even a lactose intolerance thing, it’s a cannot-consume-any-cow-milk-products-thing. Finding non-dairy substitutes for some of my favorites (like donuts and cake and brownies and cookies and whipped cream) has been a challenge, but luckily there are a lot of allergy-free things on the shelves (and lots of recopies online, too!) so it isn’t too bad. I will say I’m a sucker for the brownie cupcakes at McKenna’s NYC Bakery in Disney Springs!