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: Katrina Vandenberg
Title of Pieces Published in Sweet: “Mandala,” “Black Bears and Their Bear-Dreams,” “Two Bracelets”
Issue:  9.1

Katrina teaches creative writing and lives in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. When not at school, she is usually hanging out with her eight-year-old daughter Anna. You can learn more about Katrina by visiting her website.

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

I got tenure! I took my first sabbatical. Recently I published two feature-length essays, “Jam” — speaking of sweets — in Image and “Essence of Lavender” in Orion. I also have an essay about writers’ conferences (in which I do not mention social media at all) in a forthcoming issue of Poets and Writers.

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

I’m working on a book of essays around the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory near our house, where it’s never winter, even though here in Saint Paul we have snow on the ground for at least five months of the year.

 Who is your favorite author?

I don’t think that I have one. I came to writing through poetry, and what I loved most of all were individual poems. I liked to write them out by hand and collect them in notebooks, collaging together all these highly lucid and charged flashes of insight from dozens or even hundreds of people across space and time. My first favorite poet was Emily Dickinson, when I was seven or eight. I loved how small her poems were. As an adult I still love how complicated she is, and counter-cultural in a lot of ways. If I had to pick only one person, I would say her. But only if you made me pick one.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

The two best books I read this year were Powers of Two: How Relationships Drive Creativity by Joshua Shenk, and The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. I don’t know that I have a favorite anything. I read a lot, and the books and poems that live in my head rise to the surface when I need them. A few years ago, I re-read Theodore Roethke’s poem “In a Dark Time the Eye Begins to See” every day for over a month. At one point in my life I really needed the odes of John Keats, and at another time I needed Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, and at another time I needed James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son.” I nearly always seem to need E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.

What inspires you to write?

I used to sit down to write with the desire to say something, but these days I tend to sit down in order to see what will happen. I don’t mean that writing is a game, or about cleverness or “nothing” – far from it. I do think that I am finally coming to terms with the fact that my subconscious self is smarter than my conscious self. So, work creates its own inspiration.

What is your favorite sweet?

Several years ago, I wrote a poem called “Consuming Desire,” in part about the locally-famous cakes at the Saint Paul wine bar Café Latte. I don’t eat much dessert these days, but if I were going to, I could do far worse than the cake there. Here is the Café Latte dessert menu, complete with photographs, in all its glory.

Thank you, Katrina, 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: Kathleen Rooney
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: “Ten Declarations on the Superiority of Roots”
Issue: 5.2

Find Her:
Facebook
Twitter
Kathleen can be found teaching English and Creative Writing at DePaul University, composing Poems While You Wait, and editing hybrid books at Rose Metal Press. You can learn more about Kathleen by visiting her website.

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

I published my novel Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk with St. Martin’s Press in 2017, and my novel in flash fictions and prose poems The Listening Room: A Novel of Georgette & Loulou Magritte with Spork Press, and my World War I novel Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is coming out with Penguin in August of 2020.

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

I’m most excited at the moment about the forthcoming novel because it tells the true story of two formerly famous, but now almost totally forgotten figures from the Great War, Cher Ami, a heroic messenger pigeon, and Major Whittlesey, a diligent soldier.

Who is your favorite author?

Oh man, that’s impossible! But right at this very moment, I’m very into Bette Howland, a Chicago author who fell out of print, but is now coming back thanks to the reissue of her work by A Public Space. I cannot recommend her story collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage highly enough.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Bill Knott (RIP) was my teacher at Emerson, and I love his last book, I Am Flying Into Myself: Selected Poems.  It was a huge honor to get to review it for the New York Times when it came out.

What inspires you to write?

Curiosity.

What is your favorite sweet?

Butterscotch anything, but especially Smitten Kitchen’s Butterscotch Sauce. You can put it on anything and improve it a millionfold. I could drink it, practically: https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/12/ridiculously-easy-butterscotch-sauce/

Thank you, Kathleen, 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: Peter Grandbois
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: “To Sing and Begin Again”
Issue: 10.2

Find him:
Facebook

Peter teaches creative writing and coaches fencing at Denison University, a small liberal arts college near Columbus, Ohio. The town of Granville is great. He never has to worry about parking, which is a big relief after living in Chicago and the Bay Area. You can learn more about Peter by visiting his website.

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

I had a novel come out in April. It’s called half-burnt and deals with the murder of one of the most famous Ojibwe chiefs, Hole in the Day. It’s a weird book in that it’s historical but also experimental in that it’s made up of four different narrative frames that slowly conflate as the book progresses. I also have a new book of poetry called The Three-Legged World coming out in April 2020 from Etruscan Press. It’s being published together with books by James McCorkle and Robert Miltner and called, Tripytch. I’m thrilled to be in the company of such wonderful poets.

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

I have two current projects. The first is a book of poetry. Not sure what the unifying themes in that book are yet, but I’ve written a lot of poems! The second is a book of flash fictions/prose poems currently titled, Domestic Bestiary. Each piece is either told from the point of view of an animal or insect in our domestic realm or features one as a central part of the story. I think of that book as a sort of companion or sister book to my earlier collection, Domestic Disturbances.

Who is your favorite author?

An impossible question…. so many writers I deeply deeply love. I can only list a few that happen to come to mind at the moment for both fiction and poetry. On the fiction side currently there’s Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Yoko Ogawa, and Javier Marías…. but old and constant favorites include José Saramago, Steven Millhauser, Ana Maria Shua, the list goes on….. In terms of poetry, some current favorites are Joanna Klink, Charles Wright, Laura Kasischke, and Kevin Prufer….. but old favorites include Mark Strand, W.S. Merwin, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Again, too tough to answer as there are so many…I can only say what poem, essay, book happens to pop into my head.

Poem: Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole”

Essay: Margot Singer’s “Call it Rape”

Book: Leena Krohn’s Tainaron: Mail From Another City

What inspires you to write?

I think, like most writers, I write to stay sane. It’s my response to the world, to life. I write because I enjoy playing with words. I enjoy discovering different aspects of myself. I write because I’m curious about the world, about what it means to be human. I write because I want to share that deep part of myself and my experience in the only way I know how.

What is your favorite sweet?

I love dark chocolate turtles with pecans and caramel! I also love toffee, and carrot cake and cheese cake!

Thank you, Peter, 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: Maya Lowy
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: “Drunken Forest
Issue:  10.3

Find her:

Twitter

Maya has been all over the world lately, but her sights are currently set on moving to England and finally setting up her dream library. Fingers crossed that that works out soon! Maya does not currently have a website.

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

I just got married! That feels huge; it sets off a new, cozier chapter of my life.

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

For the past year, I’ve been working on fiction (young adult) for the first time in a long time. It’s a very slow process for me, in contrast to the instant gratification feeling I can often get from poems, but I’m writing a story that I would want to read, and that’s been really fun.

Who is your favorite author?

Lately, I’ve been really impressed by Colson Whitehead, who I recently saw at a reading. I’ve now read three of his books, most recently The Intuitionist, and I have a lot to learn from his pacing and tone. I’m also currently enamored with Shirley Jackson. Again, pacing and tone– she’s so expertly subtle and funny and scary at the same time.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

It hurts to be asked this question… like being asked which child is your favorite. I can always return to One Hundred Years of Solitude, so I’m just going to settle there for now.

What inspires you to write?

Sometimes, it’s a spotlit moment that cries out to be captured. Sometimes, it’s a truth so wild and exciting I want to share it. Sometimes, I just want to read something that understands how I feel.

 What is your favorite sweet?

My husband and I just got back from a road-trip honeymoon; some highlights for me were the cherry pie at Snoqualmie Lodge outside of Seattle, the banana pancake at Surrey’s in New Orleans (only get one!), tres leches cake at Matt’s El Rancho in Austin, and the cookies at Kanab Creek Bakery in Kanab, Utah. We’re going to try our hand at baking croissants this week, using a bread machine to help with the dough. (By the way, I’m a big fan of bread machines and encourage everyone to liberate one from your local thrift store.) Wish us luck!

Thank you, Maya, 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: Ellen Stone
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: “Today is the Sabbath of medicine” and “Dear garden shed”
Issue:  10.

Ellen lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has recently retired from Community High School where she taught high school special education and English for over 20 years. She continues to advise the Poetry Club there. Currently, you can find Ellen in her garden, the woods, the kitchen, the backyard with her dog, at a poetry event, or writing somewhere in my house.

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

I just found out my first full length book of poems, What Is in the Blood is coming out next March with Mayapple Press. This collection has been a long time coming and is largely based on growing up with and now caring for my mom who is bipolar. I have a sonnet coming out next winter or spring in the first American abortion anthology, Choice Words: Writers on Abortion edited by Annie Finch.  My poem, “In Wisconsin” was chosen by The Citron Review as one of 10 poems they published in an anthology to celebrate their first decade of publishing.  I have also been honored to have poems nominated for the Pushcart prize or Best of the Net by Two Cities Review, Up North Lit, and Eastern Iowa Review.

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

I am currently working on a new book with a working title, Daughters Leaving Home in the Age of Aggression – that deals with the complexity of watching three daughters in their twenties find their way in the world as a mother who is an assault survivor.

Who is your favorite author?

Oh, that is impossible… Recently, I have been reading C.D. Wright, Diane Seuss, Jericho Brown, Ilya Kaminsky, and Camille Dungy. So many poets and writers transfix me with their words.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Again, I cannot say I have a favorite poem, essay or book – there are too many to mention.  If I to go back to old favorites, though, I would reread some of James Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Thomas Hardy, Rita Dove, Ross Gay…see what I mean?

What inspires you to write?

I write for fun, or for joy, or to explore ideas.  I write to help quell intense feelings that overtake me.  I also write to help me cope with overwhelming situations, or to solve problems.

What is your favorite sweet?

I think I would be inclined to say, pie is my favorite sweet, but to be honest, I tend to make crisps more often because they are easier. I also adore plum jam…it has just the simplest, but most transcendent flavor.  Ann Arbor’s Farmer’s Market had prune plums this fall that I washed, pit, cut in two, and cooked down with some sugar or honey and lemon.  That jam will keep us going through the winter!

 Thank you, Ellen, 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 Patterson
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: “Running” and “Heat”
Issue:  10.2

Find her:

Twitter
Instagram

Jill can be found in West Texas, at Texas Tech University, trying to survive a crazy fall semester. You can learn more about Jill by visiting her website.

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

I received a Pushcart Prize, and one of my essays was listed as notable in Best American Essays of 2018.

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

I just finished a nonfiction book, written in flash chapters, about a capital murder case I covered, working as the defense team’s storyteller. Both the perpetrator and the victim owned arsenals (over fifty guns in the first, over a hundred in the latter), and the two men taunted each other into a gunfight. The case serves as the book’s plotline, but there are pop-up “chapters” on shooting ranges, self-defense, Archie comics, John Wick, baseball, water pistols, Harold Edgerton, Ted Cruz, active shooter training, snake charmers, etc. The book is a meditation, a long lyric essay, on guns in America.

Who is your favorite author?

Just one? I can’t even. Current writers I’m reading: Landon Houle, Elissa Washutta, Jehanne Dubrow, and I cannot wait to crack open Mitchell S. Jackson’s Survival Math, Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, and Toni Jensen’s forthcoming Carry.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Melanie Rae Thon’s Sweet Hearts remains one of my favorite books of all time—I still admire the storyline, the sound of her language, the compassion and grace of this book, and what mercy Thon feels for her protagonist, Flint Zimmer.

What inspires you to write?

Finding patterns, connections; digging deep into a subject; chasing rabbits.

What is your favorite sweet?

If you’re heading to AWP San Antonio, don’t miss the Mexican Donuts at the Iron Cactus on the Riverwalk: sweet cream filling, powdered sugar, Kahlúa fudge sauce. I love them! My favorite dessert; I wish I knew how to make them!

Thank you, Leslie, 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: Maxima Kahn
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: Following the Footsteps
Issue: 10.3

Find Her:
Facebook
Twitter
Maxima lives in a beautiful little town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, part of the amazing Yuba River watershed. Maxima’s website is currently under reconstruction, but you can learn more about her by visiting her blog and Patreon.

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

I’m deliriously excited that my first full-length collection of poems, Fierce Aria, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. This comes after years of intensive work on it and sending it to a lot of contests and presses. So, if you’re sending your manuscript around, keep at it! I’ve also had poems published in a bunch of wonderful literary journals since Sweet and essays on popular blog sites. And I helped to put on the Sierra Poetry Festival last year, which was amazing. Forrest Gander was our keynote. We are underway planning this year’s festival: https://www.sierrapoetryfestival.org/

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

I am writing new poems and essays and also working on a book on how to ignite and sustain the fires of your creativity, which is my area of expertise.

Meanwhile, my Patreon site has turned out to be a source of immense pleasure for me, to be able to intimately share my working process, my ups and downs and insights, my poems-in-process, and to converse with others about their creative process, has been so wonderful.

Who is your favorite author?

I don’t have just one. In fact, there are truly way too many to name. Here are a few of the long-time faves: J.D. Salinger, Jorie Graham, Rainer Maria Rilke, A.R. Ammons, Mark Doty. Here are a few recent reads that have totally inspired me: Tracy K. Smith, Joan Houlihan, Rusty Morrison.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

Again, this is an impossible question. Two books that changed my life include Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Mary Oliver’s American Primitive.

What inspires you to write?

I wanted to say everything, but truthfully a few things inspire me more than anything else: 1) Reading great writing, especially adventurous, remarkable, smart writing with dazzling, surprising use of language. 2) Wrestling with how to be a human being on planet Earth—ideas, questions, feelings. 3) Partaking of amazing art of any kind. These three things really get me going.

What is your favorite sweet?

Last night I had delicious dark chocolate with cherries from Chocolove. These are cool because they are fair trade and also come with a poem in them. Here’s a link in case anyone wants to buy me one! https://www.chocolove.com/shop/fair-trade-organic-dark-chocolate-cherries-73-cocoa/

Thank you, Maxima, 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: Laura Donnelly
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: An Ordinary Sleep
Issue:  9.3

Find her:

Twitter

Laura can be found teaching poetry at SUNY Oswego, digging in her garden, or watching the latest season of the Great British Bake Off. You can learn more about Laura by visiting her website.

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

I recently learned that my second collection of poems, Midwest Gothic, was selected by Maggie Smith for the Richard Snyder Poetry Prize. It’s slated for publication by Ashland Poetry Press in 2020.

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

While working on the new book, Midwest Gothic, I’ve often returned to Virginia Woolf’s comment that “we think back through our mothers.” More specifically, I’ve been thinking back through my mother and grandmothers’ relationship to a specific kind of rural life and religion that my mother (and I) eventually left. That leaving was both an escape and a loss, and this project tries to hold those truths side-by-side.

Who is your favorite author?

Some of my early favorites that I still return to: Jane Kenyon for grounding, Naomi Shihab Nye for wonder, Ellen Bryant Voigt for music; and Woolf, of course, who I mention above.

What is your favorite poem/essay/book?

A few of my favorite books from this past year: Ross Gay’s Book of Delights, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweet Grass, and Richard Powers’ Overstory. My reading obsessions are turning increasingly towards gardening and the environment.

What inspires you to write?

I recently saw the documentary about the pianist Seymour Bernstein (Seymour: An Introduction), and there’s a marvelous part in it about the way that practicing music is really about listening. About being deeply attentive. Poetry provides a space for a similar kind of attention, and in that space, I often find my poems know more than I do, are more honest or aware or… something. That might not exactly be an inspiration, but it’s a deep pull that keeps me coming back to poetry.

What is your favorite sweet?

The best thing I’ve eaten all year is this bowl of strawberry-rhubarb crisp topped with vanilla ice-cream.

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