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: David Macey
Title of Piece published in Sweet: Drinking the OED
Issue: 7.2
Find him:
Twitter
David resides in Chicago, which he highly recommends. Our founding editor, Ira Sukrungruang would probably concur. We asked if he had a website, but he responded with, “No. The internet is a fad, I’m pretty sure.” Chicago seems to breed humor, too. We like it.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
Well, I finished my PhD program by writing a dissertation on the history of fake news (and its thematic place in literature) in early modern England. [Dusts off hands in self-satisfied fashion.] I also co-authored two children with my wife—that was good, too. In addition to poetry, essays, and the odd Latin translation, I’ve started to publish fiction. You can read one of my short shorts, “The Far-Off Thunderheads,” at AGNI Online here.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m working on a couple of weird short stories that I’m still jazzed about. I recently published some linked poems about my daughter’s ongoing struggle with learning to speak—you can read them in a lovely issue of Ecotone and also for free at Project MUSE. It’s a poetry sequence I’m starting to expand into a book-length work, or so I think, which is both exhilarating and scary.
Who is your favorite author?
For the last few years I’ve been reading a lot of Steven Millhauser, so he’s certainly a favorite. I think Jorge Luis Borges is up there for me too. I read a lot of Shakespeare for my job, and you know what?—that guy’s got the goods.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Favorites are for dullards and zealots (jk, jk), but I will say that Wallace Stevens’ poem “Of Mere Being” is a stunner. The short story I read most recently that walloped me was Andrea Lee’s “La Ragazza.”
What inspires you to write?
Fame and fortune? And I guess less glibly: I enjoy the high of beginning something and I enjoy the satisfaction of something being completed. All that hard writing work in the middle is dreadful though.
What is your favorite sweet?
At the moment, I’d like a slice of tres leches cake—a dessert which, fortunately for my figure, I have no idea how to make myself. (I do a pretty mean key lime pie, however.)
(credit: Ben Fink/Getty Images)
There are no doubt a lot of panaderias slinging tres leches in Chicago, but my favorite thus far is the housemade tres leches at an Andersonville taco joint called Diamante Azul. Half the time they’re out of that cake, which makes it all the sweeter.
While it didn’t make the top list from CBS Chicago, we can believe it’s pretty good.
Thank you, David, for taking the time to reconnect with us. We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
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