SmokeLong Quarterly

You’re Managing Editor of Split Lip Press. Can you tell us about your experience there? How has it influenced your own writing?

I am actually the publisher, which means I am managing editor, publicist, reader, copyeditor, etc. I have a great team of volunteers and could not do it without them, but I always joke that this is a one-woman show. I love getting to work on longform books with authors–SL Press authors, for the most part, have become like family to me. It isn’t always easy running the press due to finances and also because it takes time away from my own paid and creative work. But it is gratifying. In terms of my own book, I believe I have become a better writer by osmosis, as well as from conversations and line editing. I try to look at my own work with a more critical eye now and a little distance.

What could a writer do to make you keep reading? What is one thing that would make you stop reading a story?

Make me laugh or cry, that’s a sure thing. Also, I admit to being enamored with anything to do with sex and desire and love and the body. Those are some personal obsessions that find their way consistently into my own work. To make me stop reading: bore me. Or be a misogynist/racist/homophobe/etc.

What themes do you find yourself returning to in your own writing?

Ah, see above! Sex and desire and love and the body. Also motherhood, spirituality and shame, connection (especially in the digital age).

What kind of story would you love to see in the queue this week?

I am always impressed by someone who can pull off a happy ending (and not be trite): hope is truly subversive in times like these.