May 29

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
May 29, 1917: John F. Kennedy born.

Q&A with Sara B. Franklin

 

Photo by Katrin Bjork

 

Sara B. Franklin is the author of the new biography The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America. Her other books include The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook. She is a food writer and historian, and she teaches at New York University.

 

Q: Why did you decide to write a biography of editor Judith Jones (1924-2017), and how would you describe your own relationship with her?

 

A: Judith has been something of a personal hero to me ever since I read her 2007 memoir, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to build a life out of my two foremost passions, food and books. I had no models for that, until I discovered Judith.

 

It was obvious to me, even in reading her memoir (which was written at a fairly surface level, both about her career and her personal life) that Judith had been tremendously important in shaping American food culture, and also what an original she was.

 

Her path was unconventional, built upon intuition, savvy, and guts. I identified with her, and she became an important model for me. 

 

Fast forward to fall of 2012. Judith had recently retired from her 56-year-long career at Knopf in 2011, and the Julia Child Foundation (JCF) had set out to conduct an oral history project with Judith, collecting stories of her life and work via interviews.

 

I was in my first semester of a Ph.D. in food studies in New York at the time, and just happened to be at my oral history professor’s elbow when she opened the query email from the JCF looking for guidance on their project.

 

My professor looked up at me and said, “You’re a food person, this might be interesting to you” (I was always the “food person” in rooms full of political scientists and historians, sociologists and economists.).

 

I peeked over my professor’s shoulder, saw the name Judith Jones, and committed the sender’s address to memory. Right after class, I wrote to the JCF, introducing myself and volunteering my help on the project in whatever way I could.

 

I imagined, if I was lucky, that I’d help gather preparatory research for some seasoned oral historian; at best, perhaps I’d get to meet Judith, shake her hand.

 

But much to my surprise and delight, after several emails back and forth, the foundation handed me the reins of the project–as lead researcher and interviewer, both–on the condition that Judith and I met and got along well enough to work together. Which is how I ended up at the door of Judith’s Upper East Side apartment on a freezing cold January day in 2013. 

 

We hit it off right away, and over the course of several months in the spring and summer of 2013, I interviewed her about her life. Before we sat down for our formal conversations, we always cooked and ate lunch together, building ease and rapport as we went. 

 

The interviews from that project went off to live at the Schlesinger Library (video and audio recordings, as well as transcripts, of our interviews are available to the public there). Our work together was through, but Judith and I remained dear friends until her death in August of 2017. She became an important mentor to me, someone I admired for her wisdom, humor, integrity, and audacity.

 

But it was more than that; during my time with her, I’d realized her influence on American culture stretched far beyond the realm of food; she was also a heavy-hitting literary editor, and a trailblazer as a woman (and, in the 1960s, a working mother) in publishing at a time when there were few.

 

I’d long felt, in my gut, that she deserved more public attention and reverence that she got, and more and more, I began to think she deserved a full-length biography.

 

After Judith’s death, her stepdaughter offered me access to her personal files; there were two rooms full of material! It was an incredible trove of information and detail, opening doors to stories and people (including luminary authors Judith worked with, such as Sylvia Plath) I’d never known anything about when Judith was alive. That’s how the research for this book began in earnest. 

Q: The author Alicia Kennedy said of the book, “Through her editorial work, Judith Jones changed the perception of what it meant to be a woman who cooks. Through The Editor, Sara B. Franklin gives shape and weight to a career that could have continued on as a footnote; in doing so, she proves Jones was too good and influential to live on like that.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think Kennedy was spot on in that assessment. Judith told me that she spent much of her life pushing back against American notions of “the ignominy of cooking,” the idea that cooking is so quotidian, so ho-hum, so invisible that it, and the people who do it, don’t deserve our attention or respect.

 

Judith, as both an avid home cook and an editor, vehemently disagreed. Of her cookbook authors–the majority of whom were women–Judith said, “They weren’t little housewives; it took courage to be who they were.”

 

The same applies to Judith, herself. She was born into a kind of privilege that afforded her advantages and choices, and had the vision, moxie, and courage to build a career out of bending convention to change American culture and taste.

 

Q: What initially got Judith Jones interested in editing books about food?

 

A: From an early age, she was interested in food, both eating it, and stories about it. She also learned, as a child, that American attitudes towards food largely rejected food as a source of pleasure; Judith’s mother, by all accounts a snobbish and rigid woman, considered food to be “base,” necessary as nourishment, yes, but not something to relish or talk about.

 

Food became one of the areas where Judith could rebel against the kind of society life she’d been groomed to live. She began cooking with the family’s maid, Edie, who told stories while she cooked, and later experimented with cooking for her father and friends.

 

But the real transformation came when she went to Paris in 1948, and dated a French journalist who was a wonderful, instinctual home cook. He brought Judith to Parisian markets and into his kitchen, awakening her to both the skill and the sensuality involved in preparing one’s own food. 

 

When Judith returned to New York in 1951, she couldn’t find any cookbooks that helped her replicate what she’d cooked and eaten in Paris; the ingredients on offer in the U.S. at the time were far inferior, in Judith’s mind (this was the postwar consumerist era of supermarkets and highly-processed foods that radically changed the American food landscape).

 

And so she was primed when, as an editorial assistant at Knopf in 1959, the manuscript for what became Mastering the Art of French Cooking landed on her desk.

 

She recognized, immediately, how unique it was for its usability–it was immensely detailed, enough so that someone who knew next to nothing about cooking could use the recipes to success– and believed it could change both the cookbook field and American taste in a major way.

 

Her bosses at Knopf doubted the book would sell, but Judith sensed, instinctually, that it would. She was right. Today, Mastering the Art of French Cooking is one of the most famous cookbooks in the world, and Julia Child (who was one of three authors of that book) is a global celebrity.

 

She went on to publish an astonishing number of cookbooks across her long career, many of whose authors–M.F.K. Fisher, Edna Lewis, Claudia Roden, Joan Nathan, James Beard, Madhur Jaffrey, Lidia Bastianich, to name just a few–became, and remain, food writing royalty via Judith’s editorial guidance. 

 

Q: What do you see as her legacy today?

 

A: Judith is one of the least-recognized, but most influential, figures in 20th and early 21st century American culture. She was a remarkably versatile editor who worked on poetry, fiction, history, journalism, scholarly work and, of course, cookbooks for nearly 60 years. The depth and range of her career is astonishing.

 

As readers, we often fail to ask who’s shaping the stories that we’re exposed to, or don’t realize that authors’ work doesn’t just spring, fully formed, into print. Editors are the invisible force behind the scenes, working with authors to shaping stories, and, in so doing, shaping the ideas to which we are exposed, and thus our culture.

 

Judith was also an incredible champion of pleasure. She refused to give in to what she called Puritanical notions of pleasure–especially in the areas of food and sex–which framed pleasure as vulgar, something to be avoided or hidden. Judith believed pleasure to be a birthright, something to which everyone has access, and an empowering lifeforce.

 

Even today, Americans have an uncomfortable relationship to pleasure; we’re very susceptible to the notion that pleasure comes with guilt or shame. Judith’s stance on pleasure is still unconventional today, but when she was a young woman, it was seen as downright radical. She was a true trailblazer on that front.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m still in the very early phases of thinking about my next project, and so I’m hesitant to go into too much detail.

 

But in broad brushstrokes, it’s a book that’s more personal and more overtly political than this one, a book exploring what happens when we stop trying to escape our geography, our bodies, and our ties to one another, and instead stay put.

 

It’s about the richness that comes from choosing depth over breadth, about setting roots (or acknowledging what already holds us in place) rather than constantly living at the surface, seeking novelty and, in so doing, spreading ourselves thin and feeling isolated, without a sense of belonging. Its working title is “Going Nowhere.”

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Anastasia Zadeik

 

Photo by Captured Forever Photography

 

 

Anastasia Zadeik is the author of the new novel The Other Side of Nothing. She also has written the novel Blurred Fates. She lives in San Diego.

 

Q: You write that your new novel was inspired by family experiences. Can you say more about that, and about how you created your cast of characters?

 

A: About 12 years ago, my nephew attempted to take his own life. I was out of the country and my sister did not want to “ruin my trip,” so she didn’t tell me what had happened until I returned home.

 

I was heartbroken to learn about the suicide attempt, but also about how alone my sister had felt in the aftermath, dealing with a world she didn’t understand and events she never imagined: agreeing to place her son into a medically-induced coma, sitting by his bedside for days wondering if he would be okay, being asked to leave the room when he was being brought out of the coma in case she was “the reason.”

 

Making matters worse, friends and family who didn’t know what to say said nothing at all, avoiding her instead of rallying around her. “Suicide isn’t a casserole kind of situation,” she told me.

 

Shortly after this, I learned from my daughter that she’d been struggling with profound depression for years. I was shocked. “But you have everything going for you and you seem so happy,” I said. She replied, “You, of all people, should know what we show on the outside isn’t always what’s going on inside.”

 

She was right. I’d been masking my own depression behind “I’m fine, how are you,” for decades. I hadn’t wanted to talk about my own struggles, but now, on the other side, I wanted her to talk to me about hers.

 

When I began writing The Other Side of Nothing, I initially planned it as a dual perspective story with a mother (Laura) and daughter (Julia) grieving a shared loss in entirely different ways.

 

My intention was to show readers how little Laura and Julia understood about each other, and then, hopefully, show them coming together and gaining empathy for each other as they both heal.

 

However, as a pantser, I allow my characters to tell me who they are and what they are going to do. Before I could plot it all out, Julia fell in love with a young man at the residential psych facility where she was being treated.

 

Sam was a brilliant but enigmatic 23-year-old photographer with bipolar disorder. His mother, Arabella, who, unlike Laura, takes a very involved approach towards her son’s life, quickly became the third perspective.

Q: The writer J.J. Elliott said of the book, “In this profound story of love and loss, Anastasia Zadeik tackles the complexities of mental health from every angle and perspective, taking readers on an unforgettable journey that explores what we can and cannot control.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: This is one of those quotes that makes it all worthwhile; when a reader gets it, particularly when the reader is also a writer.

 

My goal in writing this book was to give readers an inside view into not only what it’s like to be someone with a mental illness, but also what it’s like to be someone that loves someone with a mental illness and not be able to “fix” them.

 

So many parents, partners, siblings, friends, and children want to believe that love with conquer all, but even love has limits. This doesn’t mean love isn’t powerful. It is. But there are situations, like mental illness, when love isn’t enough.

 

I also wanted to discuss self-determination and the complexity of giving decision making to someone who is struggling to make sense of the world around them. And I wanted to take my characters, and therefore my readers, on journeys that were not only physical but emotional, psychological, and philosophical. I would say JJ nailed it!

 

Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The Other Side of Nothing was the first working title I gave the book. At the time, it was a reference to the feeling of nothingness often reported by those suffering from depression. My initial plan was to show the main character moving toward the other side of that feeling—to feeling something, maybe even everything.

 

A few months into the writing of an early draft, I found myself contemplating the interplay of darkness and light in the book and renamed it Capture the Light. I added perceptions and/or descriptions of light in each chapter, and this title remained on the manuscript until it went to my publisher.

 

Worried Capture the Light sounded too much like a how-to photography book, she encouraged me to come up with some alternatives, one of which (and the one she loved the most by far) was the original title, The Other Side of Nothing.

 

During the final phase of editing, I realized that this title has multiple meanings. Perhaps most meaningful to me is the idea that Half Dome is most interesting because of what is missing. The rock becomes extraordinary because of the empty space where half of it should be—the something shaped by the nothing.

 

I believe this is true for so many of us; we are often shaped by what is missing. Lost loved ones, lost opportunities, lost innocence, lost trust, lost hope.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the novel?

 

A: I hope that the novel will open up conversations about mental illness and that people might come away with more empathy for those impacted by it.

 

I also hope that people will take to heart the message about remembering to live for each moment—that a life of meaning is, as Camus would say, a “succession of presents,” which I like to believe refers to both definitions of the word present: the now and a gift.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am just getting started on my next novel, which will be a traditional mystery.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: One thing I learned in writing the book is that while things have improved over the last several years, we still have a long way to go in terms of understanding the underpinnings of mental illness, what works treatment-wise, how to make treatment available in a timely, affordable, and effective manner, and how to rid our society of the stigma still attached.

 

Having said that, I also learned that there are resources available to families and other loved ones. For example, I learned that 988 is not only for those feeling suicidal, but also for family members, friends, and colleagues who might need advice and support in helping a loved one in trouble (dial 988 or go to 988lifeline.org).

 

In addition, organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), among others, offer resources for individuals, families, and communities on their websites (see nami.org; afsp.org, and nimh.nih.gov).

 

If we, as a society, make an effort to learn more about these topics so that we can talk about them more comfortably, we can help remove the stigma and save lives.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Anastasia Zadeik.

Q&A with Ann Bancroft

 

 

 

Ann Bancroft is the author of the new novel Almost Family. Also a journalist, she lives in California.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Almost Family, and how did you create your character Liz?

 

A: My own experience as a two-time cancer patient and the deep connections I made as a  mentor to other patients gave me the idea of putting three strangers together and having them bond deeply because of their profound experiences and their shared family issues.

 

Liz was a product of my musings, “what if?” What if, instead of having great support from family and a wide group of friends, I were isolated like Liz? Estranged from family? What if cancer showed up at the same time as my worst breakup?

 

Putting Liz in such a fix and having all of the characters meet as Stage 4 cancer patients helped put my own experience in perspective, and reminded me of the importance of nurturing relationships before it is too late.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

A: The book’s original title was The Oakland Mets, after the characters’ inside-joke name they gave themselves as a group. Once deciding to publish, however, I felt readers would not get the reference, and see it as a baseball book.

 

Almost Family popped up as a better title right away, because that is what the characters become for each other. It’s also a reference to the family issues and distant relationships that are unresolved at the book’s beginning.

Q: The writer Jodi Angel said of the book, “Almost Family is a book that comes right at the hard stuff with a whole lot of truth and even more humor.” What do you think of that description, and what did you see as the role of humor in the book?

 

A: I absolutely love that description because it it's what I hoped readers would glean from the book. It’s a tough subject, faced head-on, but humor and love make it relatable and, I hope, easier for readers to contemplate and accept.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the novel?

A: I hope they will come away with a better understanding of cancer patients’ perspectives, and that they’ll recognize that we all keep growing and live until we die. I hope they’ll laugh and cry with Liz, Rhonda, and Dave, and that those characters will stay with them, because I’ve grown to love them so much.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: A novel whose protagonist is based on my mother, who was a great character and trailblazer at a time when feminism was just taking hold.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: It was a very satisfying challenge to move from a career in journalism and communications to writing fiction. Once I got accustomed to making things up, it was very freeing to write this book. And being a debut author at 71 makes me happy. Never too late!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Reuven Fenton

 

 

 

Reuven Fenton is the author of the new novel Goyhood. He is also a reporter for the New York Post.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Goyhood, and how did you create your character Mayer?

 

A: The short answer is, the idea struck me one day as a “What if?” scenario, which I added to a list of “What if?” scenarios I jot on my phone whenever one comes to me.

 

What if a BLM activist and a MAGA activist fell in love? What if Groundhog Day were set in New York City? What if an Orthodox Jew cloistered his whole adult life in a yeshiva in Brooklyn discovered he wasn’t actually Jewish?

 

I imagine lots of people have ideas like this when they let their minds wander.

 

The longer answer would involve mining my unconscious. My backstory is complicated, but in summary I grew up in a traditional-but-secular Jewish household until, when I was 11 or 12, my parents had a religious awakening of sorts that brought about a swift transformation in our lifestyle. My unwillingness to let go of secularism, even as I embraced Judaism, set up a polarity inside me that exists to this day. 

 

As Mayer’s character took shape over various drafts, he came to embody one side of me, just as his wild-child twin brother David embodies another side of me. Jewish mysticism teaches that everyone has a Godly soul and an animal soul, and I tend to think that Mayer and David represent those two souls.

 

Goyhood is about how, during a wacky road trip through the Deep South, those two souls, estranged for years, are forced to reconcile while coping with this spiritual crisis of discovering they aren’t actually Jewish. 

 

Q: Can you say more about the dynamic between Mayer and David?

 

A: Mayer and David were inseparable as children, but then one day Mayer had a religious epiphany that altered the course of both their lives. He enrolled in a yeshiva in Brooklyn, effectively abandoning his brother. David fell into a wild life of recklessness and excess. They stopped speaking.

 

Fast forward to now: their mother’s death forces a reunion. Her posthumous revelation that they aren’t biologically Jewish forces them to spend substantial time together. 

 

Tension dominates at first because of their conflicting motivations and personalities. But over a series of wild adventures – one nearly getting them killed – boundaries start crumbling as Mayer and David reveal truths about themselves. 

 

Q: The writer Joshua Cohen said of the book, “Nothing is authentic except the quest for the authentic and it's just such a quest that speeds-way-over-the-legal-limit through the pages of Reuven Fenton's remarkably funny and compassionate novel about Goys, Jews, and that most crisis-prone of contemporary identities: the male at middle-age.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: It’s remarkable that a Pulitzer winner took the time to read my book, let alone formulate in his mind something so profound and original.

 

I’d have been thrilled if he’d just written a one-word review – “Funny!” Instead he penned a rather profound reflection about the quest for authenticity. I’d never thought about the quest for authenticity, but he did, and that’s what’s so great about art. The consumer often takes away things that the creator himself never thought of. 

 

Cohen’s observation on middle-age is likewise intriguing. I’m three months older than him. We are middle-aged. I created my protagonists as my own age, but only because I could best relate to them that way; I wasn’t conscious about the link between age and identity.

 

Cohen introduced me to the concept after the fact. And he’s right! My twins are at a sweet spot in life that’s fundamental to making the story work: they’ve got wisdom and instinct and the urgency of knowing time is not on their side, but they’re not so old that they can’t still relate to who they were as children. 

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: Not only did I not know how it would end – I didn’t know where it was going. All I had at first was my “What if?” concept, and I just rolled with it.

 

It seemed logical to open the story just before my protagonist suffered his crisis. Then he suffered his crisis – and then I had to figure out the rest of the book.

 

I didn’t want him going straight home and, say, pantomiming being a Jew for fear his Orthodox community would ostracize him. Such a storyline felt cheap and disingenuous, as I imagine in real life his community would be, if anything, sympathetic to his plight. 

 

No, I thought: let this story take place out in the open, among towns and meadows and mountain foothills, far from stifling Brooklyn. Let’s give Mayer space to come to grips with his fate. And let’s make this book fun. Let’s make it a road trip buddy book, where Mayer’s and David’s comic adventures balance out the weighty questions of faith and identity.  

 

So I tagged along with the brothers, knowing no better than they what trouble lurked ahead. Over a series of drafts, as the brothers’ motivations became clearer, so did the story arc, and I started getting a sense of an ending that would tie everything together.

 

I decided it would be fun for David to drag Mayer to a spiritual retreat hosted by a Reform rabbi of all things – a woman no less. Talk about a clash of cultures. And she turns out to be the King Solomon of the story. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’ve completed a rickety first draft of a new novel. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I wrote a novel prior to Goyhood, a YA urban fantasy involving a teenage girl who acquires a sort of superpower. This was another one of those “What if?” scenarios that struck me one day, and I ran with it.

 

Though literary agents liked the concept, ultimately they all declined representation for more or less the same reason: the story started out as a lively teen dramedy, then became a crime-fighting yarn. They all liked the dramedy but not the crime fighting.

 

I mention this because authors always advise aspiring writers to write the novel you want to read, whether or not it’s a trendy genre.

 

I learned this lesson the hard way. While drafting the YA novel, I realized fairly early that this was a book I would never read. I’m just not that into YA, and Marvel oversaturation killed my love of superheroes.

 

But I soldiered on because I believed that with a workingman’s ethic I could write a successful YA series. Not every TV writer loves the series he or she is working on, right? 

 

It turns out there’s a practical reason you should write the novel you want to read: you’re a fan of that genre. You’ve read that genre extensively. You have an intrinsic sense of how it’s done, and that’s crucial because your novel’s got to feel right, and agents and editors know when it doesn’t feel right.

 

Now, you could theoretically slog through dozens of YA novels in order to educate yourself on the YA craft, and then write one that feels right. But if it’s already so difficult to write a book you would read, why make it all the harder by writing one you wouldn't read? 

 

Goyhood was the book I wanted to read, and writing it – grueling as it was – was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. I’m happy with it. I would read it. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

May 28

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
May 28, 1908: Ian Fleming born.

Q&A with P.M. Flynn

 

 

 

P.M. Flynn is the author of the new poetry collection Shadows on Moss. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, and he lives in North Carolina.

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the poems in your new collection?

 

A: I started writing poetry when I was 14 years old. Writing good, publishable poetry came together about 20 years ago. At this point in time when poems were beginning to be accepted more and more I noticed there were several Patrick Flynn poets and authors writing. I do both and chose PM Flynn to separate myself from the Patrick Flynn herd.

 

Most poems are recent with the exception of “A Season of Angels,” published in 2001. Whereas “Transformation of the Ovary (into Fruit)” was published in a newspaper supplement several years before that. So, my final answer—30 years.

 

Q: How was the book’s title--also the title of the first poem--chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: My idea for the book was a Dial-a-Wheel cover, like a paint color wheel, but the publisher didn’t have that capability. The publisher suggested the title which, after the cover artwork was designed, turned out to be a very beautiful presentation for my wife and me to consider.

 

I tried to market several poetry books with titles consisting of mostly unpublished poems over that title’s marketing period. Titles like “The Wasteland Revisited,” “On Dating Southern Belles,” and “The Ferryman’s Opera.” I ran with each of these marketing choices for a season, but they weren’t accepted for all the usual, mysterious, or invisible reasons. Several poems from those previously selected titles are included in Shadows on Moss.

 

The title is an image from the book title’s poem, “Shadows on Moss,” a poem written about a picture I viewed online of a fallen stage in an overgrown forest area. This idea was combined with moss I had seen growing on one side of a tree trunk with sunlight hitting the non-moss side of the tree, leaving the moss partially illuminated with forest’s shadows and sunlight.

 

I won’t interpret the metaphor, but I attended a lot of concerts as a teenager growing up in the D.C. area along with those music memories. The Shadows on Moss title is a good representation of that period of my life.

 

Q: How did you decide on the order in which the poems would appear in the book?

 

A: I have a file of published poems on my computer, separated from working poems so I won’t resubmit something after it’s already been published.

 

Once a poem is accepted, I mark the title with a “P-” in front of the poem’s title to mark it published. I always paste each acceptance into one document, in the order it was accepted, to be held until there’s approximately 60 pages (the exception being a list of published poems I transferred from an old computer I upgraded). 

 

For Shadows on Moss, after past poetry title submission rejections frustrated me, I decided to market the completed book with its 60+ pages of published poetry. I really didn’t have one title but a book where the reader could pick the title by spinning the wheel to a particular title, one at a time. I only sent out three or so queries before Shadows on Moss was accepted.

 

I don’t recall shuffling poems around, if that did happen. (Probably did.) So, the poems are more or less in the order of each publication date. This will likely be the process from here on out.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from this collection?

 

A: I hope readers will go to the links and buy a copy. Seriously, I hope readers will discover what BlazeVOX publisher Geoffrey Gatza said: Shadows on Moss “is as accomplished as it is expansive in its vision of what poetry can be…At once steely and familiar, these poems invite us to sit with the world in all its beauty and contradictions.”

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My wife and I roast organic, fair trade coffee and make sugar cookies from my grandmother’s recipe for roanokeroasting.com. This takes up much of my time. With writing I just finished a rare short story, “Buzz, the Greatest Fly Who Ever Lived” and several new poems, “Shadows of Night,” “The Mystery of Wind,” “The Blue Texts of December,” just to name a few.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb