‘Writers on Writing’: Creative Nonfictionist + Matador & Glimpse.org Editor, Sarah Menkedick

Sometimes, a piece of writing just sticks with you. I feel that way about much of Sarah Menkedick’s writing. Every post on her blog, Posa Tigres, is more compelling and beautiful than the last. Hell, she even makes goat slaughter sound poetic! As an Editor for Matador Network who’ll also be heading up a new gig at Glimpse.org, Sarah’s got a lot on her plate! And yet, she still finds time to pay attention to the world around her…

Alyssa: Why did you begin writing and in what form?

Sarah: To fall back on the old cliche, I’ve always written.  I think it’s always been the way I’ve related to and come to understand the world around me.  Maybe the first solid evidence is a book I wrote called “Animals” in the 4th grade?  Each page includes about 4 sentences and a hideous drawing of some dog or cat with horribly inflated limbs.

I began writing full time, as a lifestyle and a career, in 2008.  I came back to Mexico after a year teaching English Composition 101 and 102 in China, and I decided not to take another teaching position and instead to try and write full time and survive by writing.  Which brings us to…

A: How do you support yourself financially?

S: Good question!  Well, in the beginning, as I mentioned above, my goal was to “survive by writing.”  To be able to write full time and live from it.  But then I realized that in order to do that, I’d have to spend a lot of time doing writing I didn’t really care about, that didn’t really interest me.  That was a long, slow realization.  I wrote regularly for Matador and was offered an editing position with them, which I was ecstatic about, and then I wrote for Change.org and they increased the number of articles they wanted from me, and between these two things and living in Mexico, I could survive.  I cobbled together all sorts of other small gigs as well – writing the occasional TOEFL/SAT assignment for The Princeton Review, for example.  I have been really fortunate to be able to do the type of writing I care about, that I feel needs to come out of me and is really born of passion, and to be able to support myself with that.  I’m really lucky to be with Matador and they have been a tremendous help in this whole process, and my new role with them as the Editor in Chief of Glimpse is a huge honor for me.  I feel like Matador is a place that really respects quality, earnest, original writing and that has helped me tremendously – if they hadn’t been interested in that, I’d probably be a lot further back in my writing career.

A: What’s the strangest or most surprising thing you’ve ever written?

S: I wrote about observing a goat slaughter in La Mixteca.  It’s kind of a scary narrative but it’s one of my favorite essays.  I’ve written SAT exams, which I think is kind of strange – I always wondered who wrote those things and wanted to throttle them while I was taking the test.

A: What’s the one resource or inspiration piece you couldn’t write without?

S: I don’t really know if there is such a thing.  I don’t think there’s any particular resource or inspiration that makes writing possible or not.  Coffee definitely helps.

A: What’s one thing about writing you absolutely hate?

S: Feeling like you’ve just cranked out a whole piece of writing that really doesn’t say anything and that is ultimately useless.  You can see it as piece of practice, but it still sucks.

A: What life lessons has writing taught you?

S: Hopefully without sounding cheesy, to pay attention to everything.  That everything is valid, interesting, worthy of curiosity.  The same lessons travel has taught me.

A: What is your writing process like for blog posts? How much revision do you do and how much if stream of consciousness?

S: A lot of revision.  Although it depends on the piece – sometimes it just needs to get out of me and it comes out and I’m happy with it, with just a few tweaks.  But I use my website as my own personal creative nonfiction magazine, and I want everything I publish there to be something I’m proud of, a polished piece.  So I revise and edit a lot.

A: I’m always impressed by the connections and metaphors you dig up between people, place, and life. Any tips on finding and tightening up these links?

S: One thing – and it sounds kind of dumb and disappointing – is to just pay attention to the smallest details and moments.  I think this happens naturally the more you write – you become aware of what it feels like to have a hair tickling your arm, and that becomes a metaphor, or what it’s like to run your hand across an unvarnished wooden desk, and that goes in there somewhere, and these metaphors and connections just sort of surge the more you start seeing like a writer, or seeing like someone who needs to express the world in writing.  I hope that doesn’t sound like irritating pseudo-philosophical ranting.  Really, I don’t have any special strategies.  I’d recommend any writer read “Pilgrim At Tinker Creek,” by Annie Dillard, because it’s all about seeing, and seeing is the basis of writing.

A: You were recently accepted into an MFA program for Creative Nonfiction (!). Can you explain a bit about your decision to apply, the application process, and how you feel now that you’ve chosen a program.

S: Like I said earlier, I realized early on that surviving by writing wasn’t actually synonymous with doing the type of writing I wanted to do.  I wanted to write what I cared about and what really challenged and motivated me, and I came to see that doing this would require different methods and goals than simply “surviving by writing.”  I stopped taking this route of “query and publish and query and publish until you get into big name mags” and switched to writing what challenged and interested me.  I started PosaTigres.  And I started to see that I wanted to do a different type of writing – more critical, academic, literary – that can really grow in an academic context.  The MFA Program seemed like an ideal fit – it would offer me the chance to do the type of writing I wanted, to get feedback, support, and criticism, and to be part of a literary community.  I set my sights on it.  I have never felt so solid about a decision – applying was what I really, really wanted to do at that point in my life.  But applying was terrifying.  The programs are so hard to get into and so competitive, and I needed not only to get in but to get a tuition waiver and full funding.  Waiting sucks and the rejections suck and I spent January and February mostly miserable.  Then I got the news from Pittsburgh, which had been my first choice since it’s Creative Nonfiction program is amazing, and they gave me this awesome package, and I literally screamed for a day straight.  And I’m ecstatic about starting in the fall.  I can’t wait.

Tagged as: writers on writing