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SELFIE INTERVIEW | Kristie Smeltzer

Kristie Smeltzer’s writing has appeared in So to Speak, The Florida Review, Eclectica Magazine, and The Apeiron Review. Her story,  “Bridges,” was a runner-up Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art’s 2007 Fiction Contest. Her story, “The Fine Art of Goldfish,” received an honorable mention in the WriterHouse/C-ville Weekly 2015 Fiction Contest and appears in Apeiron Review’s Issue 10. Kristie is currently working on two novels. She earned her MFA at the University of Central Florida. She resides in Charlottesville, Virginia, and teaches at WriterHouse.

Eckleburg: What captures your interest most in your work, now, as a reader?

Kristie Smeltzer: I enjoy humor in writing, even in dramatic scenes, and dialogue that captures the quirks and shorthand of speech. 

Authentic characters are what I love to read and aspire to write, so moments when characters boil down emotions and situations to their most distilled essence make me connect. 

Eckleburg: What are you working on now?

I’m working on novel that’s verging somewhere between mystery/thriller and literary fiction. I’m also working on a young adult novel that is top secret that I’m super excited about. And I’ve got a strong half-finished literary novel, part travelogue, part coming-of-age tale, fermenting in a figurative drawer somewhere that I one day hope to revisit. 

Kristie Smeltzer: And there are at least four stories in the works, because what better way is there to procrastinate from working on novels than by writing more short stories. 

Eckleburg: Who and what are your artistic influences?

I’m really drawn, in all art forms, to work that depicts moment of becoming or realization. 

Authors who inspire me are Julie Orringer, Lorrie Moore, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Norman Maclean, Erin Morgenstern, and many others. 

Eckleburg thanks Kristie Smeltzer. Do you have new work published here at Eckleburg or elsewhere? Add your Selfie Interview and share the news with our 10,000+ reading and writing community. If you have a new book out or upcoming, join our Eckleburg Book Club and let our readers know about it.

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SELFIE INTERVIEW | Melanie Lynn Griffin

Melanie Lynn Griffin is a freelance writer, teacher, and environmental communications specialist whose work has appeared in Sierra magazine, AARP Bulletin, Sojourners, and So To Speak Journal. She is a pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland, and leads writing workshops and contemplative retreats. Ms. Griffin holds an MA in Nonfiction Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her blog Writing with Spirit is at melanielynngriffin.wordpress.com.

Eckleburg: What drives, inspires, and feeds your artistic work?

Melanie Lynn Griffin: I see writing as a sacred act, involving profound vulnerability and a deep yearning for connection. My writing is driven by that yearning and inspired by a universal spirit of Love that longs for us to be one with each other and with nature. I strive to understand and honor our human condition and our relationship with the natural world, searching for the universals that create a sense of belonging and connection. Writing is an emotionally and spiritually healing practice for me, and in my workshops, I try to empower others to tap into that healing power.

Eckleburg: If you had to arm wrestle a famous writer, poet or artist, either living or dead, who would it be? Why? What would you say to distract your opponent and go for the win?

Melanie Lynn Griffin: Clearly a fruitless endeavor, I would arm wrestle with Willa Cather. Willa was a hefty woman, a devoted hiker who was determined and ambitious. I would lose. While she’s not my favorite writer, I feel a bizarre connection with her, which began when I visited her grave early in my writing career. That trip prompted a somewhat obsessive in-depth study of Willa’s life and longings and was the catalyst for a painful (for me, hopefully not the reader) personal essay that explored my complicated relationship with my alcoholic father, who had loved Willa. Along the way, I learned that Willa might be distracted by wildflowers, all things medical, and other women. But I’m still pretty sure I would lose.

Eckleburg: What would you like the world to remember about you and your work?

Melanie Lynn Griffin: I want to be remembered as loving and compassionate and a good listener. I want to be remembered as curious, eclectic, funny, and wise. I want to be remembered as a woman who sought the Divine in everything and everyone, and who was at peace. I’d like my work to be described as authentic, insightful, and hopeful. It occurs to me that I will have to live a very long time to even come close to these dreams for myself and my work. And that would be OK.

Eckleburg thanks Melanie Lynn Griffin for sharing her Selfie Interview with us. Do you have new work published here at Eckleburg or elsewhere? Add your Selfie Interview and share the news with our 10,000+ reading and writing community. If you have a new book out or upcoming, join our Eckleburg Book Club and let our readers know about it.

 

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SELFIE INTERVIEW | Greg Moglia

Greg Moglia is a veteran of 27 years as Adjunct Professor of Philosophy of Education at N.Y.U and 37 years as a high school teacher of Physics and Psychology. His poems have been accepted in over 300 journals in the U.S., Canada England, India, Australia, Sweden, Belgium and Austria as well as five anthologies. He is 8 times a winner of an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award sponsored by the poetry center at Passaic County Community College. He lives in Huntington, N.Y.

Eckleburg: What drives, inspires, and feeds your artistic work?

Greg Moglia: Other artists and the swirl that happens in my own head
when what some call -stealing
It never comes out the same as in the phrase I take from
Wordsworth in the title above.
So I rarely read a book, article etc without a pen marking
a spot to refer to to remember as a write

Eckleburg: If you had to arm wrestle a famous writer, poet or artist, either living or dead, who would it be? Why? What would you say to distract your opponent and go for the win?

Greg Moglia: Chekhov – Because of his ability to separate himself
in his writing and I would counter
with the argument you cannot do it
What you write has that element of you

 

Eckleburg: What would you like the world to remember about you and your work?

Greg Moglia: Oh my god — to ask as they read….

Eckleburg thanks Greg Moglia. Do you have new work published here at Eckleburg or elsewhere? Add your Selfie Interview and share the news with our 10,000+ reading and writing community. If you have a new book out or upcoming, join our Eckleburg Book Club and let our readers know about it.