Several times a month we connect with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.
Name: Irene Hoge Smith
Title of Pieces Published in Sweet: “My People“
Issues: 13.1
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
The biggest accomplishment is the completion of The Good Poetic Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir, now available for pre-order at IPBooks! (See my website for the story of how Charles Bukowski, my mother’s lover in the early 1960s, gave me my title.)
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m thinking about a book that would expand on a paper called “Disobedience” that I recently presented at the New Directions writing program of the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. I’m fascinated by how hard it is for any person, no matter how fair-minded they consider themselves to be, to understand a women who leaves her children.
Who is your favorite author?
I can’t imagine having only one, of course, but here are some: Nicholas Freeling, Kate Atkinson, P.D. James, Marilyn Robinson.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come” is a perennial source of comfort and hope.
What inspires you to write?
I’m inspired to write by the knowledge of what state of mind I’d be in if I didn’t write. More seriously, I want to be known. When I can figure out what I have to say, I want people to hear it.
What are you reading right now?
The Equivalents, by Maggie Doherty, about women writers and artists who benefited from support at Radcliffe in the early 1960’s. Most of them did not leave their children.
What is your favorite sweet? We would love for you to share a recipe or link to place that serves it. Pictures are great, too!
Chocolate-covered orange peel! It’s a bit of a project, involving blanching strips of orange peel and then cooking them in sugar syrup. Then you have to temper chocolate, also kind of tricky, so that it melts but then sets up hard and not sticky. I dip almost but not quite the whole strip of peel in dark chocolate and once finished, make packages that, I am told, make people happy at the holidays.
Want to try it for yourself? Here’s a recipe to help you out!
Thank you, Irene, for taking the time to reconnect with us. We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
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