Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.
Name: Joey Franklin
Title of Pieces Published in Sweet: “Cool Enough, For the Moment“
Issues: 7.3
You can find Joey, associate professor of English, at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, where he runs the MFA program, and I co-edits Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction with Pat Madden.
You can find out more about him on his website.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
In November of 2020, University of Nebraska Press published by my second book–Delusions of Grandeur: American essays. It’s a collection of 10 essays that examine our American obsessions with race, class, faith, and family. Essays cover everything from toy guns and bad grammar to plasma donation and apocalyptic thinking. Also: playground brawls, white privilege, JV football, sex and death, Trayvon Martin, The Tohoku Tsunami, Early English grammars, shame, fatherhood, and a tent city in Lubbock, Texas.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m writing a book on creative writing professionalization for Bloomsbury. It covers all the stuff writers need to worry about when they’re not actually sitting at the keyboard. How to make the most of a writing group, what to do at a conference, how to finish big projects, how to submit work, prepare for graduate school, find a mentor, etc.
Who is your favorite author?
Impossible to narrow it down to just one–so how about a few: Brian Doyle, Eula Biss, E. B. White, James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, Lia Purpura. I’m a big fan of big ideas and beautiful prose.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Two essays I always come back to: “Meteorites” by Brian Doyle. A tutorial in capturing teenage summer magic. And Eula Biss’s “Time and Distance Overcome,” the most poignant lyric essay out there.
What inspires you to write?
Margaret Atwood said it best: “Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that’s wrong. They know less, that’s why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.”
What are you reading right now?
Southbound, by Anjali Enjeti. And Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, by Samin Nostrat
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!
Lately, it’s been Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Got to add cranberries too!
We just made these last week and they are super yummy!
Thank you, Joey, for taking the time to reconnect with us. We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
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