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: Kathleen Rooney
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: “Ten Declarations on the Superiority of Roots”
Issue: 5.2
Kathleen can be found teaching English and Creative Writing at DePaul University, composing Poems While You Wait, and editing hybrid books at Rose Metal Press. You can learn more about Kathleen by visiting her website.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
I published my novel Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk with St. Martin’s Press in 2017, and my novel in flash fictions and prose poems The Listening Room: A Novel of Georgette & Loulou Magritte with Spork Press, and my World War I novel Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is coming out with Penguin in August of 2020.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m most excited at the moment about the forthcoming novel because it tells the true story of two formerly famous, but now almost totally forgotten figures from the Great War, Cher Ami, a heroic messenger pigeon, and Major Whittlesey, a diligent soldier.
Who is your favorite author?
Oh man, that’s impossible! But right at this very moment, I’m very into Bette Howland, a Chicago author who fell out of print, but is now coming back thanks to the reissue of her work by A Public Space. I cannot recommend her story collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage highly enough.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Bill Knott (RIP) was my teacher at Emerson, and I love his last book, I Am Flying Into Myself: Selected Poems. It was a huge honor to get to review it for the New York Times when it came out.
What inspires you to write?
Curiosity.
What is your favorite sweet?
Butterscotch anything, but especially Smitten Kitchen’s Butterscotch Sauce. You can put it on anything and improve it a millionfold. I could drink it, practically: https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/12/ridiculously-easy-butterscotch-sauce/
Thank you, Kathleen, for taking the time to reconnect with us. We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
