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: Leslie Salas
Title of Piece published in Sweet: ”Picky Eater”
Issue: 4.3
Find her:
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Leslie is now an instructor of Humanities & Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. You can follow her on social media or check out her website https://lesliesalas.com/.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
I have two book anthologies out now: Other Orlandos (Burrow Press, 2017) and Condoms & Hot Tubs Don’t Mix: An Anthology of Awkward Sexcapades (Beating Windward Press, 2018).
I also joined the Sweet masthead as the editor for graphic narrative (and comics poems) and have helped create and/or run three different creative writing conferences. I’ve also presented my creative and pedagogical works at several regional and national conferences such as AWP, CEA, and more.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m helping edit a collection of academic essays about Florida literature, and I’m really excited about the scope of the project (as well as the particular chapter I’ll be contributing). I’ve also been slowly chipping away at an academic textbook (written in comics format) but it will probably be a while before that particular project becomes a finished reality. In terms of my own creative endeavors, I’m working on a novel and have been putting the final touches on a poetry manuscript.
Who is your favorite author?
I love a lot of different authors for different reasons; don’t make me choose!
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
See above. But I will say that I do have Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” hanging in my office, and I keep recommending David Mazzuchelli’s Asterios Polyp and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. So those are some of my favorites, but in no way is this a comprehensive list.
What inspires you to write?
I can’t not write. It is part of how I process the world around me, especially in terms of digesting any reactions I have to current events.
What is your favorite sweet?
I recently learned that I’m allergic to dairy! As in, cannot process casein, so it isn’t even a lactose intolerance thing, it’s a cannot-consume-any-cow-milk-products-thing. Finding non-dairy substitutes for some of my favorites (like donuts and cake and brownies and cookies and whipped cream) has been a challenge, but luckily there are a lot of allergy-free things on the shelves (and lots of recopies online, too!) so it isn’t too bad. I will say I’m a sucker for the brownie cupcakes at McKenna’s NYC Bakery in Disney Springs!
