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: Sarah Ann Winn
Title of Piece Published in Sweet: Funeral FAQs
Issue: 9.2
Find her:
Sarah teaches online at the Loft Literary Center and does poetry readings and workshops across the country. You can find out more about her at www.bluebirdwords.com.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
My first full-length collection, Alma Almanac, was selected by Elaine Equi as the winner of the Barrow Street Book Prize and was published in 2017! I also was on the Wigleaf Longlist in 2017, and won Press 53’s September Prime Number contest last year. 2017 was a big year for poet dreams! More recently, my fifth chapbook, Ever After the End Matter was released by Porkbelly Press this year.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m working on completing a full length book of persona poems imagining a crumbling marriage between the couple named after the online retailer Dot & Bo. Their frenetic redecorating emails still inspire me!
Who is your favorite author?
Terry Pratchett. I feel a little guilty loving him the way I do, considering there are a great
number of poets who I adore, but it’s Pratchett whose books I fall asleep to at night.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
That’s such a tough question, especially for a former librarian! I think right now it’s Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle because it’s the one I’m in the middle of rereading. If you’d ask me again in a day, it would probably be whatever book I was reading that moment. Lynda Barry’s What It Is is upside down on my desk with post-its sticking out of various pages, so maybe that would be tomorrow’s? Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife has been stuffed in my travel bag for the last couple of trips, and I’m luxuriating in it all over again. Who can pick just one??
What inspires you to write?
Reading, prompts, being out in the world. I’m a daily writer, so anything I’ve seen or heard the day before is fodder for the next day’s writing.
What is your favorite sweet?
I love my grandma’s apple dumplings. This recipe is pretty close, although she doesn’t use brown sugar. Don’t handle the crust too much. She also sometimes uses red-
hot candies to make the sauce pink/more cinnamon-y. YUM!
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/apple-dumplings-with-sauce/
Thank you, Sarah, for taking the time to reconnect with us.We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
