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: Shannon Dale
Title of Pieces Published in Sweet: ‘What I Understand’
Issue: 17
You can find Shannon trying to see if she can still flip off the camera with severe psoriatic arthritis.
Answer: kind of. At least I can sort of type now as medication battles my body attacking itself on all fronts and I wait to see who will win out, deterioration or the great modern steroid. State of mind is one of transition and curiosity: what do you do when you can’t drive or work in the career you had chosen or manage basic household and parenting tasks? What do you do when your body overnight attacks itself and you can’t make it up stairs or hold a fork? Do you write about it? Do you wait till you can write without pain or do you write with the pain because otherwise what do you do with your curled up hands? Do you look out the window the Montana sky and watch the black birds fly across the glass and weep? Answer: all of the above. What do you tell your kids when they ask why you weep? Answer: you gotta make your own waffles now, kids. And then all shall be well, it really will, they are in the freezer, you can do it.
Be sure to check out her website, too.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
Suscribe to her Substack, Wisdom of a Mediocre Mother, if you want to find out all the details.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
Writing more poetry, and the interesting texts that are coming out from not being able to capitalize or backspace without great effort, it is sort of like drunk writing without the buzz or hangover but with the lack of inhibition and freedom of a warm wine, which i will not be drinking again and never did much anyway, but the softened edges of self-critique are nice. hey, that doesn’t make sense, oh well, can’t go back now.
Who is your favorite author?
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
What inspires you to write?
The way our joys and sorrows can be looked at, laughed at, digested, held, and ultimately let go when we are able to write them. It is meditation and mindfulness and spirituality for the lazy.
What are you reading right now?
The English Patient for the first time.
What is your favorite sweet?
Candy! The shittier the better, Sour Patch kids, stuff like that. I don’t like chocolate, I wish I was classier, but that chemical bright chewy candy is my fave. Gotta give that up too.
Thank you, Shannon, for taking the time to reconnect with us again! We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.
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