Sarah Frances Moran is the Founder/Editor of the incredible literary powerhouse, Yellow Chair Review, and she takes a few minutes out of her schedule to pull to the side of the road and answer a few of our humble questions. Check out her full bio below. Thanks for stopping by, Sarah!
1. What is the best thing you’ve read so far in 2016, be it
poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or something else?
Logen Cure’s Letters To Petrarch. It’s this beautifully written set of poems
about a love. It’s written in the form
of canonical hours and takes place in the space of a day. It was one of those reads that just left me
kind of speechless. The depth of it but
also the simplicity. I highly recommend
it.
2. What was your last
“writing revelation,” a process or idea that made your writing easier, bolder,
fresher, and/or more productive?
This is a tough one.
I’ve always sort of been the type to just write whatever came to my
mind. No particular focus or
discipline. In the last year I’ve tried
very hard to discipline myself to write to certain topics. That’s not to say I ignore the urge to write
about other things but I’m practicing “forcing myself” so-to-speak, to address
certain things.
Currently I’m writing a poem based off every card in the
Mexican bingo game, La Lotería. The
focus of each poem is on my culture, my lack of culture, my desire to find a
place in my culture being of mixed race.
Sometimes that’s addresses loosely and sometimes directly. I’ve only done 6 so far. I have a ways to go.
3. What place (city/town/region/room/middle of nowhere) has
been an inspiration on your writing, and why?
Trees pop up in my writing a lot. In fact one of my chapbooks releasing soon is
titled “Evergreen.” In the title poem a
tree acts as a turnkey in the prison where I house the people who’ve hurt
me.
4. What new project are you working on, and what’s the driving
force/inspiration behind it?
I mentioned up above that I’m writing poems based on La
Lotería. I’ve been wanting to write more
about my cultural, about being mixed-race, not knowing Spanish, not really
knowing where I belong culturally.
It was a game I grew up playing with my family and I was
always fascinated by the images on the cards.
I thought it was a perfect way to keep me focused, interested and a way
to pay homage to something I culturally grew up with. There are 54 cards in the game. So I’m hoping to write 54 poems.
5. You’re on the road, walking and hopping trains cross
country with three other artists, of any area and medium, of any level of fame,
success, or anonymity. Who do you choose, and why?
• Iva
Montgomery who is an artist in her own right.
I can’t imagine doing anything without her. She finds beauty in the most mundane
things. She makes me laugh no matter
what the circumstances and can discuss the deepest of subjects.
• Stevie
Nicks. The stories she could tell! We wouldn’t need anything to carry around to
listen to music. She’d just sing for us.
• Langston
Hughes. Because well, he’s… Langston
Hughes. “I have discovered in life there
are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to
go” I highly recommend his
autobiographies The Big Sea and I Wander as I Wonder. He epitomizes the travelling poet.
• Andrew
Lincoln because one word: zombies.
Sarah Frances Moran is a writer, editor, animal lover,
videogamer, queer Latina . She
thinks Chihuahuas should rule the
world and prefers their company to people 90% of the time. Her chapbook
Evergreen will be released this summer from Weasel Press. She is Editor/Founder
of Yellow Chair Review. You may reach her at www.sarahfrancesmoran.com.
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