![]() ![]() In the first months of 2021, we talked over email about self-doubt and validation, using place as an anchor for nonlinear chronology, what social media’s done to essayists, the sidelining of romantic heartbreak, and more.Įliza Smith: First off, we decided that the best way to do this interview was by email, one question at a time, because we’re both feeling scattered and unfocused lately. ![]() “I want to do that thing Elissa does,” I said to a classmate while starting a new essay, “where it starts with jokes about dick pics and then you end up crying at the end.” At readings on campus or at her neighborhood bookstore, Two Dollar Radio, I’d find myself entranced by her essay drafts about Instagram-aesthetic witchcraft or falling in love with the Red Dead Redemption character Dutch van der Linde. During her office hours, she’d offer me a La Croix and then lean back from her desk to show me the constellation of notecards she was gathering about Stevie Nicks, or Twin Peaks, or the colonial history of Seattle. As a student of Elissa Washuta’s at Ohio State, I had the distinct pleasure of following the threads of her then-collection-in-progress, White Magic, through her latest preoccupations and ideas about craft. ![]()
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