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I MET NITA several years ago when working with the Peace Corps Fund. She was writing then and just beginning her successful Sunday Salon held at Stain, a bar in Brooklyn, NY. A |
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You grew up where, Nita? |
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I grew up in Ketchikan, Alaska. I went to Whitman College in eastern Washington where I majored in French language and literature. |
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| And you were in West Africa as a PCV? |
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Yes, I was a PCV in a French-speaking village in Cameroon where I taught English as a Foreign Language to middle and high school students. I was there from 1988 to 1990.
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What happened after the Peace Corps? |
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After the Peace Corps, I spent a year decompressing back home in Ketchikan. Then I moved to Seattle for another year before attending graduate school in New York. I graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1995 and got a degree in TESOL and taught in the New York City public school system for over nine years.
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Have you published much writing? |
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Much? I’d say not much, but I’ve been published in a teachers’ anthology, the National Peace Corps Association magazine WorldView, and a webzine (www.ducts.org). I’m still working on a collection of related nonfiction pieces, sending out to literary magazines, and receiving a healthy amount of rejection letters. Did I say healthy? I mean ridiculous amount.
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When did you start Sunday Salon? |
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I started Sunday Salon in 2002, the summer after I received my MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School. One of my instructors, the poet and essayist Honor Moore suggested I start a reading series when I asked her what I should do next (that is, besides to continue writing). As the series took off, I realized how important it was for me as a writer working in isolation to have a community to connect to on a monthly basis.
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