Meet the editor!
Hey y’all, I’m Zyen Smoot and I am very happy to be the editor of Revise This! I began my graduate journey last year, so I am now in my 520 course and I plan to receive my MA in poetry this June and my MFA next year. When I am not exploring and meditating on Southern Gothic and Black Indigeneity through metaphors and double-consciousness, I am figuring out the best way to better the institutionalization of our school systems at a high school. Nice to meet you all!
Please contact zyen.smoot@wilkes.edu if you have any story suggestions, interview opportunities or want to contribute!
To Be or Not to Be (A Writer) and to Have a Baby
Writers are an interesting bunch of people in that how we came to writing may not always be as consistent as why we write. What I mean by that is, there are those who were born loving to write and there are others who found writing on their journey through life. It is almost like the thin line between love at first sight and unexpectedly falling in love over time. Or, after speaking to three of our current students, like the before and after of motherhood.
Over the past year Wilkes community members Sarah Yantiss, Amber Niven, and Stacey Faustner carried and delivered a baby while also dedicating themselves to our writing program. Though, after interviewing the three women I would say that the act of writing while mothering is not so momentous as their love for both vocations.
As Amber puts it, “Before I was a mother I was a candle maker for like seven years. I had my first kid and I said ‘Oh, man. I can’t do this,’ so I sold my business. In the in-between zone I started writing poetry. Motherhood really shifted my steps. It has directed me towards writing.”
She added, “Women can fall into a great depression. When I started writing hiking guidebooks, it became more intentional. Motherhood 100 percent influenced my writing where they go hand and hand. Creating humans is a creative act itself. I can’t separate being Amber the mother and Amber the writer. If I am not getting my soul fed I won’t have as much patience with my kids.”
If anyone is not getting their soul fed they won’t have much patience with anything. Yet, as writers we find that we must be patient. However, how we learn that depends on how we move through our writing and everything else around us. A mother’s experience means having known the human that is now in front of them was once inside of them; and that knowledge has the power to influence the intentional nature of their writing, subtly or not.
Sarah Yantiss has one child she has given birth to, one she has adopted, and two for whom she has been a surrogate. When it comes to her relationship with writing, motherhood, and surrogacy, she states, “Obviously when you’re pregnant you’re hormonal and then there is a hormonal crash. Then there is this emotional moment, so even if you are not bringing home a baby, your body knows you are carrying. The hormonal crash didn’t put me in a good mindset. There are things I wanted to write, because it helps me with my mental health, so I went to poetry. It definitely affects our writing, but not long term”
She adds, “The more things we experience in our life gives us emotional connection and emotional drive and those things impact how we express ourselves. Each of those things impacts how I view things and the mix of emotions that come out with my writing. For my stories, I don’t think they have an impact set in stone, but I do think it impacts what I want the story to have. For example, in books, there are messy families and there are great families, and I try to find that middle ground where even the side characters have foundational families.”
To be a writer is to choose whether or not we are going to incorporate our life experiences into our expression. Yet, our experiences are foundational to who we are or who we choose to be. As Amber put it, “As a writer we have to be present because we pick up on a lot of subtleties. That is what also influences my mothering,” and so we find that our creative expression bounces off our everyday lives in a cyclical way.
Stacey Faustner is a teacher. However, she states, “I knew I wasn’t happy only being a teacher. I went to law school for a year and was miserable there. I knew I wanted to tell a story and be helpful to people. I knew I could do that with my writing. In the beginning it was hard. I have three kids, two are older, and the other isn’t even a year old yet. Being a mother influenced my writing sometimes, but I try to keep those separate. Yet, I think I am an entirely different person than I was when I wasn’t a mother. I am fully responsible for another human being and then you realize you have more growing up to do.”
–“Part of why I enrolled in Wilkes is because of my kids. I wanted to show my kids that just because no one in my family has ever done anything like this—I want them to see that you can still pursue something.”
She adds, “A lot of people will say that pursuing higher education for something in the arts is something you should do as a hobby, but I think it was [director of the program] David [Hicks] who said to me, ‘You’re the only one who can write your story.’ I think that is what makes it worthwhile. I keep that in mind when talking about my writing with my kids. I consult my kids with my writing—for example, writing a screenplay for them where they give me input.”
So, we find that some of us are, as Sarah states, “a writer first.” However, what each of these women have shown is that this statement becomes more subjective when we meditate on our life experiences and the emotions that follow. Additionally, to be a mother your life becomes an extension of someone else’s until they develop the ability to become their own person. That exchange, itself, is quite creative and, again, we—mother, father, human being—find ourselves children again among everything that surrounds us.
-“It has caused me to grow a lot emotionally and mentally.”
Yet, our roles in life can also make us adamant with regard to whether or not we want them to influence our writing. Stacey states, “I feel like there is a stigma sometimes as mothers we are just caregivers. For me, being a mother comes first, but that is not everyone.”
Amber states, “For mothers, future mothers, and fathers, too–parenting is a deeply sacrificial journey. It can feel like your well is always running dry, like someone always needs something from you. And for me, it took years to finally take a chance on myself—to believe I was worth the student loans, the extra childcare, and the time to focus on something that others might see as frivolous.”
Sarah states, “I have been a caregiver for my family for a very long time, I don’t think I can turn off being a writer. I think it is always flowing with everything else.”
To be or not to be a writer, in addition to everything else you may be, isn’t much of a question as it is a choice. Although not all of us are mothers, or caregivers, we take on many roles, we display many identities, and that can ignite our souls in any direction. It can take our writing on a journey where even as we look back at our old work, we can pinpoint what was happening during that time, and how that is reflected in the words we chose, in the images we created, in the emotions we manifested. It almost seems like being a writer is a forever thing so long as we’re alive. Adding a child to the experience can be, as Sarah puts it, yet another “very soul-search thing.”
Amber Niven is currently in her 510/512 courses. Her current focus is creative nonfiction. She is writing a memoir for a “ten-year time period. Life and heartbreak.”
Stacey Faustner is also in her 510/512 courses. Her current focus is “speculative fiction. Primarily romance and YA.” She is working on a fantasy novel called “Records of Revolutia. I take a lot of inspiration from Japanese games.” She is also hoping to work on a screenplay called Marionette, “about a little girl who gets sucked into a carnival where there are different children who have been kidnapped and the main character has to bring them back to their families.”
Sarah Yantiss is in 520 (MA thesis) in fiction. She is finishing up her fantasy novel “Soul of Amber—magic systems, a lot of world building, and multilayer plots.” She is also working on a non-fiction piece with the pending name of “Mother in-half” about her history with surrogacy. Additionally, “fiddling out poetry here and there.”
Maslow Family Graduate Creative Writing Program Updates
Our 20th Anniversary Celebration!
This semester marks the 20th anniversary of our dear old program, which we will celebrate at the summer residency, featuring readings from the founding faculty members and testimonials from alumni. Stay tuned for more details in the next edition of Revise This!
New Community Member
We’re delighted to announce the hiring of Marisa de los Santos, the New York Times bestselling author who will teach mainstream fiction for us. Marisa is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books. While she is now primarily a novelist, Marisa began her writing career as a poet, and her first book was a collection of poems titled From the Bones Out, published in 2000. In the twenty-five years following this publication, Marisa has published seven novels for adults and two novels, co-authored with her husband David Teague, for middle-grade readers. Her novels include Love Walked In, Belong to Me, I’ll Be Your Blue Sky, and, most recently, Watch Us Shine. Marisa holds a BA from the University of Virginia, an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Before she paused her teaching job to write full time, Marisa was an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Delaware. Born in Baltimore and raised in Virginia, Marisa has spent much of her adult life in the Philadelphia area, including over twenty years in her current home of Wilmington, Delaware, where she and her husband raised their two kids, Charlie and Annabel. Marisa’s first detective novel, The Trusted, set in a fictional Pennsylvania town and featuring Filipina-American detective Lina Cordova, is forthcoming in the fall of 2026.
To Freedom!
The Spiral Staircase of Doom is now gone! At long last, the ever-perilous, ever-adventurous staircase from the Etruscan office to the basement storage area has been removed! The Etruscan books have been brought upstairs, where they will be drier and safer–and our beloved Etruscan editors will be safer as well!
Recent Progressions
Our first annual stewardship of the Scholastic Writing Awards is nearly complete, as the winners have been announced. We look forward to celebrating these high-school geniuses at our award ceremony on April 27 at the Darte Center on the Wilkes campus.
Faculty Updates
Juanita Rockwell directed the preview production of Nobody is Ever Missing, an opera by Tim Holt based on Catherine Lacey’s novel of the same name. This immersive multimedia production was part of Mind On Fire’s artist residency at The Voxel Theater: Baltimore’s premiere incubator and performance venue for innovative performance projects. The official premiere of the opera is from October 3rd to the 5th, 2025. The production is to be performed outdoors along Stony Run creek in Baltimore City.
For more about Juanita, visit her website: www.juanitarockwell.com
Christine Gelineau’s new Creative Non-Fiction book, ALMANAC: A MURMURATION, is forthcoming from Excelsior Editions (trade imprint of SUNY Press) on April 1, 2025.
Chrstine says, “I am very much looking forward to reading from this book at the June residency!”
Editor’s note: Can’t wait to hear it!
You can find Christine’s book at https://sunypress.edu/Books/A/Almanac
Jessica Goudeau’s book, WE WERE ILLEGAL, is a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize!
David Hicks’s new novel, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DANNY, will be published on May 13 by Vine Leaves Press. For more info or to preorder, go to https://vineleavespress.myshopify.com/products/the-gospel-according-to-danny-by-david-hicks
J. Michael Lennon was the literary consultant, and was also interviewed in, “How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer,” a 100-minute documentary that contains interviews with Mailer, his friends and family, and outtakes from his films. It is produced by Triage Films, and directed by Jeff Zimbalist. It was favorably reviewed in NEW YORK TIMES, ATLANTIC, VARIETY, and is now available through Amazon Prime.
Robin McCrary’s Fulbright work at the University of Waterloo, using narratives to address trust gaps in health(care), has been featured by the University of Waterloo Faculty of Arts.
To access the article visit: https://uwaterloo.ca/arts/news/fulbright-scholar-aims-close-trust-gaps-healthcare
Student and Alumni Updates
Marcie Herman Riebe (M.A. in progress) recently had her short, “A Crooked Line,” performed at Diva Theater in Scranton, PA in their annual One Acts Festival. She also continues to host Page to Stage at Diva Theater, a quarterly celebration of local and regional writers of all genres–contact her if you’re interested in being a part of it!
Email: marcie.riebe@wilkes.edu
Sawyer Green (M.A. in progress) was recently hosted on an internet podcast called Page Turners. Sawyer says in the interview, “we spoke about my children’s book, “Nosferatu” and the process that went into making it. This was the first time I was approached by someone, and I wasn’t the one doing the approaching, so that’s gotta be a good sign, right? :)”
Editors notes: I think it is, Sawyer 🙂
Kimberly Heiman (M.A. in progress) recently published a short story originally written in Wilkes’s Fiction Foundation Class. “Cake” was published by Flash Fiction Magazine on January 31, 2025. Kim also authored an op-ed in her local paper “commenting on the devastating environmental impact of the current administration policies.” The Op-Ed was published in the Morning Call on February 21, 2025
Link to her article on Morning Call: https://www.mcall.com/2025/02/21/your-view-crying-for-the-corals/
Link to her flash fiction piece “Cake” https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2025/01/31/cake/
Lots of great things are happening to kick off our Spring Semester. Feel free to congratulate your community members!