Kelly K. Ferguson is the author of My Life as Laura: How I Searched for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Found Myself (Press 53). Her work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, New England Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, mental_floss magazine, and other publications. In the past ten years she has moved from southern Louisiana to southern Ohio back to southern Louisiana to southern Utah back to southern Ohio, where she is Assistant Professor of Magazine Media in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.
1. What writer do you want to be when you grow up?
I wish I were someone like Cheryl Strayed who answers “Alice Munro,” zero hesitation, but I’m a Libra.
2. What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?
“Experiments in Living Chemistry,” an essay about when I was ten at Nerd Camp and swabbed my vagina to see what would grow in a Petri dish.
3. Who do you trust with your drafts and why?
Theodore the cat because he doesn’t care.
4. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever gotten?
“Kelly, stop cracking jokes and give your character a real problem.”
5. What’s your go to recommendation to read when somebody says “I’m not sure about this whole nonfiction thing?” Why? What do you hope it shows them? What about it excites you?
My back pocket rec for the general reader is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Great characters. Great story. Impeccable sourcing. Embodies the “true story, well told.” As for writers wondering if CNF is a “thing,” I suggest visiting the Lascaux cave paintings in France.
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I’ll admit, I’ve always wondered why public school teachers receive all this training in pedagogy and classroom management, while it’s assumed college professors will insert some Matrix-like chip when the time comes. All I could think during the series of well-intentioned videos and PowerPoints was, “Too much, too late.” How could we possibly digest and apply all this theory in a week? I admit, I signed up for these modules hoping someone would finally tell me what buttons to push.
I took the checks to offset my furlough, but my course shell remained blank. I had ten years invested in a classroom—exercises, talks, activities, group work— that relied upon in-person instruction. I counted on face-to-face for wiggle room, improv, sheep herding, and accountability.
Now my net was gone.
Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies 