Author: Sara F.

I'm a writer and content strategist living in New York City.
PODCASTS

Podcast with Betsy Cornwell

by Sara F.1 Comment on Podcast with Betsy Cornwell

Notre Dame MFA student and fellow Writing Center tutor Betsy Cornwell was kind enough to chat with me about her two upcoming novels, life at ND and experience with the book publishing process. Betsy’s debut novel, Tides, will be released from Clarion next spring. Her second novel, Mechanica: A Steampunk Cinderella — also from Clarion — will be published in the spring of 2014.

 Click here to listen to my podcast with Betsy.

Photo courtesy of Betsy Cornwell

–> Read an article on Betsy published by the Notre Dame Graduate School.

–> Check out Betsy’s website to learn more about her life, writing style and two upcoming novels.

LIFE, OPINION, PUBLISHED WORK

Praying for headlights

by Sara F.Leave a Comment on Praying for headlights

–Published 4/16/12 in The Observer.

“Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show is one of those songs college students love.

The moment that distinctive introduction blares from the speakers, arms link, glasses clink and the room erupts in cheering.

In true spring break road trip style, “Wagon Wheel” played multiple times on our drive from South Bend down to South Carolina a few weeks ago.

The first time it came on, I was behind the wheel and we had just crossed the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. We had all been silent for awhile, enjoying the green and gold scenery that unfolded before us. The open road softly rose and fell as we sped at 80 miles per hour south down I-75.

The lyrics of “Wagon Wheel” filled the empty space between us, representing all the things we were thinking, but hadn’t said.

In my head, I tried to define what the song is about. On one level, the song is about freedom — having the freedom to pursue what matters most. It’s about remembering the people and places you care about after being away for a long time.

As a senior in college, this aspect of the song seems especially relevant. I’ve spent months abroad and summers away in different cities. In four years, my younger siblings have grown up, and people in my childhood neighborhood have moved out. Like the narrator, I’ve gone away to mature, and will return both different and the same.

“Wagon Wheel” is also about the beauty of simplicity — that life can be reduced to a single person, a single car and a single desire. You don’t need to know the song to relate to it — the music reflects some reality about the future we all can find truth in.

On our way back to South Bend after spring break, “Wagon Wheel” came on again while I was driving. This time, it was about 10 p.m., dark and raining, and the song had a much more sobering effect.

I realized then that the song is bittersweet, even sad. Loneliness and regret infuse the lyrics because the past still weighs him down. It’s possible that after all those years of longing, after seventeen-straight hours of driving, his vision for a new life could be shattered.

At its core, however, “Wagon Wheel” is about faith. It’s about having faith that the one you love will still be there when you come home, about having faith that you can drive straight into the unknown and everything will end up okay.

With May 20 quickly approaching, I feel like I’m speeding at 80 miles per hour towards graduation, and after that, the unknown. But before then, I hope to share a few more swaying “Wagon Wheels” at Finny’s, indulging in one of those rare moments when we all feel exactly the same thing.

 

CREATIVE WRITING, LIFE

Tribute to Yaya

by Sara F.2 Comments on Tribute to Yaya

In honor of my grandmother Yaya’s birthday — April 2, 1936 — I’m posting a poem I wrote about her that I read in this year’s Notre Dame Literary Festival.

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Today, Yaya would have been 76.

My grandmother, Dorothy Coyne, was one of the best people I’ve ever known. She wasn’t a stereotypical grandmother– we weren’t greeted in her house by the smell of baking cookies (she rarely baked) and her voice wasn’t hushed and gentle. She loved dancing and the bustle of cities. She hated the beach and staying on the phone any longer than was necessary. She was spunky, stylish and confident, and when she had an opinion she made sure it was heard. I admired those things about her.

I can look back to countless nights sitting around my grandparents’ kitchen table with my siblings or spread out across her plush brown carpet, listening to Yaya tell story after crazy story. Like the time in 9th grade the nuns caught her smoking in the bathroom, and she and her friends filled their mouths with powdered soap to mask the smell but ended up with foaming, bubbling mouths as they explained themselves before the principal. Somehow, her stories always reached  a level of pure absurdity; she’d have our entire family keeling over with laughter.

Those stories brought us together. Those stories were the best.

But above everything else, Yaya was a beautiful and loving woman, deeply committed to her family. Four years later, sitting around the kitchen table or spread out across that carpet, trying to imitate the high-pitched inflection of her voice, her stories still leave us hysterical with laughter.

We love and miss you, Yaya.

Yaya

There are times I wonder:
had you dyed your hair
that mahogany-red
one last time,
would you still be
alive today?

Because once you let
that hair go dead and gray,
everything else followed.
spunky-bright cheeks
turned pale in submission,
spine collapsed beneath
the winter sky,
and withered fingers hung
from your hands like
dead leaves.

Yaya, if I could trace the
tracks of your spider-veins
back to the start of this nonsense—
I would.

Then, you could tell me
about the time
you poured shampoo
on Billy’s pancakes,
or when the
hair-dye
turned your hair
“freaking eggplant”

PHOTOGRAPHY

Slow-falling snow

by Sara F.Leave a Comment on Slow-falling snow

These were taken a few weeks ago in Madison, Wis. on my iPhone. It was about 8:30 at night but it could have been midnight or it could have been five in the morning. The combination of snow and empty streets has a time-stopping effect. And there’s something so magical about the way light hits slow-falling snow– it’s even more beautiful than the twinkling of light on rain, I think.

LIFE, PHOTOGRAPHY

Love for Charleston

by Sara F.3 Comments on Love for Charleston

Cities, I think, are absolutely fascinating.

Especially the idea that the people, culture, architecture and industry of cities across the United States can vary so drastically.

The United States Custom House in Charleston, reflects the city's past as one of the busiest port cities in the nation.

A few weeks ago, I visited Charleston, S.C. during my spring break. It was my first time in Charleston, but also my first time in a true Southern city. I grew up right outside of New York City and attend school a few hours from Chicago, so my conception of a city has always been a place filled with sky-high buildings, honking cars and rushed, unfriendly people.

Charleston was definitely not that kind of place.

Famous Antebellum homes along the Promenade of The Battery. This type of architecture characterized buildings in the Old South from the time of the American Revolution to the beginning of the Civil War. Many of the homes are historic landmarks.

Charleston has a true Southern flavor, which I loved. Not only do people wave or smile at you on the street, but doormen pause to help tourists with directions and drug store owners actually let people use their bathrooms.

Southern charm is a real thing.

Crazy.

The city of Charleston has a very relaxed, quaint feel. Old buildings and narrow cobblestone streets reflect Charleston's preservation of traditional Southern culture.

Of course, the city itself is gorgeous, with its beautiful, pastel-colored Antebellum homes situated right on the water. The historic architecture and city layout gave Charleston a European feel, more so than anywhere else I’ve been on the East Coast.

The Battery in Charleston. Across the harbor sits Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.

This vibrant metropolis holds close to its roots — so much of the city’s past remains present. Old stone blocks  even sit on street corners, once used to help men mount their horses, now active reminders of a genteel past.

And if I wasn’t already in love with the place, some key scenes in The Notebook were shot in Charleston. 

OPINION, TECHNOLOGY

Irony and the iPhone

by Sara F.2 Comments on Irony and the iPhone

What is it about our generation and being ironic?

We love to point out irony. We love to create irony. We even accessorize with irony.

The phrase “that’s so ironic” is probably misused thousands of times a day, in place of “that’s such a coincidence” or “that’s so cliche,” even “that’s so cool!”  But in a way, it doesn’t matter whether it’s used correctly.

No, the irony of irony is that just about anything can be ironic.

Take the iPhone. There’s this trend of hiding one of the most advanced tools of communication of our time in retro cases. (Don’t get me wrong, I think the cases are really cool.) But in stuffing the iPhone inside a replica of a cassette tape, or attaching it to an old school receiver,  we’re forcing irony onto a machine that’s inherently unironic. We’re very intentional in doing so, reminding others that we are more than the technology we grew up with.  We still have the capacity to think for ourselves — if anything the Internet Age has made us more quick-thinking — and we manifest our wittiness in the way we recognize or create irony in daily situations.

Why?  Because irony makes us different. In a way, the iPhone (or comparable smartphone) is one of the great levelers of the world. Each day, the phone becomes more ubiquitous. Apple advertises to people across the world, old and young. Since owning an iPhone no longer corresponds with coolness or technological savviness, we young people need some way to set ourselves apart, to make the phone reflect our identities.

COFFEE, FOOD & DRINK, NOTRE DAME, OPINION, PHOTOGRAPHY, PUBLISHED WORK

Caffeine Culture

by Sara F.Leave a Comment on Caffeine Culture

Published in The Observer

If you’re anything like my friends and me, Starbucks downs your flex points just about as fast as you down its tall vanilla lattes.

I don’t even drink coffee just to stay awake. There are so many other great reasons to grab a cup: to fill an awkward break between classes, to catch up with friends, to procrastinate studying and to keep warm when the temperature goes subzero.

We live in a caffeine culture, and the ridiculously long coffee lines between classes prove that. You can even tell a lot about a person based on their caffeine preference.

We have the Waddicks types, who linger at the coveted red booths, reading Chaucer or discussing philosophy, slowly sipping large pumpkin spice coffees.

You know someone’s got a long day when their tumbler is filled to the brim with Grab and Go coffee and secured in the net pocket of a protruding backpack.

And then there are those who are perpetually holding Starbucks — never straight coffee but always with an excess of adjectives like nonfat, extra whip, unsweetened, light ice and no foam.

I may be stereotyping, but at Notre Dame getting coffee is a more social thing for girls than for guys. You are much more likely to see four PW girls in LaFun gossiping over coffee, than to see four Siegfried guys crowded around a Burger King table, chatting and sipping their nonfat lattes.

On the other hand, unlike guys, girls don’t typically purchase energy drinks to have fun with their friends. Let’s take the case of Five-Hour Energy shots. Girls never brag about taking them. In fact, most girls will down them in the privacy of a Subway booth or in their own rooms. But when guys pop open that small bottle, they have to broadcast it to whoever they pass by. It’s always like, “Dude, I’m so ridiculously awake now, I just took a Five-Hour Energy. Love that stuff.”

Addiction? Possibly. Problem? Not really.

But the Five-Hour Energy shot poured into the coffee? Yes, I’ve seen it done. Now that’s a problem.

At Notre Dame, we like to think that while we “play hard” on the weekends, during the weekdays we are studious, diligent and in control. However, our coffee drinking habits are oddly reminiscent of our weekend drinking habits. Why else would we order a double shot of espresso on a Monday morning, or claim that “one more cup” of coffee won’t hurt us? Why else would we suffer through headaches at 11 a.m., just because we didn’t have that morning cup?

Whether you’re a social coffee drinker, a caffeine addict, or, gasp, you “don’t like coffee,” there’s no denying that we live in a caffeine culture.

Of course, there are those out there who claim to survive without any caffeine at all. On good, old-fashioned sleep, they say. I still think there has got to be some method to that madness, but for now, more power to them.

CREATIVE WRITING, POEMS

Ted Kooser

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Ted Kooser is a brilliant poet.

I stumbled upon his collection, “Delights & Shadows,” a few years ago and it has influenced my writing ever since.

Kooser, an Iowa native who was the United States Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006,  writes poems that show glimpses of daily life. He has a way of making the mundane fascinating, of making everyday events  awe-inspiring.

Kooser maximizes meaning in minimal words. He proves that economy of language is extremely effective. Kooser’s clear, simple, beautiful language is something to be emulated in all writing forms– creative, academic or journalistic.

Listen to an interview Kooser did in 2005 with NPR.

Here’s on of my favorite poems:

A Rainy Morning
by Ted Kooser

A young woman in a wheelchair,
wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain
is pushing herself through the morning.
You have seen how pianists
sometimes bend forward to strike the keys,
then lift their hands, draw back to rest,
then lean again to strike just as the chord fades.
Such is the way this woman
strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers,
letting them float, then bends again to strike
just as the chair slows, as if into a silence.
So expertly she plays the chords
of this difficult music she has mastered,
her wet face beautiful in its concentration,
while the wind turns the pages of rain.

LIFE, NOTRE DAME, PHOTOGRAPHY

SAD

by Sara F.1 Comment on SAD

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) plagues six of every 100 people in the United States, according to statistics by the American Academy of Family Physicians.

The main age of onset of SAD is between 18 and 30 years old.  The disorder is related to seasonal variations of light (or lack thereof).

No wonder it  affects so many students at Notre Dame.

That’s a pretty dramatic  shift of scenery. Beautiful, as the white pathway and  snow-covered dome are. But best viewed through a photograph or the warmth of a LaFortune window.

Check out The Observer‘s archives on Seasonal Affective Disorder here.