Kelly Mendiola will be at the second annual Literary Arts Festival of St. Edward’s University. Join her for a discussion on research for creative non-fiction on Friday, March 3oth at 3:30p.m in the Maloney Room on the third floor of the Main Building. For now, let’s get to know her a bit better.
First of all, who are you? What’s your story?
I’m Kelly Willis Mendiola and I teach English Writing and Rhetoric at St. Edward’s. I spent most of my childhood on a farm in Missouri, studied literature as an undergraduate in Utah, and studied American Studies and Rhetoric in a Master’s Program in Boston and a Ph.D. program at U. T.
Where can I find your work either online or in print?
You can mostly find my work in a variety of bags, folders, and computer files around my office. I wrote a ridiculously long dissertation–part bio part literary analysis–about four women evangelists and I’m revising a couple of chapters for publication. I’ve published an essay on WPA slave narratives in Texas and one about spirituality and body image. I have a number of poems and an essay in progress. I also like to write nonfiction tweets called “tiny truths.”
When did you begin writing?
When I was little I wrote and illustrated stories that I sold to my Dad for spare change. I also wrote plays which I made my four younger siblings and their friends perform. I kept a daily journal from age 8-15. I stopped writing regularly in high school and wrote nothing creative in college. In grad school I started writing personal essays. I started writing poetry about three years ago.
What influences or inspires you? What books or poems have inspired you?
Oddly, I get inspired by artists who do what I want to do in genres other than my own. I’m inspired by songwriters like Iris Dement, Alejandro Escovedo, and Tom Waits. I’m inspired by visual artists like Lance Letscher and Rene Norman. I’m inspired by lots of films, Winter’s Bone comes to mind right now. I’m inspired by hundreds of unnamed quilters who made art in their spare time out of feed sacks and old work clothes. I’m inspired by people who make art out of ordinary things and who unselfconsciously make artistic creation part of their daily lives. I’m inspired by the way my father arranged the tools in his barn. I’m inspired by my great grandfather who was an accomplished fiddler and folk storyteller. I’m inspired by the man who created a wall in an empty lot in my neighborhood by dry stacking hundreds of thousands of stones on top of each other. I’m inspired by the writing my students do outside of class, just because they want to.
What is your favorite word?
Fuschia
What is your least favorite word?
Moco
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
In another life in which I had singing talent. I’d like to be a singer songwriter.
What super hero power would you most like to have?
Aquaman’s ability to hold his breath for long periods of time and to swim like a dolphin.
In what circumstances do you write? (Do you have a special desk? A regular table at Starbucks? Pen and Paper or Typing? Do you write daily, as the mood strikes you, or especially in November?)
So far, my favorite place to write is in my car on my laptop in the parking lot of the Zilker Botanical Gardens when it’s neither too hot nor too cold to sit without my car running. However, the conditions are rarely right for me to write in my favorite place.
What can we expect to hear from you at the 2nd Annual St. Edward’s University Literary Arts Festival?
I hope you’ll hear inspiring stories about one of the most interesting parts of writing creative nonfiction, research.
Sigma Tau Delta @ St. Edward's University 