A Literary Dinner Party 🍽️
Alissa Wilkinson shares her unique path from academic to critic to author
Hi Bleeders!
Alissa Wilkinson wrote her book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women during the first year of the pandemic, which left its mark on both the process and the content. Alissa explains how her first two books came to be and a little bit about her current Joan Didion-related project. She also shares how book writing fits in amid her daily journalism grind, her unique publishing path from academic to more traditional, and more.
🎧 Alissa Wilkinson Throws a Dinner Party for Her Food Writing Inspiration with Her Latest Book “Salty”
Here’s a preview:
“The thing to remember, and I do tell younger writers this sometimes, is that the magazine articles you write or whatever, they're kind of written in pencil — where they're out there, but people don't necessarily think of them as your one thing that you've written. But a book is in ink and it will follow you around the rest of your life, and so you better make sure you want your name on that book. And I definitely know younger writers who kind of got excited because a publisher approached them about writing a book, often about their lives, and now they're 40 and regretting it because that was not a story they wanted to give up the way that they did. So I think just be very careful about that kind of thing.”
Our conversation was so delightful and wide-ranging that I wanted to follow up with a couple of questions for Alissa, specifically about her latest book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women (great title, great premise), and she was generous enough to answer them as a newsletter exclusive:
Who was your favorite woman to research and write about in Salty, and why?
AW: I think in the end it turned out to be Edna Lewis, who I knew about but hadn’t encountered thoroughly prior to working on her chapter, which opens the book. We’ve had some shared experiences, and the restaurant she famously cooked at later in her career isn’t too far from where I live. But I think I was really inspired by the way she used food — as I write in the book — to subtly undercut prejudices and bigotry against Black Southerners that would have been present in her readership, and she does it so skillfully that you might not even realize it’s happening but you’d internalize it all the same.
What was your favorite recipe from the book?
AW: Oh boy, this is tough. I think it’s got to be the recipe for my favorite style of martini (the Gibson), which appears at the end of Hannah Arendt’s chapter, along with the snack I insist you must try it with some time. I’ll let you find out what that is.
Thank you so much, Alissa!
Where I write:
I’m asking each guest to give us a peek behind the scenes. Alissa appears to have the perfectly efficient NYC writer’s setup with all the essentials within an arms’ length.
Episode links:
🏃♀️ Follow Alissa Wilkinson @alissamarie on Twitter and @alissawilkinson on Instagram.
👀 Read Alissa’s writing as Senior Culture Writer + Critic for Vox.
🛒 Order Alissa's latest book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women.
💻 Check out Alissa’s website for more about her writing and books.
🎧 And, of course, pop in those earbuds and listen to Alissa Wilkinson Throws a Dinner Party for Her Food Writing Inspiration with Her Latest Book “Salty” on your favorite podcast platform.
Online reading about writing:
Living the Dream at the Worst Time - Sarah Stankorb writes about landing her long-desired first book contract in the middle of the hardest year of her life and that nagging feeling of being limited by time as a writer.
The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022 - Oh, look at the New Yorker, impressing their good-ass taste on everyone — I just put like 10 books in my Bookshop shopping cart… I need to take a cold shower before allowing myself to check out.
Looking for a remote-friendly job in the lit world?
Until next time, HAPPY BLEEDING!
So… ROLL CALL! 🗣️
What were YOUR favorite books of 2022?
Let’s connect on social media! I’m @courtneykocak on Twitter and Instagram. For more, check out my website courtneykocak.com.