Kristie Smeltzer’s writing has appeared in So to Speak, The Florida Review, Eclectica Magazine, and The Apeiron Review. Her story, “Bridges,” was a runner-up Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art’s 2007 Fiction Contest. Her story, “The Fine Art of Goldfish,” received an honorable mention in the WriterHouse/C-ville Weekly 2015 Fiction Contest and appears in Apeiron Review’s Issue 10. Kristie is currently working on two novels. She earned her MFA at the University of Central Florida. She resides in Charlottesville, Virginia, and teaches at WriterHouse.
Kristie Smeltzer: I enjoy humor in writing, even in dramatic scenes, and dialogue that captures the quirks and shorthand of speech.
Authentic characters are what I love to read and aspire to write, so moments when characters boil down emotions and situations to their most distilled essence make me connect.
Eckleburg: What are you working on now?
I’m working on novel that’s verging somewhere between mystery/thriller and literary fiction. I’m also working on a young adult novel that is top secret that I’m super excited about. And I’ve got a strong half-finished literary novel, part travelogue, part coming-of-age tale, fermenting in a figurative drawer somewhere that I one day hope to revisit.
Kristie Smeltzer: And there are at least four stories in the works, because what better way is there to procrastinate from working on novels than by writing more short stories.
Eckleburg: Who and what are your artistic influences?
I’m really drawn, in all art forms, to work that depicts moment of becoming or realization.
Authors who inspire me are Julie Orringer, Lorrie Moore, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Norman Maclean, Erin Morgenstern, and many others.
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