Madelin Parsley grew up in the panhandle of Nebraska. She holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Vanderbilt University, and her short stories have appeared in Ploughshares and Narrative Magazine. She’s currently working on a novel about five siblings, two small towns, and a family dynamic that is shaped and reshaped by grief. She has taught classes for writers of all ages and interests—in schools, community centers, libraries, Zoom rooms, and once in the heart of a Tennessee swamp.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. The hard part for me has always been how: how to build a healthy writing practice, how to solve an especially difficult craft problem, how to bounce back after failure. I think most of us know intuitively whether we want to write, but we never stop working on how.
What do you love most about the writing process?
Nothing is better than the high of a good writing day! But maybe second-best for me is the feeling of coming back to a piece of writing I thought was terrible and discovering that it isn’t terrible after all.
What do you love most about teaching writing?
I’m continually blown away by how talented my students are, and how generous they are with one another. In a status- and prestige-oriented world, it’s easy to forget that good writers are actually everywhere. I love that the writing workshop makes space for us to celebrate this fact.
What are you reading right now?
I just finished Vladimir by Julia May Jonas and have been recommending it every chance I get. It so happens that this novel was recently made into a Netflix series, but if ever there was a case for Read the Book Instead, this is it. The Netflix series is whatever. The book is wise, funny, vivid, expansive, and perfectly pitched all the way through. And the dialogue is excellent—it’s worth reading for that element alone.
What’s your favorite writing quote?
I’ve been working on patience in my writing practice lately—it’s easy to pretend I’m being disciplined when really I’m just being impatient. Slow and steady is always better. I repeat this line from Goethe in my head: “Don’t rush; don’t rest.”
Instructor Michael Belanger is an author and high school history teacher. His debut novel, The History of Jane Doe, was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award and received a Kirkus starred review. More recently, his writing has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Pigeon Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, and the 2025 Connecticut Literary Anthology.
BY AMANDA PARRISH MORGAN It’s become a bit of a truism to point out that if a career has an “appreciation week” it’s a sign those employees are underpaid. After all–while I very much appreciated the anesthesiologist who administered the epidural I’d begun asking for the moment my water broke,
