Elise McMullen-Ciotti
You remind me: I am not alone in this universe.
We are all in this together, labeled continually, put in jars and decided upon.
Yet, in this subway car, we are one body, moving in the same direction—for minutes at a time.
Destinations as colorful as spectrums crisscrossing in infinitum.
— Elise McMullen-Ciotti (excerpt, Underneath)
Osiyo. . .
Before my career in publishing, I worked in food, television, and then food in television. I still cook . . . a lot, but books and research are where it’s at these days. Represented by Linda Camacho at Gallt & Zacker, I write children’s and adult fiction and nonfiction. But I’m also an essayist and poet. (continued)
I can find all the Texas summers of my childhood in one bite of a fully-ripe, soft-skinned, southern peach.
There are other winners.
Strawberry shortcake and fried chicken on my birthday.
Giant slabs of watermelon sprinkled with salt and eaten with a fork and knife, or quartered and held like edible flags, or even made all fancy-like, gutted one small sphere at a time with a melon baller.
But a peach. When I was little?
That meant summer was in full swing. That meant . . . time in the tree.
—Elise McMullen-Ciotti (The Peach Tree)