In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Samantha M. Sorenson
Your work, “How to Eat an Elephant” creatively blends the idea of consuming both information and food. Can you talk about what sparked you to write this piece?
The journey of writing “How to Eat an Elephant” began when I started working toward recovery for my eating disorder. I found myself interested in exploring how deep the mindset of my particular relationship with food went and what other areas of my life that mindset was also influencing—turned out most of my life was driven from the same need for control and the same feelings of always being out of control. Much like moving into recovery is a slow process, so was the drafting of this essay—“How to Eat an Elephant” went through many iterations over the course of five years as I wrestled with the realities I have put on the page.
When did you start writing? What is your process for beginning a piece? How do you edit that work?
I started writing at eleven years old, although literary nonfiction came into my life much later. All of my work stems directly from curiosity and obsessions and a love for language. Though a paradox, I write what is on my mind to discover what is on my mind. One of the joys of crafting essays is the not knowing—not knowing what a piece wants to be or where it will end up. In my experience, it is only once a piece reveals itself to you that you can really start to think about revision. My revision process is different for everything I write, but it always begins by getting feedback from trusted readers and ends by scrupulously going line-by-line and word-by-word through the piece until I am satisfied. By that time, I have read my work out loud dozens of times over, and there is still always room for improvement.
Are there other phrases, like “how to eat an elephant,” that have stayed with you and had a profound effect on other areas of your life?
Yes, and perhaps I will write about those at some point as well. For now they flitter across my consciousness at the most inopportune times.
What themes does your work circle back to, if any?
I find that my work circles back to the human body a lot, as I mention in “How to Eat an Elephant.” We only experience the world through our individual bodies, and every body has limitations, biases, desires, etc. that I find fascinating.
What authors or texts inspire you? What are some of your favorite books?
Since my reading habits (like so many of my other habits, see “How to Eat an Elephant”) are on the obsessive side, my favorite books are constantly changing. Five of my favorite reads from 2024 were Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussions and Recovery by Annie Liontas, On Women by Susan Sontag, One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle (edited by David James Duncan), Holy American Burnout by Sean Enfield, and Let Me Count the Ways by Tomás Q. Morin. I found each of these works inspiring in their own right—both for my writing and my life, and I highly recommend them.
What are you currently writing or working on?
I am currently working on a collection of essays centered on relationships and censorship. I am interested in the way we censor language, experience, thoughts, and behavior, as well as how we ourselves become censored through illness, injury, disability, and grief. My current project explores these themes by looking at the dynamics and motivations in my personal relationships over time.
Samantha M. Sorenson is pursuing her MFA in creative nonfiction at Brigham Young University. She currently serves as the managing editor for Fourth Genre. Her work has appeared in Under the Sun.
