CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Michelle Spinei

Rappahannock Review Nonfiction Editors: In “The Breakfast Buffet,” we love how you utilized the five senses in your vivid descriptions; we feel like we are actually there! Are there any writing strategies that you harnessed to accomplish this? 

Michelle Spinei: I take lots of notes on my phone. It’s a messy collection of random observations that I use when I need to add texture to a piece or sometimes to jog a memory. When it comes to the senses, smell is always the most fun to write. If I’m stuck, I start there. After I write, I record myself reading and listen to it like I would listen to an audiobook, while walking or cooking. I edit by noticing where I’m not explaining myself clearly or where more detail could be added. It’s easier to be objective this way and I catch things I might skim over while reading. 

RR: During our discussion as a team, we admired the exigency in this piece and how it can encourage people to not overlook the mundane parts of life. Do you have any words for others who may be struggling with this? 

MS: “Winter in the Abruzzi” by Natalia Ginzburg is an essay I come back to for inspiration, especially the last paragraph, which lands like a gut punch. It’s a reminder that no subject matter, not even the mundane, is off limits as long as there’s emotional honesty behind it. When writing The Breakfast Buffet, I wanted to explore the state in-between being a tourist or a local. While moving somewhere new can bring a fresh perspective, you can’t outrun the banal. It’s a matter of working with the mundane parts of life and finding, if not the beauty, then at least the humor in them.

RR: The piece’s second-person perspective immersed us into the world you were describing. How did you choose what details to include about other people around you?

MS: The first draft of this piece was written in first-person but something wasn’t working, so I let it sit. When I came back to it, I played around and switched it to second-person and it clicked. It felt closer to the actual experience of being a breakfast attendant—the feeling of being interchangeable, that anyone could do it. This showed up in the way that the employee shirts, which came back from the dry cleaner with everyone’s name penciled on the bag, became a free-for-all in practice. One of the hotel receptionists never greeted me in the mornings because he later said breakfast attendants were constantly quitting so he stopped making an effort to get to know anyone new. For that reason, when describing the people around me, I wrote in broad strokes without much detail, like a first sketch, to capture the sense that everyone, the breakfast attendants and the hotel guests, were temporarily thrown together in this liminal space. And who really wants to have deep conversations at 7 a.m.? That’s best saved for bartenders.

RR: How has living in a new country influenced the way that you write?

MS: I was a reader before I moved to Iceland, but Iceland made me a writer. Maybe it’s the bad weather and dark winters. Maybe it’s the literary tradition of the Sagas. Maybe it’s Reykjavik’s DIY culture where people form poetry collectives, print zines, and host reading nights. There’s a kind of optimism that I’ve found and a celebration of creativity. It’s a small country and writers don’t have the same commercial pressure, which gives way to a style with less editing but more creative freedom, and hopefully I’ve absorbed some of that influence. Also, living here has given me an insider-outsider perspective. There’s an Icelandic phrase—“glöggt er gests augað,” which means the guest’s eye sees clearer—and as a writer my goal is to keep that “guest’s eye” sharp.

RR: Besides coffee and bacon, are there other things that help get you through your workday or even your writing process? 

MS: Coffee and bacon are a tough combination to beat, but reading and being part of my local literary community motivates me to keep writing.