Interview with Annalisa McMorrow - WOW! Q2 Creative Nonfiction Essay Runner Up

Annalisa McMorrow returns! After placing in the Fall 2024 Flash Fiction Contest (see her interview HERE), Annalisa is back showing us that she is equally talented with nonfiction writing. She was a runner up in the Q2 2025 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest with "The Sound of One Hand Clapping".

Annalisa McMorrow is a writer and editor living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her love of words comes from her screenwriting father who told her magical serials every night at bedtime, and her mother, an accomplished poet. She has been published in periodicals from People to Parenting and once abridged a 92,000-word novel (from the 1600s) to fit onto an audiotape. Her favorite genres to read are memoirs, noir, and 50s pulp, but she has been known to buy books for their covers.

--Interview by Jodi M. Webb

WOW: Congratulations on "The Sound of One Hand Clapping" about the time after your husband's strokes. That's such a vast experience, how did you decide which details to focus on for the essay? Was it difficult to condense your experience to fit the contest word count?

Annalisa: I have been writing about caregiving and his strokes since December of 2019. Most people know someone who survived a stroke, but few people know anyone who survived two different types of strokes in 24 hours. I honestly only had a difficult time choosing which part of our “journey” to write about that was standalone. I live for tight word counts. I mean, I adore them. Give me 50 words, 150, 500, 700. I am going to noodle and tweak and polish and dissect until those words sing.

WOW: And sing they did! The memories in your essay are so vivid. Do you keep a journal to help capture your life?

Annalisa: The day after my husband’s strokes, my father brought me a notebook and pen to the hospital, and I kept almost excruciatingly careful notes (mostly for the insurance companies) from then on. (My husband was in facilities for three months.) I have probably written a million words about his illness in the past 5.5 years.

WOW: I have the same thing from when my husband was ill! Do you have any advice for writers?

Annalisa: Don’t be afraid of a blank page. Get words down so you can edit them. If you are stuck, ask yourself questions: Who is this piece about? What is my goal in writing? Who is my audience? And if those are too broad, just keep asking smaller questions: Where do my characters meet? What does the room look like? Re-read your words to make sure that what you’ve written matches the vision in your mind.

Also, draft. I draft forever. I draft all day long. This is my fourth draft of this interview.

WOW: When writing do you have a favorite topic or type of writing?

Annalisa: Two broken people meet and fall in love. I love love.

WOW: Don't we all? In your bio you also mention that you've been known to buy a book because you fall in love with its cover (me too, especially those with stenciled edges!). I'm dying to know, what are some books you bought just for their covers?

Annalisa: The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt by W.P. Kinsella — gorgeous writing, probably one of my all-time favorite short stories is in this book. It’s called “K Mart.”

Blue Heaven by Joe Keenan—oh, god, so funny.

Ironweed by William Kennedy—I prefer Legs (the sequel, I think) to this, but Ironweed was my first taste of William Kennedy.

WOW: Tell us what you do when you aren't writing (or reading). Do you have any hobbies? 

Annalisa: I crochet every day, and I give most of my scarves away. I’m a very shy person, but I have a little speech. When I see a stranger I want to gift with a scarf, I say, “I crochet scarves and like to give them to people who inspire me.” And then I hand over the scarf. I’ve only been turned down twice. I’ve probably given away 1000. My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was five, and that was (gasp) 50 years ago. I also write fan mail. Which is something I have done since I was small. Every so often, someone will write me back.

WOW: You've been published in a variety of publications throughout your writing career. Do you have a white whale publication that you're hoping to land? 

Annalisa: Years ago, I wanted Yellow Silk. I don’t think they’re in existence. I also wanted Libido. Ditto. I tend not to write literarily enough for literary magazines. But I made it into the NY Times with a 100-word submission for Thanksgiving, beating out (I think) 1500 entries. That was a big moment. I wish I could write a Shouts & Murmurs for The New Yorker.

WOW: The NY Times? I am officially in awe of you. Thanks for giving us a peek inside your writing life.

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