We love learning more about our contributors, and an interview seemed like a fun way to hear more about the writers and artists we publish, so we gave them a choice of questions to answer. We hope you also enjoy hearing more about the artists and their works. Read on and get yourself a print edition of Contest Issue #4 for work from Michelle Nicolaysen


What was the inspiration for the piece published in the issue?
I started this piece in an online essay class more than six years ago. I intended to write about something else entirely, but my vegetarianism and Adventism was what came out. It was terrible. There's not much left in this final draft except the first line. My classmates were confused about what the point was. The instructor, who also couldn't see what my point was, told me I needed to dig deep, and so I kept peeling back the layers, trying to figure out why my brain couldn't let this go.


What do you do in the rest of your life and how does that connect and/or conflict with your creative life?
In my real life, I'm a mom, a ranchwife and I teach an Intro to Religion class on the side, so I'm running kids around, feeding ranch crews and grading papers. I get a rush out of going different directions, and all those jobs make me think about the world in different ways. My kids challenge everything, and their questions wind up in my writing. I love being in the corral with raucous animals running a vaccine gun. I think about life and death and life at its most primal. Religion is my first intellectual love, and teaching keeps that part of my brain engaged.

That being said, I'm terrible at clocking out of all of those jobs, especially the mom thing. I sit down to the page, but there's one more thing I need to do for my kid, one more paper to grade, and if my husband calls, I'm always going to pull on my boots and hop in the truck. More structure in my life would no doubt help, but it's not in my DNA.


What is your favorite vice? What are you drinking at happy hour, in a literal or a metaphorical sense?
I grew up very strict and so I'm a big fan of all vices! Sloth and gluttony are my two favorites, and really, don't they pair so nicely together?

At Happy Hour, I want to be surprised. What's the house specialty? I hope it's something spicy or exotic!


Give us a recipe and tell us why you chose it--what's special about that dish?
Here's a recipe for Cashew Loaf:

Cashew nuts, ground 3 c
Big onion, chopped    1
Milk                            1 c
Ground gluten           1 1/2 c
Bread crumbs            3/4 c
Eggs, beaten             5
Marmite                         1 T
Butter                         2 T
Oil                              1 T
Paprika                          1 1/2 t
Salt                            1 t

Pour in a loaf pan. Cover with foil. Place in pan of water. Bake at 350 for 1 hr.

The above recipe is exactly as it reads on the recipe card my mom gave me. She got the recipe in Thailand, from our family's mission-provided maid, Sunee. My family lived there from 1977 to 1981. The recipe must have come from a previous mission family because it has a vintage Adventist health culture fingerprint, but there's also a lot of Sunee in it. She calls for a "Big onion," meaning "not a green onion." You actually want a normal size onion.The recipe calls for gluten, which Sunee made herself by washing the starch out of flour. Back in the States, my mom used different meat substitutes from the Adventist-owned Loma Linda Food company; I use silken tofu. Marmite is also most likely a Thai substitute. I use Better Than Bullion. Also, I don't know what Sunee was cooking in, but you've got to divide the recipe between two pans or it will never cook through.

My mom made this recipe at Thanksgiving and Christmas, even after we started serving turkey sometime in the mid-eighties. I still make it for holidays, and my husband has a piece right next to his prime rib.