Schmitt, Kate

These Things Leave Traces is a collection of essays, some lyric, centered on themes of control, consent, feminism, and ethics. Reflecting on personal experience and drawing from fairy tales, this collection explores the ways in which trauma manifests and, further, how these traces of trauma can be found both in a body and in a body of work.

“Foreign Affairs” is a collection of travel related essays that have been crafted through reflection from my long experience traveling the world. Together, they are an attempt to describe what was in my mind as I was living through these times and events. They are entirely nonfiction.

Between Waves is a lyrical memoir that explores the changes I faced in
transitioning into American life after growing up in rural England. The book is written in
two parts; the first is set mostly in England, the second takes place primarily in Florida. I
interweave a present, reflective voice through both parts to challenge the ideas of love,
loss, and learning to say goodbye as well as attempting to illustrate how perceptions of
each can change over time.
The lyrical structure of the memoir allows for swift transition between memories,
themes, and locations without limitations of a chronological or linear storyline. The
stories detailed throughout the memoir are meditative, subjective perceptions that intend
to determine what it means to be a child, a parent, a transplant, and what it means to find
home within it all.

Life In Three Houses is a memoir that explores the history of the women on the
maternal side of my family. The book chronicles my grandmother’s memories of her life
in occupied France, beginning when her father won the 1936 French National Lottery and
built the house which would later be seized by Nazi forces, and continues with her
emigration to America and explores her life as a mother before the narrative shifts focus
to retell the story of her youngest daughter—and my mother—Michelle. Their stories are
juxtaposed with vignettes of my personal experiences exploring my family history and
what it means to be a woman in my maternal lineage. Through the book’s disjointed structure and weaving together of narratives, I
attempt to find a balance between reporting fact-based information and creating
nonfiction through my meditations on the excavation of memory and the subjectivity of
perception.

Family and Other Disasters is a collection of personal essays that looks at the life
of the writer and her family. Through glimpses into family emergencies and other
formative experiences, the collection paints a portrait of a modern American family.
Taken as a whole, the work invites questions about what makes a functional family, how
much do our families shape who we are as individuals, how much do we contribute to our
family’s dynamic, and how do we navigate our familial relationships. As it explores what
bonds and what breaks families, its individual essays take on issues of memory,
addiction, recovery, redemption, coming of age, and growing up. It is a collection that
will make you laugh, then cry, then laugh again.

To err is to be human. Errors within a family are learned and repeated. Within that
repetition redemption is found. A divorce cripples a mother, alienates siblings, and forces
a son on a mirrored path of sinful understanding. A path where mistakes and self-inflicted
wounds creates a voice. A voice comfortable with occasional lapse in control and precision.
Those faults are the catalyst of a journey to salvation and affirmation ending with a renewed
faith in family and in future.

The following is a collection of personal essays exploring identity during the transformative period of the author's early adult life. It also examines themes of home, inheritance, grief, and loss of faith. It has elements of both humor and drama highlighted through unusual forms and elements of voice. It is about growing up and going home, mixing old traditions with new ones, bringing new insights to old problems, and about having faith, but always on one's own terms.

In “Letters from the Inside,” Stephanie Anderson presents a vision for sustainable, regenerative agriculture from the perspective of someone born and raised on a conventional cattle ranch. From Florida to New Mexico to the Dakotas, she traces the stories of farmers and ranchers who are already creating such an agriculture. She argues that producers, in tandem with consumers and government, hold the power to change what is currently an environmentally and socially destructive food system.

This poetic thesis is an exploration of the darker side of relationships. There are
two parts of this thesis and they are to be read independently of each other. Part one is
concerned with the chaotic relationship structure between lovers, husbands and wives,
and the unexpected anguish that results from living an inauthentic life. Part two of my
thesis is a rumination of a past close friendship and the tragic death of that friend.