We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stef Nuñez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Stef, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I always wanted to be a writer, but never thought that journey would lead me here. I wrote fan-fiction stories all through middle school, and in high school I ran for student council. I was a reporter my junior and senior year and went to journalism camp at Michigan State University, but my only “claim to fame” is getting to say that I interviewed BØRNS when he was just a freshman who was really great at art and doing magic shows for kids parties. I think all my life I’ll be figuring out exactly what types of writing I want to do, but through that outlet I discovered that being an editor is a huge passion of mine.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When you enter the adult world there are so many naysayers that try to dissuade creative paths and I’ve never understood that. I always had a heart that rejected that – even if I never published a book, I’d never stop writing. I wrote creatively for sites like Protagonize for years (until it got shut down), but it was always aimless. I had a lot of ideas but I just wasn’t sure what to do with them. A few years ago I found myself deep in the trenches of Literary Twitter and got really attached to a now-defunct magazine. Large, mainstream publications were always out of reach for me, so impersonal and almost unreal. This mag felt deeply personal and a little magical.

Unfortunately, the illusion was tragically broken during the application process. The Editor was not the kindest individual and since that was my first experience with a Lit Mag, part of me wanted to walk away. As a double Virgo, though, I’ve got a lot of audacity so instead of finding another mag to volunteer with I decided to start my own as a one-person team with no experience with formatting a publication or building a website.

Over the past 5 years, Sage Cigarettes Magazine has flourished while many other magazines in the same scope have sprung up and fizzled out. In a staff of 6, every one of my editors is a creator who has submitted work to Sage Ciggs, been published and has loved it here so much they stuck around to join me. Together we’ve created this inclusive, caring and welcoming corner of the literary community that I’m so proud to say I founded. We have definitely had our growing pains, but I think the keys to our success are very open and honest communication and remembering that we’re all human beings who need flexibility.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is being able to connect with someone, anyone, through something that I’ve brought to life. I really love writing short stories, but I access a different side of myself when I write poetry. Poems are so raw, the deepest parts of your mind and heart, untethered and flowing out like a broken spigot. It can feel so private, but knowing that your words moved even one person makes sharing worth it.

The most reward part of leading a team of creatives is being trusted with their vulnerability. I get to see the early stages of some of their work, and get to help brainstorm, and I also get to lift them up. I’ve had my own moments of “am I good enough?” and they lift me up just as much.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I mentioned that in the time Sage Cigarettes Magazine has been an entity, there have been plenty of magazines that have risen and fallen. We could have easily been one of them. After my first few issues as a single person team, I was overwhelmed with the weight of building a site, taking submissions and designing the issues. On top of that I had a limited print run with ZERO experience on the matter, and I considered shutting down. I sent out a half-hearted tweet saying I would be taking a short hiatus instead and that maybe when I came back I would see if anyone was interested in volunteering.

When I came back to my inbox months later, unsure if I was going to continue, I had a long email resume from my current Managing Editor and best friend in this universe, LE Francis. I had published her poem about a symbiotic relationship between a sloth and its fungus and she wanted to work with ME. L has stuck by me every since then and we’ve become each other’s backbones as well as the backbone of this magazine. As the world changes, we adapt and remain realistic and put the mag on hiatus when that’s what’s best for everyone involved.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sagecigarettes.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/stefspecter
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/witchxpudding

Image Credits
Stef Nuñez Freddy Cajigas