We recently connected with Stephanie Burt and have shared our conversation below.
Stephanie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Is there a historical figure you look up to? Who are they and what lessons or values have you learned from them?
I am very inspired and influenced by many people, and I seek out that kind of passive mentorship, that inspiration. I need examples of people “living their passion” to light my way. One such person who is very recent history, but historical at this point — Eudora Welty.
She was at once a documentarian, a storyteller extraordinaire, a literary figure and mentor to others during her own life, all with a sharp wit. She wrote “slice of life” fiction, which is a label that has been used in the past to lessen the importance of the elegance and beauty of her work (and probably wouldn’t have been applied if she were male.)
Welty was always connected to this hometown, small town kind of persona, but she’d spent part of her youth working for the Works Progress Administration as a photographer, and so she traveled and observed and drank it all in. You can see so much in those fabulous photos, and I am inspired by her innate representation of a South I know, but also by her intelligence, her decision to just keep going, to document and story tell and weave everyday magic. I have a drawing of her in my house over my bookcase to remind me to keep looking, keep observing.
Stephanie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I initially began writing for consumer publications (magazines, websites, and newspapers) from the academic world. I had a small career as an English and American Studies instructor in North Carolina before deciding to change my stars, write a book of ghost stories, and devote myself to consumer writing. I’d always loved periodicals, subscribed to magazines and newspapers, and so it makes sense that my writing leaned that way, however painfully I tried to (unsuccessfully) push it in the direction of fiction.
And yes, ghost stories! I have always been fascinated by them, and they were a way to document history beyond the history books. I still have one book of true crime stories (Wicked Charlotte) and one book of ghost stories (Haunted Hills: Ghost Stories of Highlands and Cashiers) in print, but I eventually tired of the genre. I wanted to spend less time researching murders in old newspaper files, and often at book signings I got requests I could not answer — I’m not a spokesperson for the other side, just a documenter of stories, so I began to drift away from that kind of storytelling.
In the meantime, all the while, I was writing profiles of “makers”: artists, musicians, and plenty of chefs. I started travel writing, increased the food writing — it was inevitable since I’d been watching Julia Child and reading the Food section of the newspaper since middle school — and soon found my favorite beat to date: food culture.
After a stint at The Local Palate as digital editor, I continued my freelance writing career in earnest, and since 2015, I’ve written more than 500 pieces of editorial and branded content for publications ranging from The Washington Post and Simply Recipes to Southern Living and Oprah Daily.
Simultaneously while writing, I wanted to celebrate welcoming more people behind the scenes of the food world, so I began The Southern Fork podcast in 2016. I have recently celebrated its 300th episode.
The Southern Fork’s mission is to bring more people to the understanding of a full, interconnected, and nuanced foodscape of the South. We need to know each other better, and food is a great place to begin. Along the way, there’s humor, plenty of practical tips and inspiration, and plenty to make me (and listeners) hungry. This year, the podcast is consistently ranking in the top-200 food podcasts on Apple Podcasts, one of the few independently produced podcasts to do so.
I’m a writer, reader, thinker, talker, and cook, and my work hopefully invites others to travel and eat, or be curious and experiment in the kitchen along with me. There’s no way I could have planned this journey from college classroom to on-demand radio, and I’m excited to see how it all is going to keep evolving.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
When it comes to The Southern Fork, my clients are my listeners, and the way I build listener loyalty is multi faceted: first, I consistently strive to make engaging content, then beyond that I interact personally with fans on Instagram, and I write a once a month free newsletter that is very personal.
Food is personal, and mixing that with the personal nature of podcast listening – I must respect that. I have a private life of course, but I do make sure and respond to comments and notes, and at events I attend/moderate/emcee, I am really excited to meet people who have listened to the show.
The aforementioned newsletter is not only filled with the latest links to published articles and episodes, but also insider info into what my cooking soundtrack is for the month, what other podcasts I’m listening to, and what are some concerns I have that are keeping me up at night. If my mission is for this show to foster community, I need to be willing to engage in that community too.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being creative?
The greatest gift of my personal version of a creative life is that people place their stories in my hands. It then becomes my mission and responsibility to take care of that story, to showcase (as faithfully as I can) its sparkling bevels and its depth, then provide it the right platform to pass on that story to others.
It’s the true and absolute best part of my job! When someone sees themselves, their work, and their culinary creativity in a new light because they shared it with me and I worked to share it with others, it’s like jet engine fuel to do it all over again.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://thesouthernfork.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/southernfork
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-burt-70607425/
Image Credits
Portrait: Leslie Ryann McKellar Portrait sitting with microphone: Ruta Evikyte-Smith Portrait on stage with mic: Robert Donovan