Marissa Landrigan is the founder of Acquired Taste reading series, and co-editor of the anthology. She writes the monthly column “Breaking Vegetarian” for Paste magazine online, and her creative nonfiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, Creative Nonfiction, Guernica, Orion, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of Writing at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.
Marissa grew up in an Italian-American household where food was the center of family: epic, day-long cook sessions of homemade pasta, ravioli, and meatballs culminating in raucous, wine-soaked meals were the norm. A clumsy, bookish Irish girl who couldn’t cook, she never quite fit in. After seven years as an ethical vegetarian, when she decided to start eating meat again, Marissa was finally forced to learn how to cook, and discovered the power and beauty of nourishment self-made.
She’s online at marissalandrigan.com and on Twitter @mklandrigan.
Robyn K. Coggins is a science writer and editor living in Pittsburgh. She loves irreverent humor, long magazine stories, and the internet. Previously, she taught writing at the University of Pittsburgh and was their internship liaison to Longform.org. Find her work at Pacific Standard, Slate, Creative Nonfiction,Wilson Quarterly, Pitt Med magazine, and more.
Robyn is an unsophisticated eater from the Midwest who’d never heard of hummus until grad school. Her first job was at a family-owned meat market that “processed” deer during hunting season and had big band saws to split hunks of meat into steaks. Her worst nightmare is Trader Joe’s on a Saturday. Robyn’s grandma was a meat-and-potatoes, clean your plate kind of parent, while her mother allowed Robyn cheesecake for breakfast, Pizza Rolls for lunch, and a pot of Brussels sprouts for dinner—”trust your body,” she’d say; it knows what it needs.
She’s online at robynkcoggins.com and on Twitter @RoJoOhNo.
Acquired Taste 