Ah-Ha Moments: An Interview with Amanda Schroeder by Maureen Langloss
Our tenth anniversary interview this week is with our incredible Web Editor, Amanda Schroeder. A lot of the work Amanda does for Split Lip takes place behind the scenes, and I’m very excited to pull down the curtain so you can get to know her! Amanda has designed all our web issues for over two years, and she makes each one a beautiful, surprising, and colorful adventure. I always look forward to the moment she unveils the new homepage each month; it’s like waiting to open a present on a birthday. Amanda’s designs challenge us to think about the written pieces in a new or unexpected way. She also takes care of our gorgeous website—updating it when needed, creating banners, and migrating content over from our legacy site (a huge project that is finally over!)—along with the help of Art Director extraordinaire, Denise Weber.
Amanda lives in California with her 15-year-old cat. She is a talented writer, designer, and artist. She is also the founding editor of F3LL Magazine. You can find her at heyitsamanda.com.
We chatted over Slack about collecting interesting images, BIG Neon Genesis Evangelion, a very old teapot, and coding as language.
Maureen Langloss: Tell us what you see out your window right now.
Amanda Schroeder: The window in my office is actually a sliding glass door to our patio. It’s definitely in need of some spring cleaning—lots of dust and plants that could use some TLC. Now that it’s warm and sunny, my cat, Pumpkin, is always trying to convince us to let her outside.
ML: Pumpkin sounds like a smart cat! Speaking of creatures, please tell us: dragons, werewolves, unicorns, or mermaids? And why?
AS: Dragons! I always love dragon lore in fantasy worlds. I also love that dragons are so prevalent across so many cultures. I like to think this is because they once really existed.
ML: We’ll have to publish another dragon story for you in an upcoming issue! It’s been a while—since 2020 when we published Roppotucha Greenberg’s incredible “The Prevalence of Dragozemlizhil in Naure.” I loved the abstract artwork paired with that story! As Web Editor, you design SLM’s online issues and select the GIFs that accompany our poetry, flash, fiction, and memoir pieces. You have an incredible eye for visual impact and also always find artwork that is thematically in conversation with BOTH the cover art and the written work in the issue. Can you tell us a little bit about this process? What do you enjoy most about this work?
AS: I try to take a pretty intuitive approach to picking the GIF to go along with each piece. I’ll usually just start picking certain images or words that stand out to me on my first read. I like the idea that the GIF will only really make sense after reading the piece. I hope when people finish reading, they’ll see the imagery from the GIF in the piece and feel a sort of “ah-ha!” moment when they get it. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to marry the right GIF to the piece, but I do really enjoy that challenge and think sometimes the hardest GIFs to find are also my favorites.
ML: I love this idea that a GIF will only make sense after reading the story or poem! That is such an interesting way of approaching the design. I remember when we interviewed you for this position years ago, you mentioned that you like to collect images. All sorts of images. Do you still do this? Can you talk about your collection and maybe share an image or two?
AS: I absolutely still do this! I collect the majority of my images on social media platforms, as opposed to actually saving to my devices. I love GIPHY, Instagram, are.na, and even still use Tumblr, which was where my obsession with collecting images started. Here’s a couple of my recent saves:
A very old teapot with a wildly beautiful cloth effect.
Source: mgngcat on Tumblr, a Japanese blog dedicated to street cats
ML: I am a collector of teacups and have a few teapots as well, and I have never seen anything like that pot! Stunning! I wonder where that image will take your mind someday.
You are an artist yourself and make incredibly evocative collages and GIFs. I spent a long time admiring the works on your website. I am particularly drawn to the blend of whimsy and natural elements in your artwork, as well as intrigued by how you incorporate text to add layers of meaning. What was the inspiration and process for the piece, “The real you will cease to exist”? I am so intrigued by the railroad and plastic bag imagery here! And, gah, do I love the hand and the pink sky.
AS: I am a BIG Neon Genesis Evangelion fan, which is where the quote comes from. Throughout the series, Shinji is grappling with his desire to be completely alone in a world without other people, but concludes that life without others would be unfulfilling, because we need others to reflect and understand ourselves and make life meaningful. The two people in the foreground are actually from one of my favorite pieces, a photography piece by Michael Kauffmann. It’s of course a play on Rene Maragrite’s “The Lovers II,” but I felt the plastic bags as opposed to the cloth covering their faces felt very contemporary for reasons I can’t quite express. Essentially, these two pieces conjure up the same emotions for me—loneliness, the desire to be alone, and the desire to see yourself reflected in other people.
ML: Fascinating how all these ideas came together into one work of art. For me, the words “the real you will cease to exist” and the plastic bags create an unsettling mood in the piece. I detect a certain fear in it. What scares you?
AS: Being alone in very big, open spaces. Also, being surrounded by people in very cramped, small spaces.
ML: Ooooh, I can see that first fear expressing itself in your artwork—or maybe you are conquering it in your artwork. Switching gears from art, let’s talk about your day job. What are you doing when you aren’t designing SLM issues?
AS: I currently work in site operations for an e-commerce company! It’s definitely not what I imagined doing considering I was an English major, but I’ve realized since graduating and beginning to work in the field that I do love working in technology. Growing up, I was definitely the kid who struggled with math and science and thrived when it came to literature and social studies. Because of this, I never thought computer science or technology would be fields that would interest me, but I’ve since realized that there is so much creativity interwoven with technology and that coding really is a kind of language.
ML: It IS a kind of language! So cool! When I was a lawyer, I wrote a lot of contracts. And I felt the same way about it. Contract-making is its own language, and any language system is inherently interesting. Okay, now for the most important SLM question: What is your favorite snack food and why?
AS: I love Hello Panda cookies. I really love how all the pandas are printed on the cookies themselves, doing different activities. Genuinely cheers me up, ha!
Maureen Langloss (@maureenlangloss) is a lawyer-turned-writer living in NYC. She serves as the Editor of Online Issues at Split Lip Magazine. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Best Small Fictions, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Copper Nickel Editor’s Prize in Prose, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has three kids, a terrible singing voice, and a fluffy dog named Max. Find her online at maureenlangloss.com.