Name: Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, known to my students as Dr. J (mostly to avoid the inevitable confusion and mispronunciation of my last name...this has nothing to do with any latent basketball talent).

Campus: UW-Manitowoc

Hometown: I grew up in the country between Holland and Grand Haven, Michigan, on 10 acres of land that included several acres of blueberries (that I picked. by hand. every summer when I was a child. for $.22 per pound). Lake Michigan was 2 miles to the West, and we were 7 miles to the nearest town. Now, I live in Manitowoc, about 3 blocks from Lake Michigan, in a gem of an apartment (the top half of a home) with a view of the Lake and a beautiful kitchen (I couldn’t ask for much more!).

lake michigan, manitowoc

Primary Research Area: My dissertation was on Gender and Spirituality in Male and Female Writers of the Beat Generation, but since graduating in August 2003, I haven’t written another word about the Beats. Maybe someday...Now, I have published on fashion, romance, and/or food in literature ranging from Wharton and Dreiser to popular Chick Lit fiction, film, and television. Someday I’d like to gather together the ideas from several conference papers and published articles into a book length study of fashion, romance, and food in Manhattan, but that’s a very long term goal. I also have two chick lit novels of my own started--I’m looking forward to sleepy, sunny summer days when I can write as the muse moves me. I’m in the early stages (brainstorming and soliciting entries) of co-editing a collection of essays on the evolution of the novel in the digital age.

Reading for Pleasure: Just about any food magazine, from Bon Appetite to Saveur to Gastronomica. I also love food memoir and non-fiction works on food issues, especially anything by Michael Pollan. I love reading Jennifer Crusie novels--romance fiction written by an author who abdicated a PhD in English for an MFA and best-selling romance writing career. Anything by Edith Wharton. Jhumpa Lahiri. Robert Hass.

Guilty Pleasure: I’ll own up to most everything I read. I feel most guilty when I’m reading food, fashion, gossip, or Francophile blogs when I have 73 other more pressing tasks to accomplish...

About Me: In case you can’t tell from my other answers, I love food. I love to read about it, write about it, teach about it, prepare it, and most importantly, eat it! I’m particularly fond of baking, but I also cook almost all my meals from scratch (being a vegetarian in a corner of the state that isn’t exactly veg-friendly almost necessitates time in the kitchen). Baking and cooking relax and sustain me. I also love the color pink--my kitchen contains a pink Kitchen Aid mixer and toaster. I always travel with chocolate, usually some single-bean varietal, and my office on campus is known as the place to find chocolate in a crisis, or simply between classes.

Super Powers: I’ve been told I’m a good listener, and I’m compassionate and empathetic. I ran the Chicago half-marathon, summitted a Colorado “fourteener” (Longs Peak), hiked most of the Georgia and North Carolina segments of the Appalachian Trail, and baked 150 cupcakes for a friend’s wedding.