Sarah Menkedick's work has been published or is forthcoming in Harper's, Amazon's Kindle Singles, The Best Women's Travel Writing, and The Common, among other publications. Her story “The Rider's Prayer” was a finalist for The Atavist's Digital Storymakers Award, and she was the recipient of a 2012 Ohioana Award for a writer under 30. She is the founder of Vela, an online magazine of creative nonfiction inspired by travel and written by women, and considers herself lucky to be part of a thriving community of women writers. She recently graduated from the M.F.A. program at the University of Pittsburgh, where she taught creative writing. She already longs for the relative insulation from financial and commercial pressures of her time as a student, when it seemed possible to spend one's days writing meandering experimental essays about travel culture and one's nights in beery conversation about writing. Now, she is camped out in a 19th-century cabin in Ohio, trying to figure out what making a living from writing means to her.