Sarah Sweeney

Selected Publications

Essays

272-DATE [Hobart]

Before the landline was obsolete, Nathan and I lived for late night 272-DATE commercials, our city’s own hotline of lust. You had to be 18 or older to call and of course we weren’t, yet I knew to make my voice husky, to claim my name was Veronica, while Nathan knew to call it a cock.

On Dirty Dancing [Wig-Wag]

I never fantasized about my future wedding so much as I dreamed of being whisked away on vacation by a hunky dance instructor.

The Way to a Man’s Heart [Gay Mag]

I’m really going to miss your cooking, Paul told me on the day I finally moved out of the home we’d shared for three years, his voice creaking with lament. He’d taken a deep breath, winding up to deliver some final parting words, an elegiac salute to our seven years together — the road trips and Target runs, the meltdowns and make-ups, what we’d learned and who we’d become — but all he could think about was my grilled skirt steak tacos.

My “Ghost World” years: Confessions of a teenage AOL catfisher [Salon]

When I was 15, I had a relationship with a man I’d never met.

I Dated Bad Men Till a Bad Man Became President [The Rumpus]

James wore flip-flops and cargo shorts on our first and only date. I was sporting black denim and breakneck heels and everyone in the bar turned to stare as we glided across the room, two sartorially mismatched strangers romantically matched on the dating app Tinder.

Ranch Dressing Sucks and I’m Not Sorry [Munchies]

Friends usually laugh when I tell them I’ve never eaten ranch dressing, but it’s true—I’ve never eaten ranch dressing. Or blue cheese dressing. Or Thousand Island. Or cream cheese. Or a lot of cheese, so long as it’s white. On their own, I’ve ingested only scant quantities of sour cream, Greek yogurt, gooey dips, mayonnaise, buttermilk, and even regular milk.

Selected Poetry