Bailey Moore Interviewd by Jacob Martin
Bailey Moore Bio: Bailey Gaylin Moore is an Ozarks-based writer who lives with her family in the heart of Missouri, where she is amassing a plant collection for her cat to shamelessly destroy. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the online nonfiction series, Past Ten, which asks contributors to consider where and who they were ten years ago. Her work has appeared in HuffPost, AGNI, Pleiades, Brevity, Wigleaf, Hayden's Ferry Review, and other journals. Thank You for Staying with Me is her debut essay collection. You can find her on Instagram @baileygaylin. You can also visit her author website at baileygaylinmoore.com.
From editorial assistant, Jacob Martin: Thank You for Staying with Me is a collection of essays that explores the complex relationship between mothers and daughters and the experience of being a woman in the Ozarks. Moore writes with blunt and raw emotion that will leave readers desperate for more. Thank You for Staying with Me is out now. Order here!
I had the pleasure of discussing Bailey’s book over email. We discussed Heidegger and ontology, philosophy, finding a sense of self, motherhood, and growing up in the Bible Belt.
JM: The first thing that really drew me to your work was knowing that your first publication was through Hayden’s Ferry Review! How was your experience publishing your first work through the journal? What advice would you give those aspiring to publish their work one day?
BM: I remember exactly where I was when I received that acceptance almost ten years ago—at my MFA residency in Vermont, staring at a computer screen in the library and just trying to make it through the semester. I was at a low point in my life, fresh out of a toxic breakup and unsure of what was next. I was so inside myself, I hadn’t realized the acceptance had been sitting in my inbox for three months.
The team at Hayden’s Ferry was one of the smoothest editorial processes I’ve ever had, and I’m so grateful for that because I’ve seen and experienced some doozies that would have crippled a first-time published writer.
For those aspiring to publish, my biggest advice is to be persistent but patient. Rejection isn’t a statement on your talent—it’s often about timing and the preference of the person behind the screen considering your work. Keep refining, keep submitting, and read the journals you’re submitting to—not just to understand their aesthetic but to engage with the literary community you want to be part of. Also, also: check your email.
JM: What is the importance of the title, Thank You for Staying with Me, to you? Was there a specific moment or event that sparked the idea for this book?
BM: The title, Thank You for Staying with Me, came from a personal place, but it also felt like it belonged to the reader as much as to me. On one level, it speaks to survival—the people who have stayed, the self that has endured. It’s a phrase of gratitude, but also of desperation, the way we sometimes plead with others (or with ourselves) to hold on, to not look away. That tension between endurance and fragility runs throughout the book.
There wasn’t a single moment that sparked the idea for this collection, but rather a slow realization that the essays I was writing—about memory, trauma, resilience, and language—were all circling the same fundamental question: What does it mean to be witnessed? To be truly seen and feel accepted? That question follows me through every essay, whether I’m writing about personal experience or a broader landscape. The title felt like the right way to hold all of that—to acknowledge the difficulty of staying, but also the beauty of it. And to show gratitude even when I didn’t know how to form the words.
JM: You mention that Heidegger and ontology have influenced your work. I’m curious about how this study of “being” and “existence has shaped and developed your ideas on language, how you came to be fascinated with ontology, and how the relationships depicted in this book contribute to your understanding of the self.
BM: Heidegger’s work, particularly Being and Time, has been influential for me in the way it frames existence as something always unfolding in relation to others, to history, and to language itself—the last of which doesn’t just describe our experiences but actively shapes them—how the words we inherit, resist, or reshape define the contours of our own Being. My fascination with ontology probably started with a general restlessness about what it means to be, especially in a world where inherited narratives don’t always fit. Writing became a way to interrogate those narratives, to push against the limits of what has been given to me, and to question where selfhood begins and ends. The relationships in this book—whether familial, political, or existential—are all part of that questioning. They show how identity is never formed in isolation; we are constantly being shaped by the people, histories, and systems we interact with. Writing, then, becomes a space where I can examine those entanglements and, in some ways, redefine the self on my own terms.
JM: You mention in your novel a philosophy class in which a professor writes on the board about choices and non-choices. What choices or non-choices have you made that have defined your sense of self? How can we block out all the noise of people forcing their own choices upon us?
BM: In Thank You for Staying with Me, so much of what I explore is the tension between what we choose and what is chosen for us. The book wrestles with the roles we inherit, the expectations placed upon us, and the slow realization that not everything we carry is ours to keep. Many of the essays navigate the ways I’ve had to unlearn certain inherited narratives—about womanhood, resilience, even faith—and redefine them on my own terms. The philosophy class I mentioned helped me see how much of my identity had been shaped by the latter. But writing this book was, in itself, a choice—a way of reclaiming agency, of saying: This is mine to tell. I won't give too much away regarding what non-choices and choices were made to reclaim that sense of self, but a lot of them include the question of motherhood, walking away, who we surround ourselves with, and figuring out ways to love yourself and home when it feels impossible.
Blocking out the noise of other people’s choices—what they think you should believe, how they think you should live—takes a kind of deliberate resistance. I think that’s part of why I write. On the page, I can slow things down, strip away the outside voices, and figure out what I actually believe. This book is, in many ways, an act of sifting through what was imposed on me and deciding what to keep. It’s about the struggle of forging an identity that isn’t dictated by expectation, but by a more honest, sometimes painful, act of self-definition. But quieting the voices is difficult—I get it. I found that, for me, it was important to seek out a private space where I could confront those unchosen narratives and reimagine them on my own terms. I learned that when you stop trying to reconcile every external judgment with your internal truth, you begin to see the contours of your own identity more clearly.
JM: The essay that stood out to me was “Mostly My Mother’s Daughter.” The part that really stuck with me was when you said, “As an adult, I’ll try to remember the name of the burgundy foliage. Alternanthera, my mother will tell me. This is too many syllables to be true. Even thirty years later, it will still be lava. This ground, this home, an untouchable place.” Alternanthera is known to grow in many different conditions, highlighting resilience. This symbolism of resilience seems connected to your mother, more so than the place, which to you is “untouchable.” Can you explore this further?
BM: "Mostly My Mother's Daughter" was a reflection on home, and home for me was always more about my mother than an actual place. The idea of my childhood house being “untouchable” speaks to memory as much as geography and ancestry. There are things we inherit, stories, habits, even plants-that persist long after we’ve left, shaping us in ways we don’t always recognize. My mother sees the name Alternanthera as fact, as something known. But for me, it will always be lava—something felt before it was named, something burned into me. That distance, that difference in how we process the same place and even our own bodies, is at the heart of the essay. It’s about home and family, but it’s also about the spaces we can never fully return to, even when they still exist inside us. A part of me wants so badly to cling onto a childhood free from trauma, a memory of my mother before heartache, and the weight of adulthood. It's a kind of existential dread—or as the Germans call it, "Sehnsucht," an overwhelming feeling often entangled with nostalgia which is both untouchable and ineffable.
JM: “Second Molars” was a challenging read. We see the transition from the innocence of childhood into forced adulthood after a violent sexual assault. Why did you use the image of teeth to highlight this triggering scene? You also wrote this essay in the second person, which I found an interesting choice. What did writing in the second person allow you to accomplish?
BM: Teeth felt like the right image for that essay because they represent so many conflicting things—innocence and inevitability, growth and loss, violence and resilience. Second molars come in quietly, without the fanfare of baby teeth falling out or wisdom teeth breaking through. There’s something unsettling about that, about the way the body changes without permission, without announcement. In the essay, that parallels the forced transition from childhood to something much harsher, much harder to name. The body keeps going, keeps developing, even when the mind isn’t ready. And teeth—being both fragile and durable, both a part of us and something we shed—became a way to explore that tension.
Writing in the second person allowed me to create distance while still forcing intimacy. It’s a way of looking at something too directly painful to claim with I, while also drawing the reader into an experience they might otherwise see as separate from themselves. There’s a dissociation that happens after trauma, a split between the self that existed before and the self that emerges after. The second person mirrors that split. It also implicates the reader in a way that first or third person wouldn’t—forcing them into the scene, making them sit with it rather than observe from a safe distance. That choice was about control, about reclaiming a story that often leaves survivors feeling voiceless.
JM: In writing about themes of survival and resilience, trauma and healing, how did you decide how much to reveal and leave unsaid to your readers? You gave us just enough to think about while allowing the readers to fill in the blanks. What challenges did you face?
BM: Deciding what to reveal and what to leave unsaid was one of the hardest parts of writing this book. I tend to believe that omission can be just as powerful as disclosure—sometimes even more so. There’s a fine line between withholding for the sake of emotional impact and withholding out of fear, and I had to confront that constantly. I didn’t want to turn trauma into spectacle, nor did I want to shield myself so much that the writing lost its emotional core. Each essay required a different level of exposure, and I had to listen closely to what the story itself demanded rather than what my own anxieties or impulses dictated.
One of the biggest challenges was trusting the reader. It’s tempting to over-explain, especially when writing about survival and resilience—these deeply personal, often painful experiences. But I had to remind myself that readers don’t need everything spelled out to understand the weight of something. Sometimes a single detail, a shift in tone, or even silence on the page can carry more meaning than a long explanation. Striking a balance between honesty and restraint meant learning to sit with discomfort, allowing the unsaid to speak just as loudly as what was written.
JM: Your book touches on the restrictions placed on women in the Bible Belt. How has your relationship with religion and spirituality evolved since growing up in the Bible Belt? Has that evolution impacted your creative process?
BM: Growing up in the Bible Belt, religion was less of a choice and more of an atmosphere—something that shaped the structure of daily life, the expectations placed on women, and the ways people were allowed to express doubt or individuality. I was deeply aware of the restrictions, especially the way certain narratives about womanhood, obedience, and morality were reinforced not just through doctrine but through culture. For a long time, my relationship with religion was one of resistance. I wanted distance, a clean break. But over time, that resistance has softened into something more complicated—an ongoing negotiation rather than outright rejection. I’m still drawn to questions of faith, ritual, and meaning, even if I no longer subscribe to the certainty that once surrounded me.
That evolution has absolutely impacted my creative process. There’s something about growing up in a space where language is so charged—where words are used to dictate not just belief but behavior—that makes you hyper-aware of how language works. I think that’s why I’m drawn to the pull between what’s said and unsaid, what’s preached and what’s actually practiced. Writing has become a way for me to interrogate those inherited beliefs, to dismantle and reconstruct them into something that works for me.
JM: What are you hoping that readers take away from this book?
BM: To feel less alone—perhaps to find a bit of hope.
Jacob Martin is a writer from Louisville, Kentucky. He is currently working on his master’s in English studies at ASU, where he also serves as a editorial assistant for Hayden’s Ferry Review.