|
If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
I’d love to cook for Flannery O’Connor, though would worry about her dry comments regarding my lack of skill. Cornbread, sweet potatoes and chicken. Coconut cream pie, my Grandma Rose’s recipe. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The fear of time. Nothing about my writing process is linear or structured, so it takes great amounts of time to complete a story or project. The only way to combat this fear is to accept it and to keep writing. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Chekhov What books are on your nightstand? Blue Nights by Joan Didion; Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout; Love Poems by Pablo Neruda; The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The question mark; literature and stories should ask us questions about ourselves and lives. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Ha! I don’t remember. If it was assigned, I most likely read it. Was one of those students. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My many little notebooks that I kept with me with jotted down observations, odd thoughts, and some of my children’s notes and drawings when they were younger. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? I write to discover what I know. Flannery O’Connor Does writing energize or exhaust you? Mostly it exhausts me. What are common traps for aspiring writers? I believe the most common one is the grand one that also trapped me - wanting to publish before your work is ready. What is your writing Kryptonite? When I allow the outside world’s opinion of what life should look like to come before my own. Have you ever gotten writer’s block? I’m not sure if it’s writer’s block or writer’s doubt, but I’ve certainly had those moments. My remedy is to get something on the page, even if it’s a few sentences or thoughts, or to work on edits. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I met Kelly Simmons, author of Wives of Billie’s Mountain and a number of short stories, at Queens University of Charlotte when we were earning our MFA’s. Kelly’s insight and tireless eye have been a constant part of my writing process. Kelly’s continuous support was crucial to the publication of this novella, and she’s a kick-ass kind of friend. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? My first writing class. It was a general fiction class, an eight week course, a couple hundred dollars. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? W.G. Sebald and Richard Yates. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? When I was young, we’d go to my father’s softball games (he was on three teams). I had been playing with a black kid around my age and I remember an adult, not sure who he was, telling me I shouldn’t be playing with him. This adult was trying to use language to influence a child. But that didn’t make sense to me and I kept on playing. We don’t have to let other people’s language have power over us. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? The Third Man by Graham Greene As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? A bird, one that soars high and can see the view from far above, capturing the full picture. What does literary success look like to you? Readers taking something of emotional value from what I have written. What’s the best way to market your books? In a perfect world hire a publicist! What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Many authors write authentically and beautifully about characters of their opposite sex. I find most everything about it quite difficult. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I’d be a dress designer or a therapist.  PORTLAND, OR; JANUARY 12, 2021--Unsolicited Press announces the much-anticipated debut of The Animal Within by Kathrine Yets. The Animal Within is filled with poems that want to swim together, focusing on animal and human nature. A few are ekphrastic, based on photography by Jaimie Huycke and Dennis Liddell. Dive in and readers find a world where horses speak their minds, crawdaddies sing, and mermaids find lust. Wolves howl “ahwoo at the full strawberry harvest moon in June,” and birds do more than flap their wings, but rather create a voice for the oppressed. Humans step in, personas based off the author, and consider loss, depression, and love— inner-self mixed with creature habits— scratching down a lover’s back or crying in a zoo. One persona connects with water, skinny-dipping her way into a galaxy reflection, “as quiet as you would expect it to be [she] sends a ripple through the moon.” Hawaiian Goddesses tell their story about how the Yoni Crater came to be with a crash. Nature takes note and gets noticed, exploring transcendental and organic aspects. “The stream has no objection” as the poet takes liberty in playing with ideas of what it might be saying. A divine devotion to creatures large and small— flora and fauna finding a voice among calm and chaos, depending on the scene created. Each poem cups a piece of life— ideas not too far fetched— mundane and supernatural. With sounds all around, the author uses anaphora, alliteration, assonance, and other devices to give these animals and personas personality of their own. This chapbook implores readers to take a hiatus, step outside of themselves, and experience the animal within.
About Kathrine Yets Kathrine Yets lives and teaches in Wisconsin. Her works can be found in various literary magazines. She has two published chapbooks: The Animal Within and So I Can Write. In 2017, she won the Jade Ring Award and wears the ring proudly on her right hand each and every day. When she is not writing or teaching, she can be found at the park swinging on swings or taking a nap under a tree. She loves spending time with her Brad at home or running around the city. Her worlds right now are her nephews, Sweet Baby James and Cameron. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press has social media accounts on Instagram (@unsolicitedp) and Twitter (@unsolicitedP). The Animal Within is available on January 12, 2021 as a paperback (978-1-950730-98-8) and e-book (all major retailers). The title is distributed to the trade by Ingram.  PORTLAND, OR; JANUARY 12, 2021—Unsolicited Press announces the much-anticipated debut of Swallowing the Stem of Adam’s Apple by Laura Kiesel. Kiesel plumbs the depths of familial dysfunction, and the wretched inheritance of addiction, thoroughly and with impressive nuance in Swallowing the Stem of Adam’s Apple, combining integrity and personal grit that’s interwoven throughout her lyrical style. She writes beautifully about her fractured relationship with her mother, and the ripple effect it has had throughout the rest of her life. Her work is an unflinching examination of the erotic implications of romantic relationships and filled with visually exhilarating metaphors and analogies.
Raised a Roman Catholic, Kiesel describes religious rituals and makes use of Christian symbols, while referencing Biblical figures and stories, in ways that are simultaneously subversive and familiar. Illness and death are common themes in her work, whom Kiesel often personifies and treats as old friends--more accurately, rivals or frenemies--competing for her time and attention and that of her loved ones. Instead of keeping them at arm’s length, Kiesel embraces them and the macabre reminders her daily life offers her of her own and others’ shared mortality and finiteness. Swallowing the Stem of Adam’s Apple does not demur in its assessment of the self and society but instead navigates the trials and tribulations of the human condition with visceral astuteness. About Laura Kiesel Laura Kiesel is a longtime poet, essayist and journalist. Her articles and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, the Washington Post, Vice, Vox, Ozy, Narratively, Salon, The Manifest-Station and many others. Her poems have been featured in upstreet, Medulla Review. Fox Chase Review, Blue Lake Review, Stone Highway Review, Noctua Review, Naugatuck River Review, & Wilderness House Literary Review. Originally from Brooklyn, New York she now lives in the Boston area where she teaches creative nonfiction, literary journalism and poetry at Grub Street and Arlington Center for the Arts. She is the servant of two adorable but demanding cats and has a habit of staying up way too late at night, usually reading. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press has social media accounts on Instagram (@unsolicitedpress) and Twitter (@unsolicitedP). Swallowing the Stem of Adam’s Apple is available on January 12, 2021 as a paperback (48p.; 978-1-950730-72-8) and e-book (all major retailers). The title is distributed to the trade by Ingram. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I’d roast a chicken for Guillaume Apollinaire. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? It used to be the blank page. Now, I enjoy the creative act too much to be afraid of it. If the result sucks, then so be it, I’ll try again. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? The brilliant Mary Ellen Solt. What books are on your nightstand? Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The hyphen, because it can break as well as unite. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? The Catcher in the Rye: Too whiny! What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The stars. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Get over yourself and write! Does writing energize or exhaust you? Definitely, energizes. What are common traps for aspiring writers? I wish I knew! What is your writing Kryptonite? The myriad little responsibilities and obligations of adult life. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? I can’t say that I have. There’s just too much good stuff out there. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I don’t think writers are any more or less sensitive than anyone else. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? The validation from wonderful poets such as Michael Sikkema, Megan Burns, and Derek Beaulieu, who have all published my work at one time or another, has been invaluable to me. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? It relaxed me a bit and gave me confidence to continue to try new things in my writing. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? The money I spent to purchase a copy of Emmett Williams’ Anthology of Concrete Poetry. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I struggled with Pound for a while when I was young. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I remember reading The Hobbit as a boy one summer evening. Dusk was falling. I was outside on the patio and utterly transported. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Fiasco by Lem As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? The firefly, for sure. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? As a poet focused on issues of language, I don't really create characters.do this. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Too many! What does literary success look like to you? For me, literary success is simply being able to contribute to the world of literature. I am honored and humbled to have been given the opportunity to publish a number of poetry collections. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? As a poet focused on issues of language, I don't really do this. What did you edit out of this book?” The bad poems, I hope.  PORTLAND, OR; January 1, 2021—Unsolicited Press announces the ebook release of FISHERMEN;S FINGERS by S.B. Borgersen as a teaser to her upcoming flash fiction collection. Fishermen’s Fingers peeks into the underbelly of a remote coastal community, revealing how poverty, an unwanted pregnancy, and a bad start in life can lead to a precarious adulthood for those who are different, like Lenny.
There are no real worries in small communities where houses are not locked and children are sent alone to the store for a loaf of bread, but when 10-year-old Betty isn’t in her usual seat at school, her teacher, Miss Watson, has to explain to students the perils of talking to strangers. Like most aftermaths, this becomes a story of ‘if-onlys,’ where naivety and trust blind those who should have seen, should have known. But where strong bonds of friendship, love and caring are never far away. About S.B. Borgersen S.B. Borgersen is a British/Canadian author, of middle England and Hebridean ancestry, whose favoured genres are flash and micro fiction, and poetry. She is a loyal member of The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and an enthusiastic member of the international online writers' group for expats, Writers Abroad. Sue lives in a crumbling old house on the shores of Nova Scotia with her patient husband and a clutch of lovable rowdy dogs. She has two middle-aged children. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. FISHERMEN'S FINGERS is available on January 1, 2021 as an ebook through all major ebook retailers and the publisher. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
I’d like to make homemade pasta for Joan Didion. I can see her influence in my meandering sentences, my sense of place, and the way I want my readers to feel my words as much as read them. I don’t know if she likes pasta, but the alchemy of making dough out of flour, oil, and egg, then the meditative repetition of rolling and cutting it is the sort of zen prep work that would feel appropriate for the moment. I’d serve it in a cacio e pepe style with a big, bold red wine because everything’s better with a glass of assertive Bordeaux. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Like many authors, the blank page is my biggest enemy. Getting started is always the hardest part for me, especially when I don’t have an external deadline to hit. My writing group is a great antidote to that. For the past three years or so, a group of five women and I have met every other week (virtually, lately) to read and critique each other’s work. The impetus to have something to share with them gets me past that blank page barrier, and their supportive feedback keeps me going. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? This changes constantly! It seems that every time I read a new book, I fall briefly in love with that author and those characters. But one writer I’ve admired since grad school is Lidia Yuknavitch. Her book, The Chronology of Water, was the first non-traditional narrative I’d ever read and I immediately felt at home there. Before I read her work, I was pursuing a poetry concentration, but reading Yuknavitch showed me that there didn’t have to be firm lines, or any lines at all, between poetry and prose. It broke open those false boundaries in my own work, and it’s never been the same. What books are on your nightstand? Ask me on any given week and that’ll change! Because I cover books for Good Housekeeping, I’m always reading something new and exciting. But these are my 2020 favorites (so far!): “Every Bone A Prayer” by Ashley Bloom “The Death of Vivek Oji” by Akwaeke Emezi “Anxious People” by Fredrik Backman “Deacon King Kong” by James McBride “True Story” by Kate Reed Petty” “Memorial” by Bryan Washington “Luster” by Raven Leilani “The Disaster Tourist” by Yun Ko-eun Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the em dash. I tend to write very long, meandering sentences and I daisy chain clauses together in precisely the way that would drive my high school English teacher up a wall sideways. The em dash lets me write like I think: circuitously. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I was a big nerd in high school (still am!) and would never have skipped a reading assignment. I went to a very small Catholic all-girls high school, and there weren’t many options for different classes. My senior year, I actually took both AP and regular English, because I just couldn’t get enough. That said, I absolutely hated A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. I did read it, because we had to, but I could never think of anything incisive to say about it because I couldn’t get my brain into it. I tried to read it again a few years ago, and still can’t. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I’d thank the field behind my parents’ house, as it existed in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, before the developers came and started building cul de sacs there. Back then, you could look out from the little concrete patio and stare all the way to the treeline, easily a half-mile away. That field was my oasis as a child. I spent weeks of hours wandering through the buttercups that seemed to grow shoulder-high, picking Queen Anne’s lace flowers and coming home coated in pollen that made my eyes swell into golf balls. When I think of solitude, I remember how I could escape my child-sized problems, the ones that took over my entire insular world, by losing myself in a place where I never saw anyone but me. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? The same quote I have on one of my favorite notebooks, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” So many of us are stymied by fear, and we only create our best work when we push past it or work through it. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Both! I tend to do my creative work in spurts; I won’t write for ages and ages, and then it all pours out of me at once. That burst is like its own adrenaline, but I’m always completely spent when it’s over. I liken it to mania: You’re on top of the world while it’s happening, but the crash from that height is a hard one. What are common traps for aspiring writers? I think a lot of starting writers misinterpret the old adage, “Write what you know.” Because of the way our education system is structured, most of us are only exposed to a very narrow canon, and it’s overwhelmingly white, cis, straight, and male. I think that’s beginning to change, but it wasn’t until my MFA that I began to read more widely and deeply about experiences that weren’t my own and that led me to think more broadly about what my writing could be, and could tackle. That lack of exposure leads to a lot of early writers’ books being very homogenous, with characters, narrative structures, settings, and even plot points that don’t step outside the realm of the expected. Many of my students also just don’t know where to start. It’s daunting, first getting started in the literary world and the way the system works just isn’t taught. That leads to a lot of confusion and a lot of missteps, especially for writers who don’t come from traditional MFA or creative writing education backgrounds. What is your writing Kryptonite? That little voice inside my head that says, “You shouldn’t be sharing this.” I write a lot of deeply personal narratives, and share a lot of very intimate details that can be scary to put out into the world. If I think too much about what my readers will think, I can’t get as honest or as raw as that sort of story requires. I have to cast off my natural inclination toward shame and realize that my story is as worthy of stepping into the sunlight as anyone else’s. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? If you mean have I ever had a hard time reading, I have not. There are times when I’m only inclined to read memoir, or fiction, or certain genres. But because reading is part of my job, I don’t have the luxury of not being able to read. Even if I’m having a hard time getting into a book, I owe it to the author and to my own readers to push through it and interrogate why I’m having that experience and whether it’s a fault in the writing itself or an internal problem. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes, of course. I think anyone can be a writer who wants to be. I’m not in the business of gatekeeping who has “what it takes” to be a writer. If you’re inclined to write, you’re a writer. Period. I know lots of writers who consider themselves highly emotive people, and I know writers who are deeply pragmatic, logic-driven people who would consider themselves more thinkers than feelers. I think those who are more logic-driven than emotive write different kinds of books than those of us who are deeply in our feelings, but I think the only “requirement” for being a writer, if there is such a thing, is the drive to do so. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I have so many writer friends, and like all of my friends, they all challenge me to be the best version of myself, both on and off the page. Kira Jane Buxton, Lisa Konoplisky, and Rebecca Wallwork are three amazing women who I met at Vortext, a writing retreat at Hedgebrook. They challenge me to think outside the box and write fearlessly. Keisha Thorpe, Brianna Johnson, Adina Zerwig, Jess Jarin, and Lisa Lutwyche were members of my MFA cohort at Goddard College who helped lift me up as I established my voice, and continue to be vital parts of my support system. Megan Giller, Elizabeth Michaelson, Kate Knowles, and Julia Evanczuk are my writing group warriors who keep me honest and accountable to my writing, even when I’m inclined to let it take a backseat. And Kenny Fries, Reiko Rizzuto, Douglas Martin, and Nicola Morris all helped me develop and refine my first book when it was in its infancy at Goddard College, and I’m forever grateful for their guidance, as well. There are so many others, but those are the ones that come most readily to mind. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I think each of my books, and my creative work that’s appeared elsewhere, all live independently, but that readers can get a more cohesive picture of who I am as a writer by reading more of it. There are common themes that emerge within all of my creative work, like the impact of organized religion, family dynamics, geography and culture, and socioeconomic strictures on a person’s development, as well as body politics, mental health, and the unreliability of memory. I do think much of my work has a lot in common stylistically, as well, but everything I write more or less stands alone. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I wouldn’t say publishing it changed the process of writing, but it did open my eyes to how the business of publishing works and what I wanted out of my publishing team. I think I approached the pitching process more intentionally with my second book, and looked for different things in my second publisher than I did with my first. That’s not to say that publishing my first book was a bad experience, far from it. But now that I cover books and the publishing industry as a journalist, my eyes were more open about my options than they were when I had less information to work with. This time, I wanted a more collaborative, mission-driven process and I think I was more cognizant of the type of publisher that would best serve a book of this style, now that I know more about the avenues I could have taken. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I started bullet journaling a couple of years ago, and it’s been a game-changer for my workflow and organization. I’ve always been a big list-maker, but bullet journaling helps me keep track of tasks, events, and notes in a way that’s really effective for the way my brain works. I’m a very competitive person, even with myself, so having a method to track my progress in everything from writing, to reading, to exercising and meditating, keeps me on track. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I don’t know that I’ve ever disliked an author, whole-cloth. I will say, it took me some time to appreciate deep fantasy and sci-fi, since I naturally gravitate more toward realism and literary fiction. But the more I read genre fiction, the more I appreciated it. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I was bullied a lot as a kid, and some of the words the “mean girls” tossed off at me have seared themselves into my brain and significantly influenced the way I move through the world, even as an adult. Kids can be unspeakably cruel because they don’t yet have the ability to grasp just how much of an impact their words can have, so they don’t temper themselves the same way adults do (or should). I was a very shy, very anxious kid, and I both yearned to be seen and considered by my peers and to disappear into the background entirely. So when bullies showed me that not only did they see me, but they took issue with it, that made an indelible mark. I remember one incident in particular, in which I overheard a gaggle of my fellow cheerleaders whispering about me. I remember pacing the hallway afterward, my heart in my throat, thinking to myself, “I’ll never be able to forget this.” It felt like something had irrevocably changed, not only in my relationship with these girls, but in the way I thought about myself. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Aren’t most of them? I think “Every Bone a Prayer” by Ashley Bloom deserves more buzz than it’s getting, at least at the time I’m writing this. Her language is so searing and her story so imaginative and, at the same time, disturbingly familiar that it’s stuck with me even months after reading it. Sarah Manguso’s “The Two Kinds of Decay” also broke me open when I first read it in 2011, and helped me recognize aberrations in my own body and tendencies in my writing that I hadn’t previously been able to name, so hers is another one that I think should be more universally beloved. It’s hard to say what’s under-appreciated, because I suspect the book-loving circles I move in are talking about books and authors that the wider world wouldn’t recognize. We’re all so siloed in our own little echo chambers, that it’s almost impossible to break out of our own and into others’. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I think I’d be a fox; a little wiley, rather shy, and more comfortable scampering through the underbrush than strutting out in the open air. I’m a bit of scavenger, often a redhead, and only occasionally domesticated. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Insight into the human condition, I think. Every person in my life, and person I’ve come across even briefly, for that matter, has taught me something about how people live and breathe and move through the world. I’m constantly observing others for what drives them, what breaks them, what makes them cry or laugh, what makes them tick. What they’re hungry for, and what happens they don’t get it. I find mannerisms, physical and mental quirks, personality aberrations, even storylines in the people I come across, like we all do. We all create the world for one another, and I wouldn’t be able to turn that into story without them. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? More than I can count! Every year, I participate in National Novel-Writing Month, and have for the past 10 years. So right there, that’s at least 10 manuscripts I’ve powered through and (for the most part) never looked at again. I always take November as a chance to experiment on the page, with genres, forms, and styles that I wouldn’t normally attempt. Because those novels aren’t necessarily aiming for publication, there isn’t as much pressure to make them, well, readable. But I am about ⅔ of the way through my third book that I do want to publish eventually, and I probably have at least 50 pieces in various draft stages, too. What does literary success look like to you? Success is a marker that’s always moving, and one I’ve actively tried to stop measuring for myself. It’s such a false idol for me, because I’ve found that every time I achieve a new career milestone, there’s another one right over the next crest. I could say that I want to write a book that appears on the NYT bestseller list, that I’d like a starred Kirkus review, or an excerpt in the New Yorker, but would I be satisfied if I hit those goals? Probably not. For right now, continuing to produce creative work that finds a home on someone’s shelf is success to me. What’s the best way to market your books? My work is generally a hybrid of poetry and personal essay, so I think readers who enjoy memoir and disjointed poetic narratives will likely find something to resonate in my work, too. The most recent comp authors would probably be Carmen Maria Machado, Juliana Spahr, Jeannie Vanasco, and perhaps Sophie Mackintosh. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I think writing any character who has lived experience that’s different from my own is challenging, because it requires me to step outside my own skin and imagine what it must feel like in someone else’s. I don’t believe that gender is a binary, and I think there are very few aspects of a character that are necessarily tied to their gender. I try to approach all characters with two central questions: What do they want and what do they need? Once I find those, I try to stay very honest to those motivations, regardless of where they fall on the gender spectrum. What did you edit out of this book? Typos, I hope! This book came together in fits and starts, and those weren’t at all linear. It was sort of like putting together a puzzle, where I had all of the pieces there on the floor and had to determine where they fit best. And because it was a nonlinear process, there were a few times where character descriptions, anecdotes, or inconsistencies appeared that had to be resolved. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I ask myself that question all the time, given the instability of media. I’d always be a writer, since it’s both my career and my hobby, but I’m also an educator. I spent some time as a full-time professor at Canisius College and currently teach as an adjunct professor at New York University’s School of Professional Studies, and teaching innervates my writing in a way that nothing else does. Seeing my students’ work evolve, sharing the ins and outs of the media and writing world with them, and talking about writing and reporting gives me such life. It feels like a responsibility in a way, as someone who has found some degree of success in it, to pass on the lessons I’ve learned to those who will come after me. I’d love to get back to teaching full-time someday. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I would want to cook dinner for James Baldwin and it would be baked ziti since that is a speciality of mine. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears?For me, it’s really about time and energy and how to harness both for writing project and I often fear I never have enough of either to complete the projects I have in mind. I have both chronic pain and illness and as a result, my bandwidth is limited. I do also have to work, and so sometimes there is little motivation or ability leftover for my own independent projects. I know sometimes writers feel a lot of pressure to not only “write everyday” by dedicate X hours and create X amount of words on the page by the end of that time block and to stick to a schedule. I just don’t have that privilege between my health issues and other needs. So, I have liberated myself by carving out time when it works for me to write and not pressuring myself to keep up with what society tells me I need to do and be. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Right now, I am crushing big time on Baldwin. But I’ve been enamored with Audre Lorde for the better part of two decades. She not only gives me glimpses of what I would strive to be as a poet and essayists, but as a better human being. What books are on your nightstand? Currently I am reading Another Country, which is a novel by James Baldwin, a book of short stories by Anne Beatie, and a book of collected poems by Mary Ruefle (Trances of the Blast) Favorite punctuation mark? Why? Without a doubt, the em dash. Admittedly I don’t use it very often in most of my poetry, but I use it frequently in my prose and especially in my personal essays. I like it because I like it it allows me to form long and complex sentences that are not run-ons and how it lets me make side notes and observations within a given sentence. People who are familiar with my work definitely note it as a characteristic of my literary “style.” What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I did not read Crime and Punishment all the way through as at the time the topic was so dark and disturbing for me and it gave me nightmares. So I skimmed it and used the Cliff Notes to fill in what I needed. However, I did read it on my own shortly after I completed college in my early twenties and I list it among my favorite all-time novels. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I think it would be a tie between my bed and my bathtub. I am not the most Zen person, but being able to have a good night’s sleep or take a deep nap can be amazingly restorative. But more than that, once the weather cools down, I love taking long Epsom salt baths once a week. I light candles and play some of my favorite music and just soak, think and allow myself to feel my feelings. It’s a cheap and easy way to pamper and I find it helps clear my head and relax me in a way few things can. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? I would borrow from George Eliot: “It is never too late to be what you could have been.” I don’t think that actually applies to everything, but I think it can for writing. Does writing energize or exhaust you?I think it can do either (or both simultaneously) depending on the type of writing I am doing, the circumstances under which I am writing and what else is going on in my life. If I am writing something for work or school that does not speak to my soul or inspire me, it can sometimes be like pulling teeth to put words on the page. It becomes a slog. Also, if I am having a pain flare, writing under tedious circumstances or in forms or about subjects that do not interest me, can exacerbate my fatigue. But if I am writing about something I love or in the form that I love (in other words, creatively), it can completely energize me. In fact, writing freely about the things I care about and in the forms that matter most to me or are most natural to me, act like an elixir for me. What are common traps for aspiring writers?I think a common trap is that people get caught up in the sexiness or romantic view of what it means to be a writer, and also sometimes have impractical perceptions of how it will pan out. The truth is, writing is hard work and a lot of it isn’t sexy or romantic. It is lonely and publishing can be an uphill battle full of rejections. While some people can and do find wild success with it, the vast majority do not. I make my income writing, but it took a long time and my income is extremely modest. If you are serious about being a writer, you need to understand that it really needs to be about loving it and doing it because you need to, and not because you have illusions of wealth and granduer. Because that rarely happens. What is your writing Kryptonite?I definitely tend to write very long, sometimes meandering sentences (hence my love for the em dash). While I can appreciate my own proclivities, I realize I can get carried away. My editors will often spend most of their time cutting up my long sentences into shorter ones. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes, and I get it quite often nowadays. I often find that after I finish a book--particularly one that I really loved--it’s hard for me to switch gears and take up another book right away. I seem to still want to live in the world of the book I just left behind. Sometimes if a book doesn’t immediately capture my attention in the first few pages, I find that I am more reluctant to pick it up again until it hits its stride with me. However, I make a point of persisting until I am absorbed in that book as well. Or, if it still doesn’t appeal to me, I look for one that does. I used to force myself through books even if I couldn’t stand them. But I rarely do that anymore. Luckily, it’s very rare that a book I am reading doesn’t eventually pique my interest by the time I am a quarter of a way into it. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I write in many different genres and so not everything I write is connected except by a greater thread that underscores my interest in justice. My poems do seem to follow similar themes: love, sex and illness/death tend to be their primary concerns. Many of my essays also explore a lot of the same topics: my family, my own past traumas and conflicts, and how to try to create a brighter future for myself and others. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?While I am an admitted Luddite, I have to admit getting my first laptop in college really catapulted my writing to another level, even in just the way it enabled me to write more--so I’d have to say that was my best buy. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?While I thought Hemingway was just okay, I grew to appreciate him more as I read more of him. When I read the “Fire Next Time” my freshman year of college, I couldn’t get into it (I think I was too young/immature to appreciate it), but now I adore Baldwin, having become acquainted with his work later on in life through his shorter essays and fiction. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?If you had asked me this question a couple of years ago, I might have said a wolf, simply because I love their loyalty and sense of wildness while still being relatable. However, I now think it would be my black cat Cokey. He’s been with me almost all my adult life and so has been nearby as I’ve created almost all of my writings. He’s been a constant source of support and compassion, of love and loyalty. Many times, he’s laying next to me while I write. I also like the subversion of the stereotype of the black cat as bad luck: he’s brought me nothing but love. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have four unfinished books right now that have yet to be published but I hope will be one day. What does literary success look like to you?To some extent I feel like I have already achieved what I considered my baseline for literary success in that I support myself solely through either my writing or teaching writing. I have a long list of publication credentials in reputable online media outlets, literary journals and other publications. I mostly happy with what I am doing with my life and stood by my principles. However, I would love to have some of my books published to completely fulfill my ideas of success. What’s the best way to market your books?I think identifying audiences that my book would appeal to and approaching them is an especially effective method, such as finding those who like similar works. I am big about interfacing with the media--conducting interviews and guest posts on blogs and journals--as well as putting myself out there with the public. This doesn’t just include formal readings at bookstores, but book clubs, etc. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?I think whenever writing a character that is of a demographic one is not a part of, that one needs to be very careful about that and sensitive to the fact that one cannot appropriate firsthand experiences that aren’t one’s own. However, I do think that is more critical when depicting demographics that have been historically marginalized--so women, people of color and the disabled, etc. As a woman, I have less qualms about depicting white (cis) male characters due to this power disparity. That being said, I tend to write my fiction mainly through the lens of female characters. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Thomas Wolfe—often confused with Tom Wolfe. I used to work at the Wolfe Memorial in Asheville. Admittedly, I’ve read more biographies on Wolfe than I have his fiction. He had a voracious appetite. I would love to cook him three New York strips, ten pounds of potatoes and a basket of cornbread and just watch him go to work.
What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears?Not writing causes a lot of anxiety. I combat it by writing. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Lady Brett Ashley What books are on your nightstand? Currently, Jeni McFarland’s The House of Deep Water, A. Scott Berg’s Wilson, Kevin Young’s Dear Darkness, Frances Justine Post’s Beast and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The semicolon is my favorite punctuation mark; Michael Parker’s essay “Catch and Release: What We Can Learn From the Semicolon (Even If We Choose Never to Use it In a Sentence),” changed everything for me. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I played by the rules. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? All the coffee mugs that joined me during my writing sessions. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? As long as you’re writing, you’re doing it right. Does writing energize or exhaust you?Energize What are common traps for aspiring writers?Everyone’s unique in their delusions. What is your writing Kryptonite?When my 2-year-old daughter refuses to sleep. And the NBA playoffs. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?Absolutely; but emotions help. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?Most of my writer buddies come from my time in grad school at the University of Houston, but I’ve also kept in touch with a few writers I met at summer workshops. Zach Powers, Aja Gabel and JP Gritton are a few friends that recently celebrated their debut novels. I’ve also got plenty of folks who are working toward publication. All the writers I’m friends with know how to sit down and write. That’s admirable. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?Stand alone. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?It confirmed that I have no idea where commas go. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Ha! What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?In the 11th grade I read The Great Gatsby. I hated The Great Gatsby. And so by extension I hated Fitzgerald. Then as an English major at the University of Florida I had to revisit the novel a few times for a few different classes. And it came up again in graduate school and now I pretty much read the novel every few years because if I don’t I start to miss it. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?My love for language began with music. When I was around ten or eleven, I started writing down the lyrics of my favorite songs and taping them to my bedroom door. And soon thereafter I started writing new lyrics to the songs’ music. This would have been in the mid-90s. So the bands I was listening to were The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Rancid, Green Day and Bush. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?John Williams’ Stoner is pretty damn great. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?My 16-year-old dog, Patapouf. He’s some kind of spitz-mix that my wife rescued from the pound. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters?Every character I create probably has traits from at least three or four different people I know or have met. I’m not sure what I owe them. Maybe a beer? How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?Three. In my freshman year of college I wrote a knock-off version of Catch-22. After college I wrote this strange book that was kind of like The Sopranos meets Catch-22. By graduate school I let go of Catch-22 as an influence and wrote a novel that I may have workshopped to death. I think I wrote about 20 drafts of that thing. By the end, I could hardly recognize it. What does literary success look like to you?Being able to continue to write and publish novels. What’s the best way to market your books?This is my first novel, so I’m still trying to figure that out. In college I played in a band and we learned early on if you didn’t promote your shows you’d play to empty rooms...or to your one buddy and die-hard fan Chase. (Thank you Chase for coming to all our shows!) Most people are busy, so reading an unknown author might not be on the top of their wish list. Meaning, as awkward and strange as it is you’ve got to find as many ways to get your book out there. For me that’s been through writing essays, working on a book trailer and doing some visual art projects that I plan to release before the book comes out. Hell, I might even kick it old school and hand out flyers like we did before shows. Otherwise you’re just playing to an empty room. And God does that suck. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?I don’t know. I’ve always had a lot of female friends and I’ve always read female authors. That’s not to say I understand what it’s like to live in this world as a woman. I kind of just think of all of my characters as lonely, complicated people trying to connect wherever and however they can. It also helps to share your work with members of the opposite sex. They’ll let you know if something you wrote is way off. What did you edit out of this book?”About 25,000 words. There was a subplot about a mailman at one point. The Lenny character had a much more prominent role in earlier drafts. I explored the Burnett family in greater detail in a previous round. Oh, and I let Uncle Al and Bethany ramble for far too long in past versions. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work?I’d like to be next Ken Burns, though I suppose that too involves writing. Oh well!  Portland, OR— December 15, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of The Tin Can House and Other Stories by Susan Pepper Robbins. The Tin Can House and Other Stories is a remarkable short story collection by renowned Virginia author Susan Pepper Robbins. Featuring some of her best short stories, the collection delivers powerful, gritty characters full of heart and spirit. Ranging from longer stories to one-page hitters, Robbins masters the pen and sprays ink economically.
From the collection: "The A-Frame was shingled in flattened tin oil cans on the wrong side so the old names of Esso and Texaco didn’t show. The sun shot a pale greenish light through the oak trees’ April leaves. The tin house gave the right impression of one of the crazy projects thought up by our delicensed doctor, hammering out all those cans after using a can opener to take the round tops and bottoms off. Those he used for decorative trim around the two doorways and four windows. Thousands of shingles nailed, one by one, three nails each, to the beams, in the 1950’s. Some people continued to go to him not in his office, of course, which had to be closed, but at his ranch house where he would invite you in and listen to your symptoms. Not ours. We never went back to him after the sheriff picked him up for walking in the next county dressed as a woman. Who’d want to do that Fred asked me, serious and not meaning anything about my beige and navy outfits." Susan Pepper Robbins lives in rural Virginia where she grew up. Her first novel was published when she was fifty (“One Way Home,” Random House, 1993). Her fiction has won prizes (the Deep South Prize, the Virginia Prize) and has been published in journals. Her collection of stories “Nothing But the Weather” was published by the indie press Unsolicited Press, and her second novel, “There Is Nothing Strange,” was published in England in 2016,. A second collection of stories will be published in 2019. "Local Speed," a novel, came out in 2018 from Unsolicited Press. Her stories focus on the drama of ordinary lives. She teaches writing at Hampden-Sydney College and wrote a dissertation on Jane Austen at the University of Virginia. The Tin Can House and Other Stories by Susan Pepper Robbins. is available as a paperback and ebook. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press announces the immediate availability of TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS by Ayendy Bonifacio, an American from the Domican Republic. In this nostalgic volume, the image of the river carries us to and away from home. The river is a timeline that harkens back to Bonifacio’s childhood in the Dominican Republic and ends with the sudden passing of his father.
Through panoramic and time-bending gazes, TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS leads us through the rural foothills of Bonifacio’s birthplace to the streets of East New York, Brooklyn. These lyrical poems, using both English and Spanish, illuminate childhood visions and memories and, in doing so, help us better understand what it means to be a migrant in these turbulent times. Advance Praise for TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS “I’ve learned, unlearned my language too many times,” writes Ayendy Bonifacio in To the River, We Are Migrants. Childhood, exile, faith, grief are all part of the language he shapes into luminous poems that remember in English and in Spanish. His voice is lyrical, direct—he confesses “[t]ime has made us strange” but also transforms a river into a rosary. These poems are exquisite, heartfelt." —Eduardo C. Corral "The actual Dominican river that gives title to Ayendy Bonifacio’s To the River, We Are Migrants is also a river of words, the river of life, the river of death, the river dividing us from our truest selves and the river that delivers us home again. These are poems of immigration, separation and grief, but they are also poems that honor home, family and the enduring powers of language and memory. I am deeply instructed and moved by the mundos of this beautiful book." —Kathy Fagan "Desde Broadway Junction hasta Bao, Ayendy nos lleva en su tren—the one que comienza with a word-dream born in the eyes of his father. Está lloviendo desde adentro, desde que dejó de llamar mundos a los countries. Cada verso estruja la nostalgia, y nos presta un rosario in order to survive here-there and en rotundo futuro que se rompe. Corre el agua con cada metáfora, con el pasaporte que se tragó el campo donde se regresan a descansar las palabras. Este poemario es una corriente encima del cuerpo, un ardor, pain, el recuerdo de su abuelo and the smell del idioma que tuvo que darle rompa en su lengua. To the River, We Are Migrants nos lleva “más allá de líneas de inmigración,” el principio y el final de los días largos cuando la pérdida de un ser querido estruja la mirada, “paper planes when our motherlands liberated us,” es un basement donde reciben los campesino, es la habitación donde su madre hospeda los nuevos recién llegando que parió Quisqueya. Vamos soñando in english and español silenciosamente “para que las nubes no se rompieran.” Leer a Ayendy, es encontrarnos where nos habíamos dejado; en la desembocadura de un río que nos dispersó en alguna parte con una promesa hecha cicatriz." --Fior E. Plasencia About Ayendy Bonifacio Ayendy Bonifacio was born in Santiago De Los Caballeros, Dominican Republic and raised in East New York, Brooklyn. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University. His areas of scholarship include American literature and culture, including Latino/a/x studies; digital humanities; public humanities; transamerican poetics, specifically the reprint poem as a form of public discourse; and hemispheric studies. His current book project, Poems Go Viral: Reprint Culture in the US Popular Press (1855-1866), draws examples from over 200 English- and Spanish-language popular dailies and weeklies between January 1855 and December 1866. This book studies what Bonifacio calls the virality of nineteenth-century poems. Akin to the way an image, video, and a piece of information go viral on the internet today, certain popular poems and poets circulated rapidly and widely through newspaper reproduction. His research is published and/or forthcoming in American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography; Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism; Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature; Postcolonial Interventions: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies; The Journal: A Literary Magazine; and The American Review of Books. He is also the author of Dique Dominican (Floricanto Press, 2017) and To The River, We Are Migrants (Unsolicited Press, 2020). In 2018, The Latino Author named Dique Dominican one of the “top ten best non-fiction books of 2017.” Connect with Bonifacio at www.ayendybonifacio.com. TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS by Ayendy Bonifacio Availability TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS is available on December 8, 2020 as a paperback (978-1-950730-56-8) and e-book. The book is brought to the trade by Ingram. The publisher and author have active publicity and marketing campaigns in place. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. The pandemic has made shopping for friends and family quite different, so our team would like to make it easier to send gifts to your favorite book lover that reduces in-store contact. For the holidays, we are offering two gift card options that make gift-giving simple and affordable. The Unsolicited Press $25 Gift Card offers a unique experience that connects the recipient with our editors to help them find the perfect book (a book concierge experience). You simply buy the gift card and provide the recipient's information and we will handle the rest. The Unsolicited Press PayPal Gift Card is offered through PayPal and is a more traditional gift card that permits you to select how much you want to send to the recipient. The gift card funds are stored in a PayPal wallet and can be used however and whenever the recipient wants to directly on our website. Both are excellent options. No matter what you choose, our press appreciates your decision to support our small press.
 Portland, OR— November 24, 2020 — Unsolicited Press humbly announces the long-awaited availability of What Is Said About Elephants, a collection of short fiction by the late Wendell Mayo. Unsolicited Press and Wendell Mayo were in the middle of preparing his short story collection for publication when he suddenly passed away. Our team, in coordination with Mr. Mayo's wife decided to publish the collection posthumously to honor his life and support the local animal shelter in Lorian county. All profit from the sale of What Is Said About Elephants will go to the Friendship Animal Protective League in Lorian County.
Mayo begins his new collection with a brief tale and utterance made by an elephant trainer at a zoo: “It’s said,” Beasley says, “an elephant won’t pass by a dead elephant without casting a branch or some dust on the body. A kind of homage, I suppose.” In a variety of ways, the twelve stories that follow are tributes to characters who find themselves on the fringes, at the sides of roads. In “When the Moon Was Ours for the Taking,” a man recalls a brief few days he found himself fishing with his NASA-physicist father who is otherwise preoccupied with the Space Race craze of the 1960s. In “A Mindfulness Becoming Less,” an aging, out-of work Homer Lynch convinces himself he doesn’t need the job and health care he needs. In “Vigil for Ammospiza nigréscens,” a veteran of the Vietnam War searches for an extinct bird in the salt marshes of Florida, haunted by the North Vietnamese soldier he killed. In “Burn Barrel,” Cole, a jobless college graduate, despairing that he can never pay his student loans, begins to burn all his university papers, in a strange effort to erase the debt. In these and other stories, Mayo’s characters are people we think we know, in situations we think we understand—and then realize in flashes of truth we can see them—and ourselves—in new ways. Wendell Mayo (1953-2019) was a native of Corpus Christi, Texas. He authored five collections of short stories, recently, Survival House with SFASU Press in 2018. His other collections are The Cucumber King of Kėdainiai, winner of the Subito Press Award for Innovative Fiction; Centaur of the North (Arte Público Press), winner of the Aztlán Prize; B. Horror and Other Stories (Livingston Press); and a novel-in-stories, In Lithuanian Wood (White Pine Press). Over one-hundred of his short stories have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Yale Review, Harvard Review, Manoa, Missouri Review, Boulevard, New Letters, Threepenny Review, Indiana Review, and Chicago Review. He received the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Fulbright to Lithuania (Vilnius University), two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Master Fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission. He taught fiction writing in the MFA/BFA programs at Bowling Green State University for over twenty years. WHAT IS SAID ABOUT ELEPHANTS (978-1-950730-55-1) is available (paperback and ebook) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. The author is available for media appearances, interviews, and readings. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com.  Portland, OR— November 17, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of From the Land of Genesis by Stephen J. O'Shea, documentarian and explorer. From the Land of Genesis is literature at its best. Crafted in short story form to achieve a number of vivid slices of life, this collection accurately illustrates the hardships of normal life after living wartime experiences.
O’Shea traveled the globe interviewing veterans and taking special care to authentically portray the veteran experience at home. The result is a literary fiction / narrative nonfiction hybrid, with fictional characters and settings, but references and experiences of war that are drawn explicitly from interviews, transcripts, and source materials. Any one of these stories contributes so much on its own and is unique in its own respects, and yet the overlapping characters and themes flow more like a novel than a short story collection. O’Shea writes on a number of widely varying lifestyles of veterans who all carry the burden of war into their new lives, wherever they have ended up. He demonstrates expert control of conveying emotions, individually and interactively, which plays to his theme of depicting the reality of post-traumatic stress syndrome. To name a few, he emphasizes feelings of alienation, depression, paranoia, confusion, and regret. However, the stories also feature glimpses of hope amidst the despairing truths, making a beautiful literary medium for readers to experience vicariously the extremes of the human condition. Stephen J. O’Shea is a writer, documentarian, and (now) sailor, who tells stories to stay alive. His research for From the Land of Genesis was the catalyst for a sailing expedition around Cape Horn to raise awareness about veteran suicide rates. Having miraculously survived that feat (and transformed that journey into the feature documentary, Hell or High Seas) he's now writing and producing stories through a number of mediums, including literature and film. From the Land of Genesis (978-1-950730-58-2) is available as a paperback ($17.00; 302p.) and ebook, and can be purchased from all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Mr. O'Shea is open to scheduling events, speaking with the press, and getting involved in literary panels. Both publisher and author have active social media presences, and have developed a robust marketing plan. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors.  If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Lin Manuel-Miranda. I’d spare him my cooking and order delivery, though. I overcook everything. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? As I reflect, I think the most consistent recurring fear is being wrong/misstating something and either not realizing it or not being able to correct it. I combat this not-so-irrational fear in two primary ways: by checking and revising facts/phrasings, and by reassuring myself “I’m human. If something is wrong, I won’t die. It’ll just feel awful for a while.” Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Did I say Lin Manuel-Miranda already? Oopsie. Repeat answer. Love him. (Hamil-geek here.) What books are on your nightstand? Psychology books because there’s so much to learn in the field of psychology/mental health. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the dash. It’s rebellious, bold, versatile, and less formal than a colon. To me, the dash reads like people speak. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I was a really good student. Yet I've always read slowly. So I did a few CliffNote versions. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My laptop. “Computer, thank you for coming back after dying twice during the process of finishing MeaningFULL.” If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Passion + Persistence = Possible. Does writing energize or exhaust you? ENERGIZES ME! What are common traps for aspiring writers? Giving up. What is your writing Kryptonite? Imposter Syndrome. Sometimes it freezes me. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? I threw out MeaningFULL at least once. At least. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes. It depends on how we define writer. If we mean “someone who writes,” then the person could find a niche that doesn't require them to convey strong emotions. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I’m friends with a number of people who have published articles or books. Every bit of feedback helped me become a better writer--whether from a published author or not. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I haven’t decided yet if this might become a series. I wonder what readers would like to see, and welcome suggestions. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I changed my writing process a great deal since I had previously done primarily academic writing. Conversational stories were foreign to me and required a mentor. Some narratives came from recorded interviews and transcripts, which helped capture the storyteller’s voices. Other stories required editing only. Either way, the process evolved and was quite collaborative. This book changed nearly everything about how I write, and I’m grateful. It's what I wanted to read years ago. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Money spent for a mentor helped me to be a better writer. Consultation with lawyers taught me about publication. And if MeaningFULL helps people, then it all was the best money I ever spent as a writer. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? It’s been years since I read for pleasure, and I refuse to say anything negative about any author I have read while trying to grow and learn as a clinician. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? My parents had a plaque in the house with this Calvin Coolidge saying, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence…” Once I knew what persistence meant, I watched for how persistence showed up in the world. That passage has influenced me ever since. Most recently as a therapist, I see how important the way I say something is; it can have real influence in how people can recognize their best choices. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Ethan Frome. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Chunk the Groundhog (check YouTube). Day after day after day, he shows up. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I owe them gratitude for their generosity, protection of their identities (where appropriate), and honor. From the bottom of my heart, I’m touched they trusted me with their life-experiences. What does literary success look like to you? Reaching and positively impacting people is literary success to me. Would I love some nice reviews, to earn an award, or to make a list? Heck yes. But when I started this journey, I promised to do my best to reach and impact the most people I could with this book and the messages contained in it. And that will be enough. What’s the best way to market your books? Let me be direct here: “Readers, if you enjoy MeaningFULL or if it means something to you, please tell your friends about it and share it on social media.” Those are the best ways to spread the word. What did you edit out of this book? I tried to give enough pain to feel for and with the storyteller, but not get mired down in the heavy content. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Eating Disorders Specialist in private practice in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. To learn more about my practice, visit www.TherapyHelps.Us About Alli's Book! MeaningFULL: 23 Life-Changing Stories of Conquering Dieting, Weight, & Body Image Issues is a blend of motivational self-help, memoir, psychology, and health and wellness. Alli Spotts-De Lazzer is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, an expert in eating and body image issues, and a woman on the other side of her own decades-long struggle with food and body.
 Readers and reviewers are smitten with Anne Leigh Parrish's latest book. Kirkus Reviews says “these tales are also wonderfully worthwhile, courtesy of an indelible voice that leaves a lasting impression.”
In sixteen short stories and a novella, award-winning author Anne Leigh Parrish explores the magic of life, love, and the soft boundary between fact and fantasy. Here is fiction that lifts off from reality and startles us into recognition. The wife of an artist disappears under mysterious circumstances; a woman has the gift of taking away sorrow; another finds inner strength through writing poetry; and a great-grandmother spends the day sitting on a folding chair in a grocery store parking lot, contemplating the nature of the human heart. Women are the foundation of this collection, and it’s their unique issues that hold sway. Marriages gone bad, violent men, and children who disappoint weave through settings and scenes with fine dramatic tension. Loneliness, often a thing to be avoided at the cost of one’s self-esteem, becomes embraced as a source of strength. Quiet souls make themselves heard, and the timid prevail. The underdog doesn’t always win, and more often than not learns to accept what cannot be changed. Literary fiction at its best, What Nell Dreams is Parrish’s eight book of fiction. MORE ADVANCE PRAISE “Anne Leigh Parrish’s collection, What Nell Dreams, lets readers peer into lives at that precious moment of transition and discovery.” — PAM MCGAFFIN, author of The Leaving Year “Parrish is a master at creating strong and authentic female characters.” — CHRISSI SEPE, author of Iggy Gorgess and Bliss, Bliss, Bliss About Anne Leigh Parrish Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of seven previously published books: Maggie’s Ruse, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2019); The Amendment, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2018); Women Within, a novel (Black Rose Writing, 2017); By the Wayside, stories (Unsolicited Press, 2017); What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel (She Writes Press, 2014); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and All The Roads That Lead From Home, stories (Press 53, 2011). Where to Buy WHAT NELL DREAMS WHAT NELL DREAMS is available directly from the publisher and all major retailers such as Amazon. Readers who prefer to shop at independent bookstores can buy a copy through Indiebound. An ebook is also available through Amazon's Kindle program.  Unsolicited Press announces the long-awaited release of WORKING TITLE, a poetry collection by Chuck Harp. Set to release on November 10, 2020, Working Title investigates a spectrum of emotions: disillusionment, fatigue, anger, frustration, and indifference, and others through a series of poems that honor the Everyman. The speakers of the poems share the same face but not always the same uniform. They are workers from the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. What emerges is a painting illustrating the consequences of spending more time in an office than out in the world. The numbing nine-to-fives. The blinding blue light of computer screens. Working Title is a portrait of the mundane everyday of modern civilization in the western world.
Chuck is a writer of various forms who currently resides in Los Angeles. He published Before I Forget with Black Rose Writing, What Must Go On with Unsolicited Press, and Blooming Insanity with Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. WORKING TITLE (978-1-950730-67-4) is available (paperback, ebook) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Available November 10, 2020 Working Title by Chuck Harp presents a confluence of the integrity and denigration of human spirit in the digital-industrial modernity we reside. Under a less nuanced poet this material would come across as didactic, but what Harp does so well is turn the reading into a rhythmic flow that feels like you are looking through the eyes of a camera on a track which is spinning to focus on different people as it rolls.
The layman, the unknown artist with their own rich history and voice, is celebrated from the start with “The Cheap Seats”, a title reverberant with the influence of Neil Gaiman’s “The View from the Cheap Seats”. It is here that we find the handshake of the reader and the author, unapologetic and outward with influence for this reader I immediately found a home in Harp’s work because of this. Yet, despite the similar titles, the poem racks us fast into the ironic world we reside in which billions of people with hardly any money pay full price to see a film like Avengers Endgame while Disney makes off with even more fuel monetarily and in the minds and hearts of the poor masses cheering on as Captain America proves he is worthy to wield the Hammer of a Norse God. The frustration and anger at this irony is palpable, but not anywhere close to off putting, if commiseration is the focus of many of the early poems in the book then vulnerable humility is the undercurrent that takes mainstage after the initial venting has passed. “The Hunt” takes us into the uncomfortable space of recognizing how fragile the support of monetary future is in a world where jobs are unreliable long term, or even worse, time and energy consuming for the artist. “Skills” the anxious negotiation between the self we perceive vs. the self we present to be hirable or publishable, and not only the mental strain that puts on a person, but the dilemma of living as an autonomous artist when you may have to change your work for it to be shared, and to possibly have a future continuing to share it. The poems continue their journey through the dregs of the working class and the time and life they lose in their survivalist state. The push and pull between the responsibility to strike and the pressure that puts on one’s ability to live, the corporate assholes who need cheap labor’s practices, and how the idea of money plays with one’s self-worth are also on the spit. Where the journey soars though is not in the misery of these experiences, but in the beautiful spaces that are found and the suffering endured to survive being able to return to it. The poem “Overtime” takes this into account and breathes so much living air into what we as readers have not only endured in the process of going on Harp’s journey, but what many of us have gone through in living in America. Even something as small as staying up an extra half hour when already exhausted just to kiss your partner goodnight is deep balm for all that is churned and torn. Especially if you are an artist of any medium who is reinforced with the need to constantly compare their accomplishments to the quality of their character in society. This utilitarianism is actively critiqued multiple times over by way of the emotional accounts present. The accumulative poem aptly titled “Working Title” is button on the journey. It is heart breaking, heart affirming, exhausting, and something that should be stood by in solidarity. Chuck Harp knows not only his poetic voice, but how to allow confluence between each poem. The synthesis makes the read digestible, while also being incredibly complex. I hope to see more work and poems from him in the future, and for more publishers to give him the attention and time he is due. Nominating books for awards is really hard. Every book we publish has meaning and is an important member of the book world. And having to select a handful is like asking our editors to choose their favorite child.
Nevertheless, it must be done. This year we made nominations based on sales and heart, with heart leading the way. This year is about the authors and books that garnered notice without having to scream from the mountaintops. These books worked for themselves. The nominations go to:  Available for purchase wherever books are sold. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Kurt Vonnegut, though I have a feeling we’d skip dinner and cut straight to the bottle of whisky. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The scariest stage in my writing is transporting a good concept onto the page, and into good, compelling writing. There are endless ideas for stories floating around in my mind – the question is always: which ones will translate well into fiction, and which ones will result in a great waste of time? And while it’s impossible to tell in the moment, the way that I always overcome that block is by remembering that there is no wasted time. If I write 9 terrible stories for every decent one, my one good story isn’t the best despite those other stories – it’s the best because of them, and the time that I spent writing all ten. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? It’s a kind of man-crush, but I’d have to go with George Orwell. His reckless idealism and embedment in the Spanish Civil War screams of the same kind of lust for adventure and stupidity that led me to jump on a 36-foot sailboat for Cape Horn. That, and 1984 might have been the first book I ever really, truly read. What books are on your nightstand? Right now, it’s The Overstory by Richard Powers and Awakening Osiris – the Egyptian “Book of the Dead.” Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the double dash. Bordering a non-essential clause with “—” is a habit I’ve yet to break, and I often have to go back through my writing and limit myself to one dash-distinguished clause per page. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. I just read the sparknotes (and sped-read them, at that.) I regretted it so much later in life that I went back to read it, and then I read Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath AND East of Eden (which is a behemoth of a book). What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My thermos. It followed me across three continents, and more journeys and adventures than I care to recount. While I was scrapping by during the first year of my PhD, it was how I drank my coffee slowly at coffee houses – ensuring that I could wring a good 6-8 hours out of a single 16-ounce cappuccino, without having to buy more (I am the bane of every cafe manager’s existence). If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? There are probably enough inspirational quotes for aspiring writers on twitter and Instagram. I’d probably just write what I’ve found to be true – “abandon comfort.” People adjust to their circumstances, and there’s no paved road forward. You just have to carve your own path. During the first year of my PhD, I lived off of 50 GBPs a week. Before that, I lived out of my car – travelling the country and working part-time jobs in 10 different states. I’m not saying you have to be prepared to starve in order to succeed – just that, when you find what works for you, trust it, and roll with it. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Writing fiction energizes me. Writing almost everything else drains me. (Except for this Q&A, of course.) When I’m in the middle of creating and writing a good story or scene, it becomes a force of its own. I’ll lie awake at night thinking about my characters and their journey. I’ll walk right past a giraffe in the road without looking up, I’m so engrossed in their world. And yet, it’s invigorating. Writing, and getting into flow, is one of the most life-affirming experiences that I’ve ever practiced. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Believing in the artist mythos. Creative geniuses don’t exist in a vacuum. Originality and craft comes from practice, experience, and study. I always told my students that writing is only 33% practice. The other 67% is reading, work-shopping, and research. What is your writing Kryptonite? I often get inside my own head about flow. If all I have in a day is one hour to sit down and write, I’ll sometimes convince myself that it’s not worth it. That, unless I’m able to dedicate the entire day to writing, and getting into a flow, than it might as well be a waste. The truth is, however, that writing anything is better than writing nothing at all. Even answering these questions is better practice than forfeiting an afternoon to menial tasks and busy work Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Oh, definitely. Readers block can be tricky, because reading on some level feels like a luxury, or a past-time. If you take the morning to read, you’re wasting time that could be better spent writing or working or being productive. The reality, of course, is that reading is a crucial part of writing. And that, sometimes the best way to break through writers block is simply to read. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Absolutely. See my previous comment about the artist mythos. Artists often aren’t as they’ve been portrayed by romanticists, or the eccentric “creatives” who wander production houses/advertising firms/etc. More often than not, the individuals who propagate those myths have serious insecurities about their own creative process. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? My best “author” friends were my peers and supervisors during my PhD. And I believe it is essential to surround yourself with writers, creatives, or storytellers of any form – to learn, to listen, and to talk through your own ideas. But you don’t necessarily have to be “friends” with them. Relationships are complex, and while I thrive in creative environments, etc. I often find myself connecting more with non-writers about non-writerly things. The key, as with all things, is balance. If you’re in an MFA, and the only people you surround yourself with are writers, you’ll exist in an academic bubble. But if you have no writers in your life, you’re probably not challenging yourself or work-shopping your writing like you should be. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? A little bit of both, I think. From the Land of Genesis was actually the catalyst for my idea behind Hell or High Seas, the documentary that set me sailing for Cape Horn two years straight. While FTLOG explores a variety of narratives from various veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Hell or High Seas is a deeper, more involved investigation of a single non-combat veteran, former-navy-rescue-swimmer Taylor Grieger. The two compliment each other, I believe, and moving forward I might build on those themes. But I’m also working on projects that are completely outside of the military experience, and I’m really looking forward to fleshing those out. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Publishing my first book has been really helpful in terms of affirmation. It took over two years from when I completed From the Land of Genesis to when heard back from my first publisher. After two years of crickets, I got offers from three different publishers… within the same week! Before that week, I was really struggling with self-doubt and whether I should abandon my efforts to publish FTLOG and just move on to my next book. And I did move on from FTLOG, and I began writing for the documentary and for magazines about our journey, and I started writing a memoir of our sailing journey around Cape Horn. But I didn’t stop querying agents or submitting to publishers. So I learned that you don’t have to give up on one book in order to move on to the next. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? When I got accepted to the post-graduate creative writing program in Glasgow, Scotland, I received a scholarship that covered my tuition for the first year. It was a gamble, because accommodation alone in downtown Glasgow was going to cost more than I’d ever had in my bank account. But I sold my car, bought a one-way flight, and signed a year-long lease with graduate-student housing. It took me three months to find a job bartending in Glasgow, and even afterwards I was only earning minimum wage. I scraped by that first year, working weekends, teaching undergrad courses, and completing mandatory courses for my masters of research course. Then I received a studentship with an additional living stipend to complete my PhD. Those three years ended up being the most formative in my life. So I think the best money I ever spent was that one-way flight to Scotland. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Oh, there are plenty of those. Shakespeare and Chaucer, to start. Then there was Hemingway, who I despised at first, then idolized, then eventually settled on the middle-ground of respect. Steinbeck was another I grew to love. Stephen King I grew to admire, though I think I was only ever put-off by the genre of horror and not really his style as a writer. Countless short story authors. I think the trick is to give them a chance. Once you get into the rhythm and style of their writing—especially the more traditional, historical authors—the craft itself falls to the side and you’re able to absorb and appreciate the message and themes at the core. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? It must’ve been my junior year of high school, when I started taking my English assignments seriously. We learned the ethos, pathos, and logos of arguments, and at that time I thought the powers of persuasion were limitless. It didn’t take long for that view to falter, and so I returned to writing stories to expand the mind, rather than trying to change it. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Probably “Treats” by Laura Williams. I bought the book from a small, independent publisher based out of Glasgow that has since gone out of business, and I bought it for about five quid. I really didn’t expect to like it, and then I was instantly pulled in by the humor, wit, and sharpness of tone. The book itself was a collection of vignettes and flash fiction, and I can’t tell you what half of them were about, but I remember savouring the entire book. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I had to ask my fiancé about this one, since I don’t know much about spirit animals or avatars. She said my spirit animal is a brown bear, though I was kind of hoping she’d say “turtle duck,” in reference to The Legend of Korra cartoon series. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? More than most authors, I imagine. My situation is unique, since most of the inspiration for my characters and their experiences are drawn directly from interviews that I conducted with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. To them, I owe my sincerest gratitude: for being who they are, for enlist to serve on our behalf, and for sitting down to help me, and all of you, better understand what they’ve endured, and how their difficulties in transitioning home have been disregarded and misunderstood by the public at large. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Fortunately, just two. One of which I wrote while I was in middle-school (yes, it’s a 600-page handwritten fantasy novel). The other is underway, and the rest are still incubating. What does literary success look like to you? Being able to tell meaningful stories as my career. What’s the best way to market your books? No idea. I imagine, most of the time, that’s the publisher’s responsibility. I think as an author, maybe the best marketing technique is to be kind and gracious, to express gratitude to the people who have supported you, and to be proud and confident in – not bashful of – your book. A large part of your early audience is going to be your community. And the best way to reach your community is to serve them. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Not allowing my own biases or diction to slip into the prose. But, honestly, it’s no different than writing any character that’s from a different background or culture than yourself. As an author, you must constantly be exercising empathy, immersed in backstory, and reminded of the subtle cues that give yourself away. What did you edit out of this book?” More than half of the stories that I wrote. That, and a lot of clichés and adjectives. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Anything that allowed me to create. Stories, ideally, in whatever medium I could. But if not film / writing / radio, I’d probably be an architect or craftsman of some kind.  Adventurous, magical, and often dark, the stories that comprise Feral Boy Meets Girl are about outsiders in their own communities, homes, and even intimate relationships.
Feral Boy Meets Girl blends literary fiction with elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror to tell stories of outsiders within their communities, their homes, and even their intimate relationships. In “The Death And Life Of Bob,” a collective of textbook sales reps watches in amazement as their marginalized coworker returns from the dead with a new zest for life—but one sees something far darker in his new beginning. In the title story, “Feral Boy Meets Girl,” a young teenager, raised in the wild by a cougar until his adoption by human parents, is on the cusp of full integration into society, but finds that “civilization” is nothing of the sort. In “Static,” an experimental wormhole leads to a father receiving cell phone calls from his son twenty years in the future—and what he learns about himself isn’t pretty. “Minutes of the Pine Valley Residents’ Board” features a depressed, cynical secretary observing his condo board becoming a court of star chamber, but as a non-voting member he can only witness and record, rather than intervene. In “The Sound of His Voice,” a mother goes to near-superhuman lengths to care for her three-year-old son who has been infected by a zombie virus. And “Do Not Break The Heart Of Charles Nelson Bereiter” offers instructions on how to date an emotionally-broken man literally haunted by a spirit from his past. William Jablonsky is originally from Rock Falls, Illinois, and earned an MFA in fiction writing from Bowling Green State University. He is the author of two previous books: The Indestructible Man: Stories (Livingston Press, 2005) and The Clockwork Man (Medallion, 2010). His short fiction has appeared frequently national magazines and journals, including Asimov’s, Shimmer, The Florida Review, Phoebe, and many others. He teaches fiction writing and interdisciplinary humanities at Loras College, and lives in eastern Iowa with his wife and son.  Portland, Oregon— October 20, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announced immediate availability of Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories by Matthew Duffus. Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories paints the stories of Americans from sisters vacationing in Southern California to the kudzu-covered fields of Mississippi. Each story, built on luxurious landscapes, hones in on the turmoil of living in 21st Century America. Readers come face-to-face with the struggles of living off-grid and fighting for artistic credibility in a society that refuses to let freedom ring...all in favor of commerce.
Advance Praise for Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories "Matthew Duffus’ debut collection is a powerful hymn to families—chosen ones, second ones, makeshift ones, loving and fierce, troubled and turbulent. The stories in Dunbar’s Folly unfold like stretches of gentle country road, tracking the signposts of relationships with an unassumingly clear-eyed lucidity. Each story navigates its dips and turns so smoothly that its ultimate destination—a sharp, illuminating crossroads—feels revelatory, every time."--Suzanne Rivecca, author of Death Is Not an Option "Matthew Duffus is a superb writer, one whose stories I found instantly engaging. In part, that's because he has no time for the trivial. He's exploring the mysteries of the human heart and doing so with both grace and wonder. This is a deeply moving collection, one that I will return to many times."--Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World In an easy and lucid style, Dunbar’s Folly immerses the reader in the conundrums of life—wayward children, divorce, retirement, suicide, and unfettered pride. These insightful stories will absorb you with honest compelling characters. Matthew Duffus has most assuredly written a classic within the pages of this flawless collection.--Russell Helms, author of Fade Matthew Duffus is the author of the novel Swapping Purples for Yellows and the poetry chapbook Problems of the Soul and Otherwise. He lives in North Carolina and can be found online at matthewduffus.com and on twitter @DuffusMatthew. Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories by Matthew Duffus Availability Dunbar's Folly and Other Stories is available on October 20, 2020 as a paperback (978-1-950730-54-4) and e-book. The book is brought to the trade by Ingram. The publisher and author have active publicity and marketing campaigns in place. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
I’d have to say Edgar Allen Poe, because he had so much tragedy and sadness in his life, and I think I’d like to provide him with a moment of warmth and kindness. No better way of doing that than with good food. I’d probably cook him some nice Hungarian goulash, if only because it’s delicious and hearty and he likely wouldn’t have had it before. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The inner critic is merciless. Makes you wonder if everything you’re doing is crap. I keep thinking about that scene in Funny Farm (starring Chevy Chase) in which his character hands a copy of his novel manuscript to his wife to read, and she reads it and then starts crying. My wife is my first and best editor, and so that reaction is something I dread, almost irrationally. Plus, some of my ideas are a bit out there and are largely execution-dependent. I get past it by recognizing that I have to be true to my own imagination and aesthetic, and just doing it--if I blow it, I either start over or fix it. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? This is probably a somewhat obscure reference, but the most recent crush I had on a character was Mrs. Singh, Ray Singh’s mother in The Lovely Bones. She’s a peripheral character, not really that important to the plot, but she’s a beautiful, elegant character who carries herself with incredible grace even as her life is falling apart. What books are on your nightstand? Too many—one at a time would be better, but I like to sample and flit. David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Karen Russell’s story collection Vampires In The Lemon Grove, the reissued Miracleman series by Alan Moore (a revisionist super-hero series wherein the titular character ends up setting up a theocracy with himself as God), and Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s collected edition of Monstress (a fantasy comic that is very dark and strange and features talking cats). This will probably tell you a lot about me. Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you? I get ideas from so many places—sometimes it’s things my wife tells me about her work day, or my interactions with students and/or other faculty. My son, who is what you’d call high-functioning on the autism spectrum but who will probably have close to a normal life, has given me tons of material to work with—“The Sound Of His Voice” was directly inspired by some of the early intervention we did with him, and my current novel project is largely inspired by him and the life I want/foresee for him, but transformed into subte science-fictiony terms . And sometimes it’s a combination of a great many things—“Minutes Of The Pine Valley Residents’ Board” came about at a time when I was a committee secretary (a pretty typical service activity for new professors) and was also very actively annoyed by my neighbors’ children (seriously, I was thinking of setting up glue traps for them on my back porch). Really, they can come from anywhere. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I try to avoid too much fancy punctuation simply because it feels too much like diagramming sentencings to me. So while I do like the semicolon and the em dash, I’d have to say the period, because there’s nothing like a simple, short, declarative sentence that falls like a hammer blow. Case in point, from Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”: “The man himself lay on the bed.” It’s creepy, and there’s a finality to it because it confirms what we were already led to believe. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? The Grapes Of Wrath. Sorry, Mrs. Thome. I did read it as an adult…and still didn’t care for it. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My height-adjustable swivel chair. Not only am I tall and so need the increased height, but sometimes when I get stuck on a particular passage I spin around in it like a small child. Helps clear the noggin. Why do you write? The first 5 words that come to mind. Go. To exorcise my bountiful demons. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Two words: “Commit Yourself.” This is what sets publishing writers apart from those who merely call themselves writers and have umpteen unfinished manuscripts in their desk drawers or flash drives. You really do have to commit to a project fully and wholeheartedly, even when enthusiasm for it wanes (it will), even when you think what you’re writing is absolute shit (some of it is), when it seems too daunting (it often is). You have to power through and finish a draft first, even a shitty one, then go back and make it less shitty, then hit it again and actually make it good. Each draft teaches you how to write the next one—you have to let it.  If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Without question Hunter S. Thompson, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind I can’t cook and would be cool with a couple burgers and a lot of beers. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The editing process has got to be the worst. It’s like looking under the rug at all the crap you overlooked. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Does Elektra from Marvel Comics count? What books are on your nightstand? The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Mario Puzo’s The Sicilian. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The question mark. Just because it makes the reader unsure if what they are reading should even matter. It’s almost like the writer and reader are attached by handcuffs. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? 1984 by George Orwell What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The inanimate carbon rod. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Do whatever the hell you want. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize. What are common traps for aspiring writers? The Internet, noisy neighbors, and the worst of them all….overthinking. What is your writing Kryptonite? In terms of process, it will always be writing a beginning. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes and no. It’s more that I’ve written myself into a corner and need some time to figure out how to escape. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I’m sure they can. But it must be a whole lot harder. But try and think of those serial killers walking amongst us. They can put on a smile too. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? My friend, author Benjamin DeVos, who basically told me to submit my poetry. But other inspirational creatives that write in other forms are: - musicians Jon Carlucci and Phill Lien - rapper Internal Rhyme - writers Angelo Ciccio and Adam Mitropoulos. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I think the style and themes are the overall connection. Besides that they simply stand on their own. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? The very first book I wrote (which was not, and never will be, published) was me trying too hard. Overthinking, and adding in bits of nonsense that I wrote off as “flavor” or “style”. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? With the very first check I got from writing I put gas in my car. I guess that. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? If I disliked them, they pretty much never entered my life again. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Probably around the time I got into hip hop. Everything from the use of graffiti to rap itself. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Probably a tortoise. Maybe like that one in the old Guinness ads. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? A beer or two. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have 2 novels and 4 poetry collections. What does literary success look like to you? Freedom. What’s the best way to market your books? When I figure it out I’ll get back to you. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I try not to think about it and just write. What did you edit out of this book?” I think there was a suicidal poem that I deleted. Who wants that? If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Probably still have my current job and be a weekend bartender.  Unsolicited Press announces the long-awaited release of a debut poetry collection by Amy Shimshon-Santo on September 22, 2020. Even the Milky Way is Undocumented is a testament to the lost, the loved, the courageous. The collection includes the viral poems “no (no. 10)” which has been used by educators to teach personal consent to students, and “good fuck poem (a definition)” an erotic testament to affection and the body.
Shimshon-Santo, who has been widely interviewed by outlets including BBC radio, speaks to a moment in history framed by crises in public health and public culture. “Poetry is designed for the subtle work of liberation,” the author said in an interview with Frontier Poetry. Placeholder Press in the United Kingdom describes her work as having “seemingly effortless mastery that can only come from meticulous and dedicated work" and calls her poems "companions for all of us, lost and afraid in a time of crisis.” Shimshon-Santo’s creative career began in dance, and sent her on a journey from Los Angeles to improvisation in New York; revolutionary community theater in Central America; co-directing a transnational performance ensemble rooted in Bahia-Brazil; molding arts education policy in California, and mentoring leaders in higher education. She balanced the responsibilities of public service and single parenthood with the internal introspection that writing provides. Even the Milky Way is Undocumented is a unique departure from her other creative and philanthropic works, as she turns her lens inward and focuses on the ongoing pursuit of radical honesty and self-acceptance. The book spans 25 years of life told through 37 poems, each one carrying us a little bit closer to the heart of the artist. The collection is “a whole life lived,” writes Joshua Roark (Editor, Frontier Poetry). “These poems know deaths and betrayals, police killings and sexual assaults,” writes poet and translator Dan Bellm. Shimshon-Santo finds strength in ritual, music, and family. Author Gayle Brandeis writes that the book “reminds you to listen, to pay attention, to live.” Writing poetry is “my thermometer for authentic living,” said Shimshon-Santo, who is aware of what it means to be the first woman in one’s family to fill a page and be published. “Poetry helps me know myself, and seek freedom.” About Amy Shimshon-Santo Pushcart Award nominee Amy Shimshon-Santo is a writer and educator from Dogtown, a place in Los Angeles that no longer exists. Her interdisciplinary work connects the arts, education, and urbanism. Her work crosses genres from poetry and creative non-fiction to choreography and social science. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her creative non-fiction (2017), Best of the Net for her poetry (2018), and was recognized on the National Honor Roll for Service Learning. She is the author of the chapbook of erasure poetry Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder Press), and the editor of Arts = Education (UC Press). Her writing has also been published by ArtPlace America, Yes Poetry, Zócalo Public Square, Capsule Stories, Anti-Heroin Chic, Rag Queen Periodical, SAGE Publications, Entropy, Imagining America, Tiferet Journal, and SUNY Press. She is currently an Associate Professor in Arts Management at Claremont Graduate University. To learn more about her work visit www.amyshimshon.com. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. EVEN THE MILKY WAY IS UNDOCUMENTED (978-1-950730-29-2) is available (paperback, ebook, and audio) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press Eric Rancino 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Amy Shimshon-Santo shimshona4@gmail.com ADVANCE PRAISE FOR EVEN THE MILKY WAY IS UNDOCUMENTED “Amy Shimshon-Santo’s poems are the words of a survivor, a warrior, and a creator. Time and time again, across borders and languages, her writing takes us into sensuous and deeply emotional places, finding beauty and rootedness and meaning in everyday moment and extraordinary landscapes.” — Héctor Tobar, Author of Deep Down Dark “My imagination/is ambidextrous,” writes Amy Shimshon-Santo; so is this stunning collection. These poems are deeply rooted in the body and reach for the stars; they are spacious enough to hold the pain of police brutality and the beauty of an apricot tree, to both interrogate and celebrate, to hold a yes on their lips and a no in their pocket. The poet calls the reader “beloved” in the very first poem, and each page of this collection is suffused with love, with “a grammar/made of kindness”—the kind of love that is unafraid to show you the truth; the kind of love that reminds you to listen, to pay attention, to live. A beautiful and stirring achievement.” — Gayle Brandeis, Author of The Art of Misdiagnosis “I’ve decided to dress my body / in blessings,” a poem called “grace” announces, toward the end of this wonderful collection by Amy Shimshon-Santo. Which does not mean that blessings come easy: these poems know deaths and betrayals, police killings and sexual assaults, and a parent’s everyday fears for her children’s lives, but on the power of ritual and music they emerge into strength and grace. A couple of the poems – “no (no. 10)” and “a good fuck poem (definition),” maybe others – are already underground anthems being passed from hand to hand. The body and the natural world are one in Amy’s work; languages and lives are “borderless,” ever crossing and re-crossing; and words from her pen are “strings of indigo light.” — Dan Bellm, Author of Deep Well “Shimshon-Santo's debut collection rings with music—we need more men like these poems, more women, more human beings with "shark teeth grinning / at the spools of happiness / stored inside." The poetry of Even The Milky Way Is Undocumented devours a whole life lived, leaving bare Shimshon-Santo's vulnerable bones: the work breathes simultaneously political, maternal, erotic and furious. The world hungers for more books like this." — Joshua Roark, Editor of Frontier Poetry “Amy Shimshon-Santo is “a true poet. the kind that breaks the old language and reconstructs the new from shards and visions. I am grateful for her as we always are when the artist appears just at the nick of time.” — Deena Metzger, Author of A Rain of Night Birds “I urge you to discover the poetic beauty of Los Angeles’ very own Amy Shimshon-Santo. Her voz magnífica will leave you breathlessly glowing in the dark. Amy’s rhymes are alive and connect with your cuerpo, your body, your mind, and every desire in between. Her voice and verses will satisfy your poetic cravings. Embrace the gift of these poems.” — Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, Author of Flashes and Verses  Portland, OR— September 8, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of KATHMANDU by Anuja Ghimire, a poet based in Dallas, TX. “Kathmandu” contains reflections of an immigrant mother raising two young children in America. In the backdrop of her memories of Kathmandu, Anuja Ghimire is trying to find her place in the world and trying to make sense of it. Through a journey of political violence from her first home to her new home, she finds enduring love and hope in the first sightings of spring and in the blossoming of her children. “Kathmandu” poems speak of being a neighbor while still feeling out of place, speaking a foreign tongue while finding it to be a lifeline, all the while readjusting the conclusion of what home is.
Ghimire’s poems reflect the incomplete circularity of returning and moving forward. To understand her children, she returns to her first years and to her mother. To comprehend maddening gun-violence in America while her children begin attending elementary school, she returns to the bombing of Rajiv Gandhi in India when she was a child and the Royal family massacre in Nepal when she was a teen. To satisfy her immigrant hunger, she returns to semolina pudding, the first comfort food she made as a ten-year-old for her little brother. To persevere through headlines fraught with political calamities, Ghimire remembers surviving, as a child, India’s blockades of oil and sugar. To poetize while being lost in transit, she makes art in Walmart. In the twenty-one poems that span a decade, Anuja Ghimire writes about the complexity of never leaving home while moving “to keep things whole.” Anuja Ghimire was born in Kathmandu, Nepal and came to America to attend college. She began seriously writing and publishing since 2008. A Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee, she has published poetry, creative nonfiction and flash fiction in the U.S., Canada, Nepal, and the U.K. Most recently, her work appeared in Finished Creatures (UK), Glass: A journal of poetry, Medusa’s Laughs Press Microanthology, and EcoTheo Review. She works as a senior publisher in an education-based company near Dallas, Texas. She lives with her husband and two young daughters near Dallas. KATHMANDU (978-1-950730-51-3) is available as a paperback and ebook, and can be purchased from all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Ms. Ghimire is open to scheduling events, speaking with the press, and getting involved in literary panels. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. |
Popular Topics
All
We Support Indie Bookshops |
