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If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
It seems most writers, or at least the twentieth century sort I’m familiar with, have a tendency to put off dinner in favor of a prolonged cocktail hour. So maybe not so much cooking, but mixing and pouring… That said, I’d love to chat with Paul Theroux. He’s been everywhere and written so much and so eloquently. As for all the dead ones, nah. They’d likely resent being dragged back to this overheated realm just to hang out with me. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I’m not sure anything about the writing process scares me, per se, but failing to do justice to a great character or idea is certainly a worry: bobbling what should’ve been a slam-dunk, I mean. To combat this, I remind myself that writing is revision, and that time isn’t always the enemy. What doesn’t quite work today may well find its natural footing tomorrow. What books are on your nightstand? The Rock Cycle: Essays by Kevin Honold American Copper by Shann Ray Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser Having and Being Had by Eula Biss Favorite punctuation mark? Why? As a writer of nonfiction who seeks to gain new understanding of the world as observer and participant, I’d have to go with the question mark, as it succinctly embodies the form. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Unfortunately, there are too many neglected books to name. As a kid, I was obsessed with basketball and being an athlete. It wasn’t until all of that ended that I became a dedicated reader. On the plus side, the discipline that you learn playing sports is good training for being a writer. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The coffee-maker, first off. But also the beer fridge. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…? No, just kidding. But if aspiring writers have the correct mindset, they won’t put much stock in easy inspiration. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Both. The energized feeling is wonderful, that buzz of flowing words, the escape into the self. But the exhausting part is trickier. It never lets up, even as you improve. The reason? Because to continue improving as a writer, you have to push your boundaries and constantly work at the edge of your talent. So even though you have gotten demonstrably better, the act of writing never gets much easier. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Booze, most notoriously. That and material ambitions. And not reading enough, or trying to duck the classics, the difficult and time-consuming stuff. What is your writing Kryptonite? Like most writers, my writing Kryptonite is all the non-writing work that’s necessary to support my writing habit. Then again, that stuff is also grist for the mill. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? No. I’m skeptical of the diagnosis. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Probably not, or at least not a writer of quality fiction or memoir. That’s not to say a writer couldn’t be very reserved, very private, but genuinely cold? I doubt 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? Interesting question, as it seems that one author writing multiple books, unless those books were vastly different in subject and scope, almost couldn’t help but leave some overlap, some connections. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Growing up, my parents operated and published a small-town newspaper in the rural Midwest, and it seemed our neighbors were always either chuckling over my mother’s lighthearted column about our home life, or cursing about my father’s hardheaded political editorials. So I’ve always known that words have power, though I view it somewhat differently now, more personally. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? I don’t know if we can rightly call Russell Banks under-appreciated, considering his name is known and he publishes widely, but his novel Continental Drift should be read by more people. It’s extraordinary. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? A black cat, as these animals seem to keep finding their way into my life. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Anonymity, for sure. And quite possibly a beer and a private talk, depending. But not much else. Fiction is fiction; end of story. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Three currently, sadly, crushingly. What does literary success look like to you? That’s somewhat difficult to answer amid a wider culture that seems to view writing books as an esoteric hobby at best, not to mention a publishing industry with ever-narrower tastes and ever-tightening purse strings. If pressed, I’d point to the internal. If you’re consistently writing and publishing, and if you’re proud of your work line-by-line and as a whole, that’s success. What did you edit out of this book? A number of accounts of visits to very good breweries, where unfortunately no one did or said anything particularly weird, shocking, or funny, and also a ton of fascinating stuff from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy that I couldn’t figure out how to shoehorn in. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Well, I write and I work, so I suppose I’d continue to be a teacher and a bartender, though probably a less interesting, less dynamic version of both. Without writing, the real question would be: how in the hell to spend my mornings? If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
The ghost of Clarice Lispector. Although, whatever I make, she rejects. So, we call out for delivery and she orders something -- apple turnovers -- that aren’t on the menu, and lots of them! The restaurant is terrified, but they comply. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? That the thing will suck, after I’ve written it, and after I’ve revised it. I often combat my fears by drinking a stout or two. In all seriousness, there is no combatting this particular fear -- except to keep on writing. The more chances you give yourself -- to not suck -- the greater your chances are of not sucking. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? I can’t answer this question honestly. The safe answer would be the character Anna Karenina. Is that crazy or what? Maybe Faye Greener from The Day of the Locust. The fiction writer Lucia Berlin, maybe. There is a living writer, (at least I think she’s still alive), who nearly jumped off my old rooftop, but I can’t say what her name is, fml. What books are on your nightstand? Margaret Walker’s novel Jubilee. Sandra Simonds’ poetry collection Warsaw Bikini. A good friend sent me some Japanese novels. Carl Sandburg’s folk music collection The American Songbag. Well, that’s not quite true. It’s a PDF, that’s on my computer, which is on my nightstand. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The parentheses because they’re very suggestive. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? There were quite a few. MacBeth was one. I read it later. It’s a blast. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I couldn’t think of anything and then for some reason my mind said “Potato masher.” Why not? Love the “puree.” If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? That’s a lot of mirrors. I’d probably keep it short, to save time: “You Are Closer Than You Actually Appear.” Does writing energize or exhaust you? Writing is exhausting, but revision is energizing. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Defensiveness. Especially the one that goes “This really happened.” Just because it may have transpired doesn’t necessarily make it a good piece of writing. What is your writing Kryptonite? My colossal weakness for mischief-making. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? No. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes and no. Yes, because they could feel those emotions for, say, a “colder” thing like language, which would actually make language warm, ha ha. But if they felt no emotions at all, that would be pretty tough. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I used to know only, like, poets and fiction writers. But in the past couple years, I’ve become friends with people who’ve written scholarship books, and this form of writing turns out to be incredibly difficult and admirable. But to answer the question, let’s take my friend Rod Smith, the nutty experimental poet. The key thing about Rod, though, is that every so often, he gets serious and it’s surprising, and effective. He says “doot doo” and he sneaks up on you, and gets you good. 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? Each book has to stand on its own. Occasionally, you need to pick it up and fend off some kind of avant garde attack. It’s good to have a sturdy book, in hand. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? A first book is a real treasure, because it’s amazing to have something in your hands, to show friends and family. At the same time, you put yourself out there, and if it’s not perfect, which it isn’t, you’re sort of baring your soul, publicly. So, what happens is, the next books become a quest to master the form of the book, if that’s even possible. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? My mind said things like Coltrane records and fresh ginger. Wtf? You’d have to say Coltrane records, but ginger is very good, mmmmm. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Virtually all of them. The thing is, you have to be skeptical, because if you do the opposite, if you just love everything, then you might as well strip off your clothes and run amok in the middle of the big city. Perhaps it was the language poets, though, most of all. I thought that was bullshit at first, but then some of the writing really struck me as being -- precisely the kind of thing -- that enables language to evolve. And that really is the work of poetry. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Well, it’s mostly about rejection. I mean, the language of rejection is powerful. Debilitating, really, but it’s also powerful to agitate against rejection. Lots of electricity in that dynamic. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? That’s a tough one. Maybe Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan? As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? The fox. I actually have a fox friend. During the pandemic, this happened. She used to wait for me every evening when I’d go out for a run or a walk. She’d just be waiting near the woods, with that big tail curled behind her. Just brilliant stuff. And then we’d jog along together for a little while until she drifted off. Once, I got within a few feet of her and she nibbled my hand, briefly. Magic. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Absolutely nothing, hahahaha. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Too many to count. Most writers are like this. You’ve just got to be practical and keep pressing forward, take chunks of this and bits of that, and fashion it all together in the best combinations. “Be ruthless in your practicality.” What does literary success look like to you? Too many people associate success with money and in the end that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The vast majority of big money books really blow, but I guess the authors are comfortable. The answer is -- a risk-taking book that’s really tight. Very hard to come by. What’s the best way to market your books? Readings. Be a performer! What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? You start to desire them, romantically. It gets kind of frustrating. What did you edit out of this book? Mostly, what you guys didn’t like. Hahaha. No, I think we dropped some loose language and vague kind of stuff. I really appreciated the feedback! If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Something that involves robes and lotions. No, in all seriousness, I’d probably be a professional potato masher. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character?
Muriel Spark is my idol, she is funny and lyrical and everything a writer should be. What books are on your nightstand? P.G. Wodehouse for laughter. And lots of poetry-- from Shakespeare to Robert Frost to Louise Gluck. My heroine quotes a lot or poetry, and so do I when I’m not writing it. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? SEMICOLON because it’s rarely used these day. I don’t admire short choppy sentences all that much. . If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Read as much as possible, and then read more. Don’t think, don’t take a course, just write. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Wordiness and trying to use fancy words when plain ones work fine. What is your writing Kryptonite? READING! And also listening to music. Have you ever gotten writer’s block? No, I just write something different. Sometimes, writing needs to be put aside, and I work on a completely different sort of piece. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I assume we’re talking fiction. I don’t think all fiction is highly emotional-- science fiction, for example, often depends on ideas, not feelings. But my kind of writing does depend on feeling. I often laugh and cry as I am writing dialogue. 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? On its own, I hope. I write in many different genres, including poetry, but astute readers can find links-- movies, for example, flow through everything. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Agatha Christie. I hated her as a young woman, but now I enjoy her tight plots and wonderful sense of humor. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? My older brother read me Edgar Allen Poe at bedtime, and wow, that was it. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Oooh, many, but I highly recommend MISS MOLE by E.H. Young, which is feminist, and soulful, and also, bravely has an optimistic ending. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I enjoy writing men, and feel sort gender-fluid when I am writing from a male POV. I think all fiction writers have this gender-switching trick in their brain. I think many male writers like Henry James write terrific women. What did you edit out of this book? This book was shortened considerably from its original version. I took out a lot of chapters that were funny, yes, but didn’t move the plot along. I’m ruthless when it comes to editing. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I did work successfully as a market researcher, and I enjoyed it very much. Like Bella in Closet Feminist, I have an analytical mind, and like using it. Market research involves understanding people, just in a different way from fiction writing. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Oooh, I would host a garden party and invite my favorite authors from everywhere in the world: Anna Akhmatova, Sylvia Plath, Charles Simic, Tomas Tranströmer, Andrei Codrescu, Sharon Mesmer, Mircea Cartarescu, Ioan Es. Pop, Cristian Popescu, Walt Whitman, James Wright, Stanley Kunitz, William Carlos Williams, Anne Sexton, Peter Balakian, Mircea Eliade, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera, Vladimir Nabokov, Herta Muller. My husband would make pomegranate cocktails and beautiful steaks. We’d serve some delicious Romanian appetizers as well, icre, zacusca, salata de vinete, crumbly telemea with fresh bread and gorgeous ripe tomatoes. The red wine would flow, and we’d get drunk, that’s for sure. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? A lot of things scare me and get in the way: The lack of time to write or edit. The fear of commitment to produce longer pieces, or to write prose. How long it takes to publish a book and losing the initial enthusiasm for a project along the way. Impostor syndrome. I don’t have solutions for these fears. My answer is to progress slower, to let time resolve some of these problems. Sometimes just a slower pace helps, or just to take a break, do some gardening, watch the dahlias bloom. Who is your biggest literary crush, author, or character? Hmm, not a crush, but someone I admire greatly is Charles Simic. I read almost everything he wrote and didn’t find one book that didn’t speak to me. But my favorite of all time is The World Never Ends, the book that opened my eyes to prose poetry, to surrealism, weirdness, and dark humor, and how these devices can help to come to terms with history, oppression, and all the horrors invented by humans. We share the same Eastern European dark soul, that’s why. What books are on your nightstand? My favorite books this year: In the Lateness of the World by Carolyn Forché; Jane Hirshfield’s Ledger; Music for the Dead and Resurrected by Valzhyna Mort; Rules for Rearrangement by Julie Babcock; Carnation and Tenebrae Candle by Marosa Di Giorgio, next to an old favorite, Sad Days of Light by Peter Balakian. Next to a few collections by Romanian poets I got in Bucharest this year: new books by Svetlana Carstean, Nora Iuga, and Mihail Vakulovski. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? It has to be the comma because it signifies the pause when you take a breath. Everyone should know when they can breathe, right? I read aloud my poems to find out where the line breaks and commas should be, a technique I learned from William Carlos Williams and my poetry workshop teacher, Jim Klein, who is a big fan and enforcer of commas. Sometimes I get a little crazy about commas, too, lol. Especially the serial comma. It’s a really important punctuation mark. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I went to high school in Romania under the communist regime, and I read everything I could, required and not required. I exhausted my city’s central library and the very nice librarian who used to put books aside for me and allow me to check out unlimited stacks of books. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I would like to thank the New Jersey Transit Bus 190 where I wrote most of my poems. I used to commute daily between Rutherford, New Jersey, and New York City, 1 hour each way. It was my only time to read and write poems, my writing routine for 18 years before the pandemic. I never thought I would say this, but I miss my commute. I miss that time dedicated to thinking, daydreaming, and writing without interruptions. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Don’t write for anyone else but for yourself. The crazier, the better. Does writing energizes or exhausts you? Writing is exhilarating—but editing is exhausting. I work in bursts, short periods of energy and inspiration, followed by long, procrastinating periods of revising. It’s cyclical, but I always crave to write more and care less about editing or style. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Too much learning about poetry and not enough honest writing. Chasing trends in topics, form, or techniques, instead of just letting go on the page. Trying too hard instead of using a light touch. What is your writing Kryptonite? Being at home during the pandemic. Like I said, I used to write on my bus commute, and I was so productive and focused, churning out new work every week at a high pace for years. The pandemic changed that, and I’m still trying to get into a new writing routine, but it doesn’t work the same way. I haven’t been able to focus any longer from home. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? No. I always have exciting things to read. I have writer’s block many times, that’s another story. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes, there are clever ways to plan, structure, and develop your piece around a concept that can be very interesting, new, or exciting. If it’s done well, it’s possible. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I belong to the group The Red Wheelbarrow Poets, a terrific group of poets from Northern New Jersey who hold a poetry workshop every week. It’s very valuable to workshop a poem or piece to see what works and what doesn’t, and frankly just to keep writing something new every week. 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 don’t want to bore my readers, so I always strive to make each book different, stronger, and better than the last one. I love surprises, so I hide some inside each book. There are, of course, common themes, like history, immigration, and family—but each book tells a different story. I don’t want to be one of those poets who write the same poem or book all their life. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? My first collection was the chapbook Eternity’s Orthography published by Finishing Line Press in 2007. It encouraged me tremendously. I had just started to write poems in English, and I was timid, with a minimalistic style that reflected my apprehension towards the language. When that tiny chapbook got published, it told me that I could do this. I felt that I conquered language, I conquered English, ladies and gentlemen! It was a great victory. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? On poetry books! I usually get poetry books for Christmas and for my birthday. I’m addicted to poetry books. There are so many great poets living and writing today, and it’s so exciting to discover them. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? James Joyce comes to mind. Emily Dickinson and her m-dashes that I found pretentious. Even William Carlos Williams—I didn’t get his poetry at first, but then I felt so lucky to have moved to his hometown in NJ and encountered this group of poets who carry on his legacy. It just happened by accident. How lucky to immigrate from Romania and stumble into so much great poetry in Rutherford, NJ, of all places. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I started to write poems in high school, and no one read them but my best friend, Ioana. In my first year of college, I read my poems for the first time to my roommates in the girls’ dorm. One of the girls, Florina, liked them so much that she wrote my poems by hand in black marker all over our cupboards, effectively defacing them with love poems. A few days later, the guy I liked visited me in that dorm room, read my poems on the cupboards, and fell in love with me. We are still together and married today. I tell this story in the title poem of Writing on the Walls at Night. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It’s one of my favorite movies, too. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I’d like to be a bird, maybe a mockingbird that has gray feathers but sings beautifully. I would also like to be a tree, not an animal, but I really connect to trees. My daughter once said if I were a tree, I’d be a yellow maple, glowing in the fall. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Nothing. The characters are figments of my imagination. In Writing on the Walls at Night, there are numerous characters I invented, and only a handful are based on real life people who have stories so absurd or unreal, they belong in my poems. I bet the reader couldn’t tell the real people from the fictional ones. I also write a lot about my father and my daughter in general, but I view them as versions of myself. So no, I don’t think I owe anyone anything. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Ah, that’s a good question. I have an almost-finished poetry manuscript I put together during the pandemic and which will probably become my next book; a half-finished collection of poems inspired by children’s games; an ongoing collaboration with my friend the artist Mike Markham, which will become a collection of poetry and photography inspired by New York City at some point; and a pandemic journal which could become a memoir or an autobiographical novel. What does literary success look like to you? It would be great to see my books in stores and know that people read them, which is really improbable since I write mostly poetry. What’s the best way to market your books? I love reading at poetry events. There is so much energy in a room full of people that can fuel me for days and make this entire writing process so exciting. I miss that connection with an audience and hope to get back to in-person events soon. I’m planning some in NYC in the spring. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Getting in their heads and making them funny and believable. It’s much easier to do that with female characters that become my alter egos. What did you edit out of this book? I had some prose poems written in the style of ads on Craig’s List. Funny and surreal, but they didn’t have that personal connection. I didn’t think they belonged in the book. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? In another life, I’d own a flower shop.  If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
RAE: Neil Gaiman, and I would serve charcuterie and wine, so we could eat slowly and have conversation without a goal in mind. MARK: Adolf Hitler and I would serve death cap mushroom bouillabaisse. Okay, that’s too dark. Actually, let me go with Isaac Newton. And I would serve bangers and mash, with apple pie for dessert. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? RAE: I don’t find the writing process terribly scary… the worst is probably thinking that no one would read it; that it’s no good. That’s when I have to remind myself that I am writing for me, my own joy and my own pleasure! MARK: Finding the time to do it - fear that it will never get done. I am not sure if this is the healthy solution to that problem, but I bully myself into carving out the time and try to block out the world so that I can progress bit by bit. It helps being stubborn. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? RAE: I weirdly love Jack Reacher – I love a serial character and I’ve been getting to know him since high school. But my favorite is probably Calvin, the boy in Frank Schaeffer’s ‘Portofino’. Having grown up in a religious family, I see so much of myself in him, and he is so damn funny. I have read that book a dozen times and Calvin cracks me up! MARK: Chekov. In particular, his short story “The Kiss.” I first read it when I was in highschool, and though it was written a century prior to that, it so perfectly captured the feelings of a boy that age. It made me feel known. What books are on your nightstand? RAE: Lilith’s Brood – Octavia Butler Broken – In the Best Possible Way – Jenny Lawson Me and White Supremacy – Layla F Saad MARK: Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe - Steven Strogatz Two Kindle readers containing an array of books by Patrick Rothfuss, Ursula Le Guin, MARK Twain, J.F. Lewis, George R.R. Martin, Christopher Moore, and others The Devil’s Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce Favorite punctuation mark? Why? RAE: The ellipsis… it’s how my brain works. Never really a whole thought on it’s own… always a pogo stick jumping from on thing to the next, but always connected… MARK: I wish I could say semicolon, because they seem so sophisticated, but I never know when to use them properly, so I’ll just say comma. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? RAE: I always read what I was supposed to… and then some. Even the driest, worst books … western Canada is full of months where the only thing you can do is stay inside and read books. Add to that a kid who wants to please the teacher, and no page was left unturned. MARK: I know there were some I skipped out on, but I don’t recall what they were. Presumably if I had read them, I’d remember. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? RAE: The internet, 100%. I got to know Mark entirely online – through hundreds of instant messages and emails. We were back and forth close to a hundred times a day, I’m sure, for months and months. It allowed an immediacy and closeness that made Oregon to North Carolina irrelevant. MARK: Rae has a good point on this one, but I would argue that the internet is nearly animate (or will be soon...). For me it would be the [Delete] key. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? RAE: It’s much easier once you start. MARK: Writing is never easy, but is sometimes worth it. Does writing energize or exhaust you? RAE: Writing energizes me, but the activation energy it takes to get started feels exhausting and overwhelming. I start feeling tired, and then get more and more engaged as words hit the page, even if they’re the wrong ones or I need to delete whole chunks. I love it. MARK: Writing energizes me when I have the time for it. Editing is like trying to kill all the ants in your kitchen with a hammer - it is frustrating as hell and often does more damage than good. What are common traps for aspiring writers? MARK: I am going to answer this like an engineer (because that’s what I am, really). The first trap I fall into is starting to tell the story before I have the scenes properly mapped out. I need a completed storyboard before I can start writing the story. Start with the key scenes you want to show and map out the rest before putting pen to paper (or finger to macbook). What is your writing Kryptonite? RAE: The internet, 100%. Instant distraction, time suck, brain numbing and addictive. Sigh. MARK: Anxiety. Anxiety about anything and everything. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? RAE: Reader’s block? Like where I can’t finish a book? Sometimes… not often. Even if I skim the ending, I like to know how things end. I rarely go long periods without a book on the go. MARK: All the time. My reading time is at the end of the day usually, and when work demands are too much I just don’t have the mental energy for reading. Especially if I don’t have my teeth into something good. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? RAE: Actually, I think do, particularly maybe with fiction? The pure imaginative creativity to weave and unravel a story… I think you could write an amazing story with vast imagination, without necessarily feeling passionate. It would depend on the type of writing, I think. MARK: What about people who bury their emotions behind an analytical wall of science and reason? What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? RAE: Just Mark... and he makes me a better writer because he reminds me to do it! MARK: My biological brother Vinny, and a dear friend Amanda. Neither of whom are exactly published (at least the way they would like). Both of whom are better writers than I, and both of whom directly helped me with the editing of this book! What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? RAE: I have a very clear memory of sitting at the dinner table and my dad teaching us “p” words – propitious and pulchritude. That’s when I realized how specific and strange and exotic words could be! What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? RAE: Probably The Princess Bride, which was written into a novel after the movie. It’s so fully realized, and has so much in it! I love that book – I have given away and lent more copies of it than I can count, and always replace it. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? MARK: Just one - a YA book I started writing with and for my daughters. What does literary success look like to you? RAE: To have someone read my writing and feel it, have it raise questions or conversations, not to just have it skimmed over. What did you edit out of this book?” RAE: Nothing. MARK: Many letters and several chapters written by Vinny, my biological brother. Those chapters were beautifully written, but distractions from the main theme of the book.  (c) Photo by Dean Davis If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? If I could cook dinner for any author, I’d cook for Albert Einstein. I’d slow cook a couple of racks of St. Louis style ribs, I’d make my own rub and my own sauce to finish off those ribs. I’d make my mother’s mustard/egg potato salad and roast some asparagus. For dessert I’d make a tart Granny Smith apple pie, which is the first pie my grandmother taught me. I’d whip some cream for the topping. And we’d either have Earl Grey Supreme iced tea or some Peet’s Sumatra coffee. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Nothing really scares me about the whole writing process. I can move left brain to right brain activities pretty quickly. And, if I’m not writing I’m concentrating on the business of writing. Sending out poems or manuscripts, updating my websites, editing. That is my rule. I have to be doing one or the other but never nothing. If I fear I’ve run out of ideas to write about well then I certainly can submit and visa versa. Once I’m in either sphere then either creativity or process creeps back in so that I am always in a state of forward motion with my writing career. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Margaret Atwood is my biggest author crush. I love how she weaves different writing worlds together seamlessly. Science fiction (my first love) and poetry (my true love). She believes in her readers, is fearless in the subjects she tackles and how she writes them. Her writing is layered perfection. Quirky. What books are on your nightstand? The Army of Darkness, Smoke, Shadow, and Raven, who appeared as wee black kittens underneath my office window on Halloween, control what is on my nightstand. There are no books on my nightstand; only a sleeping device and its requisite accessories. And a light. Finally, there is a facedown remote (see cats) for my bed. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? My very favorite punctuation mark is the pipe | . It is a variable symbol, depending on what you are doing or saying and is used in mathematics, computing, and typography. It allows me to have several layered tropes within a poem. Some might read it as an end stop like a period, or a pause like a comma, or for the mathematically inclined the placement of the pipe might read as conditional or as a variable. It allows people to enter the poem in a variety of ways. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Sadly, I was that geeky girl who read everything she was supposed to read in high school and then a bunch more that she wasn’t supposed to read at all. I was the girl reading the dictionary for fun. I was the girl ecstatic to miss gym, in order to read. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following inanimate object(s) that have sustained and inspired me over the years while this book took shape:
If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Aspiring writers should take advice from these words uttered by Mathesar from the film Galaxy Quest “never give up, never surrender.” Writing is all about learning the craft which means trying a zillion different things and learning by them. You won’t know if you don’t try. Go outside your normal routine, try a short line, a long line, a fractalated poem. It’s about getting muscle memory in your brain. It’s about taking chances. Never giving in, even in the face of negative feedback from critique groups or a mountain of rejections. It’s about honing your craft and then putting it out there. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Writing both energizes and exhausts me. If I am in the writing zone, nothing else matters and sleep is for the weak. Though, sleep does eventually have to catch up. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Writing is a business. Writers need to act like that. Go to the job, do the work, do some extra, have the correct equipment/tools to do the job. Common traps for aspiring writers are:
What is your writing Kryptonite? My Kryptonite is research. I would love nothing more than to research well anything, everything, the tangents I can go off on when looking up something particular, the further dive for more information, better details. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Reader’s block, is an interesting question. I find it harder to read after cataract surgery. I have to have lots of light, dark enough print. Sometimes it's exhausting to find the pinnacle way to read. Still I manage just fine, it’s just more time consuming. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Sure a person could be a writer if they don’t have strong emotions. Their work will come out fluffy and one dimensional but there are plenty of markets for that, it’s just not something I’d personally like to read or to write. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? When I first started writing my friends were 75% from tech and 25% authors and artists. Now that I’ve been writing for ~20 years my friends are 75% authors and artists and 25% tech. Author friends include poets, essayists, fiction, science fiction, fantasy, murder mystery, noir, script writers, and musicians. This breadth of writer friends bleeds into my work all the time, it affords me opportunities to have someone to read and comment on what I am writing and to offer up suggestions or kudos. And, by reading their work I learn by what they are doing. I can ask why they did a particular thing like their line breaks or or why they didn’t make the poem into a short fiction. 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? The intertwining of life and death, fairy tales, math and science, dementia and alcoholism, abuse, murder/noir myteries. Each of my books stand on its own.Within each book there is ultimately a thread connecting the books so that they could have well gone into another, different book. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Publishing my first book didn’t change my writing process. Publishing my 5th book I began to see conjure whole books published rather than each poem published. I began slowing down to figure the arc. Still writing what needs to be written but also visioning how it fits into the next book(s). What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? No doubt about it the best money I ever spent as a writer was to get my MFA. For the most part I have a poem in my head, title, form, words when I go to write it. Going to Grad School taught me how to write the smaller poem, the one not formed in my head. It taught me to read my poetry out loud and it taught me form. My second best thing I ever spent money on is residency fees to get a residency. Residencies freed me up to organize without interruption my manuscripts that are floating in my head. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? This will be a very unpopular answer. Originally, I never liked Mary Oliver. To me her work was so quiet. Too quiet. It made me impatient. I hated that everyone insisted she was the one author I was missing out on. I tried and tried and tried. So many people gifted me her books. People I love and respect. Eventually, though, the books she wrote after her partner died resonated with me and I was able to grok Mary Oliver. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? When I was in 7th grade my mother drove by and caught me smoking cigarettes on the corner with my girlfriends. She rolled down her window and said “do you really think that that is the smart thing to do, to smoke?” She rolled up her window, drove home and never said another word to me about it. It was in that instant when I realized a-my mother was right, it wasn’t a smart thing to do and b-my mother used words to get the action she wanted. I never smoked again. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? I would love to say China Mieville’s The City and the City because it is vastly underappreciated but it receives a lot of press and book groups seem to love to discuss it. I love it because it's both literary and science fiction and the two don’t often collide. That said the book I come back to and re-read, is Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy, it’s philosophical, it’s funny, it's charming. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? You don’t get to choose a spirit animal any more than you get to choose a cat, they just show up. Hawk. It has been guiding me my whole life. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I owe the real people I’ve based poems on a real truth. Telling their story but edited, perhaps, to keep the heart of the story real. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Currently I have 1 unpublished, completed manuscripts that I am seeking a publisher for. I also have 2 half-finished books, possibly they are really chapbooks that I am still working on. What does literary success look like to you? I’ll see it when I believe it. What’s the best way to market your books? Readings. Readings. Readings. But also workshops and networking. Talking about it on social media. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Staying in that POV and then double checking with my partner to be sure that my character is correct. What did you edit out of this book? The odd poems that didn’t really work. The ones I still like but couldn’t connect them internally. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? As a poet I actually do have a job that makes money. I started out in tech a forever ago. In 1997 I founded, with my now ex-husband, Deer Run Associates, Inc. which provides Computer Forensic investigations and Information Security consulting services to select clients across the United States, and throughout the world working with law enforcement and commercial organizations on some of the largest and most high-profile cybercrime cases in recent years.  If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Nicola Griffih and P. Djèlí Clark. We could talk about using history in our writing, and the stories we’ve found while doing research for our work. I think I’d find some kind of interesting menu or recipes from historical sources to try--maybe using The Historical Cooking Project (http://www.historicalcookingproject.com/). What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Losing files or ideas. Lots of backups and lots of making notes as I go through the day. I keep a notebook on my nightstand for those late-night or dream-source ideas, of which I have a fair number. I think I’m often working out ideas in my subconscious as I sleep. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? I’ve been going through my library trying to come up with a good answer to this, but...plenty of characters and authors I love, but none I could say I had a crush on. I would, though, happily spend time with the Rabbi’s Cat from the books of the same name, or the Disreputable Dog from Garth NIx’s Old Kingdom series. What books are on your nightstand? I always have a bunch of to-read books on my Kindle because I review for NetGalley. Recent favorites have included Binnie Kirshenbaum’s Rabbits for Food; Michael Zapata’s The Lost Book of Adana Moreau; Orlando Ortega-Medina’s The Death of Baseball; and Charlotte Nicole Davis’s The Good Luck Girls. I read widely in terms of genre. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the semi-colon; it lets me join together all sorts of things and create clarity at the same time. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I was That Student in school, who not only read everything assigned but often read different editions or translations and critical commentary so I could be a plague and/or delight to my teachers, depending on the teacher. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? Coca-Cola. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Just write. It doesn’t have to be good or polished or pretty, but in order to get there you have to commit some time--even tiny amounts will do--and write. I used to call this the Put Ass in Chair (PAIC) method of writing, but I’m looking for more elegant phrasing. See? It’s a continual process. ;) Does writing energize or exhaust you? I enjoy writing, not just having written. On good days, when my hands are cooperative or the dictation software is working well, it energizes me to put the right words on the page. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Not reading enough because of the fear of imitating other writers. We learn through imitation and thinking about what other writers do; reading is essential for writing. What is your writing Kryptonite? Nothing, really: I always have projects to work on and sometimes moving from scholarly work to creative work or vice versa let s my brain work on one thing in the background while I do another more consciously. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? What is that? No. I’m always reading. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? This is a really interesting question, and there is an easy answer in that a lot of writing is the craft of passing--as an expert, as a person of a different race or gender or sexuality or religion, as someone writing about lived experience. But there is a more complex answer if you read this question as one that is asking about autism and the fact that autism is framed (wrongly) as a lack or deficit of emotional capability compared to neurotypical people. As an autistic writer, I think I engage with language in ways that neurotypical writers don’t, but I don’t lack an understanding emotion or what society deems appropriate emotional responses to situations; rather, I simply write about emotion or from a point of emotion differently. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? Elizabeth Keenan (Rebel Girls) has offered me good advice about the writing world, and making the jump from scholarly writing to fiction, and has been a great role model for how things are done. Michelle Lee has also offered me insight into balancing scholarly work and fiction. 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? My work will always be interconnected--as the sole author, how can it not? I think it would be very difficult for a writer to create such disparate works that they would not have any connections at all. From the perspective of creating deliberate connections, I think that the themes and issues that concern me and figure in my writing are consistent, and I’d certainly like readers to read my work with the idea of connectedness in mind, but I’m not developing writing projects that are connected to the point that readers can’t understand later books or pieces without having read earlier ones. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? My first book was scholarly. From going through the publishing process with it I learned about being very clear about audiences and approaches, creating a framework and explaining it (if necessary) at the beginning, and reifying that structure throughout without being tedious. I’ve also worked in publishing and had been a developmental editor before I began publishing my own work, both scholarly and creative, and that helped me create processes of working through difficult or complex text and ideas. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Possibly my first typewriter, an Underwood No. 5 manual, which I took to boarding school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. When I was very young, I could never write as quickly as I thought, and often became frustrated by having trouble getting my words down fast enough. The manual typewriter--which cost $10--gave me the ability to write much more quickly than I could with handwriting, allowing me to write more fluidly. More recently, dictation software has been a good investment. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Kate Atkinson. I just wasn’t a fan until I read her non-Jackson Brodie novels and was utterly transfixed. I went back and have been enjoying the Brodie books much more. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I remember the sweetness of learning to read and, as a child, using that to gain knowledge no one else among my friends or family had, and that was power. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Cassandra Clarke’s Our Lady of the Ice is a stellar novel that asks essential questions about humanity, family, and loyalty in a beautifully developed and fascinating alternate Earth. Megan Campisi’s Sin Eater goes beyond creating an altered early modern period that loosely mirrors our own and is a thriller that is also an examination of women’s labor and relationships. I also want there to be more love for Michael Zapata’s The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, a gorgeous celebration of Latinx SFF writers and traditions. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? My spouse says my daemon (a la Philip Pullman) is a raven: curious, determined, attracted to shiny things--meaning always finding new things to be interested in--and always collecting new information and ideas. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Friendship, good music, pride. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I two and a half chapters of a novel that I doubt I’ll ever finish. I might be able to use sections of it in future project, though. What does literary success look like to you? Does my work move the reader? Does it give them reason to laugh or cry or think or relate? If it does, that’s success. When I’m writing lyrics or libretti, success is when a performer tells me that they enjoyed singing my words, that the words I chose were good ones for the scene or emotion, and I think it’s similar for Protectress and my other work as well--I chose good words. What’s the best way to market your books? I’m still learning about this! Digital and print promotions to indie bookstores, co-ops, feminist bookstores, women-owned bookstore, and book clubs; to local libraries and poetry and fiction organizations, like Lone Star Literary Life; ads/sponsorship on podcasts involved with books, poetry, mythology, and so on; Goodreads giveaways, maybe. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Gender isn’t binary, but a spectrum. I try to avoid gender essentialism and stereotyped concepts of gender. It can be painful and enraging, though, to write about the power of toxic masculinity and to consider how characters infected with it might think and act. What did you edit out of this book? A song about Athena and Pallas written in the style of Lucinda Williams and sung by Aphrodite. It was fun to write and I could hear it as a nice ballad, but ultimately it wasn’t necessary for the story or character development/explication. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? This is hard, because so many of the careers I’d be drawn to require writing in some way. But if I really couldn’t write, I think I’d be an interpreter. I’d learn lots of languages and get to study a wide variety of topics so that I could serve as an interpreter in fields that interested me. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be What would you make? The evil side of me would ask Hemingway and I would serve him raw oysters. I would expect him to explain his choices while he watched the recent documentary about his life. The ambitious streak in me would ask Lydia Davis; I’d ply her with wine, prosciutto and a zillion questions about her writing process while swearing on the life of my grandchildren that I wouldn’t reveal any of it. The spiritual part of me would ask Mary Oliver, to whom I would serve sweet tea and macaroons while hoping beyond hope that she would explain her mystical self. My authentic writer-self would entertain Alice Munro with chicken and dumplings (the only thing I cook really well). I would kiss her ‘pope’s ring’ in gratitude. I would sincerely desire to ask Eudora, but I would be far too nervous. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The Very Blank Page terrifies and especially if I simultaneously have file cabinets devoid of any recent work that is decent. I fight this situation by piddling and tidying, denying and doing all I can to tell myself: it doesn’t matter. If I gather up courage, I try to sneak up on some phrase/word/idea that’s been niggling. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Good grief: only ONE???? Alice Munro, Marilynne Robinson, Tolstoy (short stories), David Jauss, Mary Oliver …. The list is endless. What books are on your nightstand? Jack by Robinson Music for Hard Times by Clint McGowan Ambition and Survival by C Wimon Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver The Americans, by Robert Frank On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Audible) Mary Sutter by R Oliveria (Audible) People We Meet on Vacation by Henry (Audible) Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The dash – tho I know it isn’t loved by editors much. I like it because I think in tangents and dashes help me insert those musings (before I delete or move them). Also the interabang – because a wonderful Dallas bookstore is named for it. What book were you supposed to read in high school but never did? Actually, I read what I was supposed to back then; I especially gobbled up all the literature and that was when I knew I was addicted to it. In graduate school tho, I avoided Cost Accounting. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My secret office. It is attached to my garage in such a way that no one would ever know it is here unless they were invited and no one is ever invited. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers what would you write? “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.” Albert Einstein Or this: “Extreme brevity,” from Chekhov in his ‘six principles of a good story.’ Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize What are common traps for aspiring writers? Paying attention to things outside the page in front of them. Not working on their own soul, thereby projecting too many of their own issues onto the page. Not finding paid work that will not allow enough energy and focus for the page. What is your writing Kryptonite? Over-commitment to energy-sapping activities. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes. It is an absolute nightmare. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I believe very much in Holy Detachment – allowing pretty much everything to be what it authentically is on its own and in the present moment. This is especially true of allowing the story on the page to be itself without me making using it for therapy or anything other than what it is, with its own voice. My emotions should therefore be entirely irrelevant …. I cannot judge for any other writers; everyone has their own process and the demands of that process. What other authors are you friends with and how do they help you become a better writer? I’m blessed with some wonderful friends who are writers: Robin Underdahl Gropp, Ben Fountain, Robin Oliveria and all the members of a writing retreat that I lead at my church. So many others – some I see regularly and some seldom. They encourage me to persevere, and they also comfort me when I despair about something I’m working on. When I get to see their works from inception to completion, I know that with some effort, I might make work what is clumsy, inarticulate and unclear. 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? It is probably true that when we look at a writer’s entire body of work, we see connections either with characters or with themes. However, I do not believe I can be deliberate in that regard. Some of my characters appear in multiple stories but overall, each story and certainly each book, are stand alones. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Since I’ve just now sold my first book of stories, I can’t really answer that; I’m just too early in the process. I will say I have an increased respect for the non-writing parts of the process of getting a book from my office to readers. I will say that when I first began having individual stories taken by literary journals, I felt validated in terms of writing skill and sometimes validation of the life in the story. One of my earliest stories was published by a teacher of mine – and that was a ground-breaking validation because when I wrote it, I had zero interest or investment in anyone even liking it. I wrote it my own way and for myself. My realization of the story having its own life changed my work a lot. What is the best money you ever spent as a writer? I paid a writer-friend to send out my stories so that I could remain disconnected from everything in the writing life except what was on the page. This freed me from illusory ambition and fantasy expectations and kept my mind on the page. Also, for many years, I’ve given myself an annual writing retreat away from home and family, always for at least a week. I’ve been many places, but in recent years, I check into Dairy Hollow Writers Colony; they house us, feed us and leave us alone. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? James Joyce Lydia Davis What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I grew up in a ‘high church’ of the Episcopal denomination and we had the King James’ version read to us A LOT every week. The church was small, poor and dark with a formal liturgy. I learned mystery from all that … and the mystery was circumscribed by the language itself even when my finite mind couldn’t understand. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? We all need to study Alice Munro’s stories which are so complex that they certainly rival any novel written. I do believe the Marilynne Robinson’s work will stand the test of time both in literary communities and the general population. I hope too it will be seriously studied among religious people for its theological sophistication and moral confrontation about social issues. David Jauss’ work is under-read in my opinion – he is a writer’s writer and anyone can learn a great from him about the imagination. Plus, despite his knowledge, his stories are fantastic reads. As a writer what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? The Border Collie – herding what is alive and important. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I’m pretty sure no one will ever recognize themselves. If they do, of course, I am grateful that they let peek out their authentic selves and especially their contradictions. Contradictions make stories come alive. What does literary success to you? Language with its own legs, its own force/energy to connect with readers. What is the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Probably the testosterone factor which I’m supposing is behind thought patterns and consciousness, especially for quite young males. I really love writing from male POV and have done a lot of that, but honestly I never give gender much thought because I believe the POV of a story is demanded by the actual story. What did you edit out of this book? I chose the stories from my stash that seemed to group around an intuitive sense of the human experiences of looking for love, explaining their experiences of that search to themselves, and then making choices about it all. Most of the stories had been revised to death though already. The ones I originally chose are in the book today. I did not use any of the stories I’d written when I was trying to be Eudora. It occurred to me after the book got to final draft that in writing each of them, I had cut out the absolute maximum so as to be left with what was essential to describe what was critical in a particular moment --- as if I was trying to minimize the description of that moment and still have on the page the human experience OF that moment. If you didn’t write what would you do for work? I cannot imagine not writing seriously, but for me, it’s never been about work. Writing is a spiritual journey, a longing toward truth. CYNTHIA C. SAMPLE is a the author of the short story collection Forms of Defiance. Order a Copy TodayTrevor J. Houser lives with his family in Seattle. He has published stories in Zyzzyva, Story Quarterly and The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review, among others. Three of his stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His novel Pacific is about a father who is tested to the limits to save his son. Copies can be purchased HERE. But before you buy a copy, get to know Trevor through this quirky Q+A: If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Henry Miller. Cassoulet. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Not having enough time. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Lady Brett Ashley from THE SUN ALSO RISES. What books are on your nightstand? WHY DID I EVER, Mary Robison THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, Norman Mailer SPEEDBOAT, Renata Adler THE ART OF FICTION, John Gardner Favorite punctuation mark? Why? A question mark can feel surprising, sometimes even interactive. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I was supposed to read The Grapes of Wrath, but I remember we read it so slowly I think I just gave up and skimmed the back half. And I really like Steinbeck. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My pillow. I do my best writing with my head on it. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? You found something you love. Does writing energize or exhaust you? It’s both. I’m energized in the moment and exhausted when I think how far away the last page is. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Wanting too much to be like your heroes and thinking it will happen the same way it did for them. What is your writing Kryptonite? Time. Also movies. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? When I’m in the middle of writing something I find myself reading very little. I look at books for inspiration, but I don’t really enjoy them. They become little more than blueprints or maybe talismans. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I’m not sure. Camus and Tao Lin convey very little emotion and they are two of my favorites. Of course, that doesn’t mean they didn’t/don’t feel emotions strongly as they wrote/write. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? Out of college I worked at a Little, Brown where everyone wanted to be a great novelist or playwright. When people you know are working on something it makes you want to be working on something, too. 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’d like each book to stand on its own, but that’s not to say there aren’t connections I’m making subconsciously. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I’m not sure it changed my process although it probably made me write with less desperation. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Whatever a used paperback of On the Road cost. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I wanted to hate Dave Eggers after reading the title of his first book, but that didn’t last long. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Probably my dad giving a speech. All the references and word play. The topic wasn’t exactly exciting, but he elevated it through language. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Paradise by Donald Barthelme As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? A very sad number. What does literary success look like to you? I want readers, critics and especially other writers to think it is good work. What’s the best way to market your books? Great reviews seem like the best bet. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I can trust my instincts with male characters. With female characters I need to tap into something that is mostly outside of myself. What did you edit out of this book? I mostly edit as I go so rarely do I have to cut out huge chunks once I’m finished. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Winemaker If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Anne Carson. I wouldn’t cook. I would make my boyfriend do the cooking. He is a much better cook than I am. I’d probably have him do a charcuterie board, a salad with his homemade dressing (he makes the best dressing), and seafood chowder, with lobster of course. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? That I don’t have the self discipline to sit down and ever actually finish anything substantial. I wouldn’t say this fear has been combated. It’s alive and well. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Vasya Petrovna from The Winternight Trilogy What books are on your nightstand? “Adventures in Tandem Nursing” by Hilary Flower “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The em dash. It helps make sense of the way my mind works—too many thoughts going on all at once that are constantly interrupting one another. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Too many to count. I’ve always been a slow reader. I like to take my time. As with every aspect of my life, I abhor being rushed. I started most of the books I was supposed to read, but never finished them as quickly as I was expected too. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? Coffee Does writing energize or exhaust you? Both. Writing something new is always exhilarating. Revising it is exhausting. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Believing that nothing you write is, or will ever be good enough. Which is what I feel about my writing all the time. I don’t really have a solution, except to just keep writing anyway. What is your writing Kryptonite? Having my phone anywhere near me. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? For sure. The human brain can only process so much input. When my life feels calm, I like to read books that are dense and complex, and require all of my attention. But when I’m stressed out and have a lot going on, I like to read books that are easy, and don’t require a lot of effort. For example, when I was studying abroad in France my sophomore year of high school, I felt so tired all the time trying to learn and process a new language everyday all day. This is super embarrassing, but my host family had the Twilight Series in English, so I read all four of them in 3 weeks. I’d read them back in middle school, so there was absolutely no reason for me to re-read them except for the fact that I was homesick, and they were a nice little getaway for my brain. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I suppose they could be a writer, I just don’t know that they would be one I would have any particular interest in reading. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? “Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin. Maybe it’s not underappreciated, but absolutely everyone should read it, because it’s one of the best novels ever written. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Nothing. In the words of Anne Lamott, “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.” How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have one half-finished novel that I’ve been working on, on and off for the past ten years. Parts of it appear in this collection. I hope to finish it someday. What does literary success look like to you? J.K. Rowling. Stephen King. I set the bar low for myself. What’s the best way to market your books? I have absolutely no idea. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Wanting them to feel authentic, but knowing that they probably never will. What did you edit out of this book? Things I was embarrassed about having written. Things that didn’t need to be there. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Well, right now I’m a full time mom with a one year old boy, and a baby girl on the way, and that’s a whole lot of work. I think I’d like to teach writing classes some day, if I ever get to go back to school. I’d also like to do a lot of my own writing. Writing is really the only thing that makes sense to me to do, as far as having a career goes. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Leonard Cohen. Cigarettes for him. Peach jam and a spoon for me. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Running out of ideas. I just do my best anyway. When you put in the time, something always comes. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Leonard Cohen and Anne from Anne of Green Gables. What books are on your nightstand? The Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and some Mark Strand collections are in another room somewhere. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The space. The words are only there to remind us of the space. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn. Lots of books. I faked a lot of reading in college, too. Shakespeare was my worst grade in college. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgments? The baby swing. Coffee. The trampoline. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? You are not your writing. It’s just something you do. Take a class or join a writers’ group if you get lazy like me. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energizes me for sure. I like writing when I first wake up. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Thinking poetry is hard and full of rules. It’s the opposite. What is your writing Kryptonite? Talking about ideas before writing them. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? No, there are a million good things to read. I just don’t do it. I love reading work from author friends and the Nearby Universe, my writers’ group. I enjoy reading my students’ work, and I am lucky enough to get paid for that. But in my spare time, I am more likely playing outside with my kids. Like I said, we have a trampoline. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Who doesn’t feel emotions strongly? No, I guess there are people whose energy goes mostly in thinking instead of feeling. Maybe they are plotting strategies for getting more money or power, like politicians. They could be successful in writing books for other people like themselves, strategy books. Or maybe there are thinkers who don’t want kids or lovers or friends or cats, they just want to philosophize all day. They could write books for each other too. Their job is easier: thinking is already in words. But I wouldn’t want to read their poetry. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? It’s always feedback, laughter, commiseration and encouragement, like any friendship. The poet Kelli Allen, who began as my professor. Carrie Cook. Carina Bissett and Amie Sharp and everyone in my writers’ group. My husband has given me some wonderful feedback too. 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? Voice happens, I guess, but I want each book to have its own flavor, like Nicholas Samaras or Pink Floyd. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I never knew revising so many times could help so much. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Getting my MFA in Creative Writing online at Lindenwood University. I thought I just needed the deadlines, but I learned a lot and grew a lot. About half the pieces in Only Flying were first written in my classes there. “Chapter Twenty-six: The Map,” is an excerpt from the novel I began in the program. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Rush. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? My mom used to whip an egg and add it to ramen for nutrition, but my little sister Robin wouldn’t eat it if she knew it was in there, so my mom told me not to tell her. I did, and she didn’t eat that ramen, and I marvelled at my power. There’s a better story, though, about that 70s song, “Dust in the Wind.” I must have been about five when it came on the radio and I told my parents it was about us, about my baby brother who died the day he was born--Dustin, the wind. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Medicine Woman by Lynn V. Andrews. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I choose the tiger but the salamander chose me. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? It depends on the person. Most of my characters are not based on anyone. My grandma in the book is my real grandma, and she’s the reason I became a writer. And my beloved in the book is my real beloved, my husband. But I owe them everything not because of that, but because of how they have loved me. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? One complete early readers chapter book, about two little kids in India; ¾ of a literary fantasy novel; ½ a new poetry collection; and one secret idea. What does literary success look like to you? Success in all fields is measured the same way: either you’ve been a guest on Sesame Street or you haven’t. What’s the best way to market your books? My favorite way would be word of mouth. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Not using words like “auburn.” What did you edit out of this book? “Bella is Suzanne,” for Leonard Cohen and my friend from college. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I love teaching. I loved being a gardener, and I loved painting houses. If I could get paid for it, I could be an artist or illustrate children’s books. I was working on a book of poetry for children with my grandmother when she died, her poems and my paintings of animals. I hope to still finish it one day.
If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Grace Paley, and for purposes of dinner, conversation, etc., preferably alive. I’d make borscht, a chicken pie, a salad from our garden. My guiding adjectives would be fresh, substantial, unpretentious. I’d look forward most of all to the post-meal stroll, the pleasure of watching her meet the neighbors’ dogs, the kids on trikes, the singular peach tree on Laughlin Road. I’d want to absorb a bit of her faith and humor and strength in this horrible time, as the powers that be draw us closer toward destruction. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Taking a stupid turn into a swamp. Save, rename, press on. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? When I was 13 and listening to Jackson Browne, I’d hold the album in my hands, study his eyes, his perfect hair. Maybe get back to me on this one. What books are on your nightstand? It’s so tempting to make up a lie here. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logicos Philosophicus. No, Roddy Doyle’s The Woman Who Walked into Doors. The Best American Short Stories 2019. Cornel West’s Black Prophetic Fire. Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask is in the bathroom. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? Period. That’s all I want to say about it. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Nearly everything. The only books I remember finishing were Of Mice and Men and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? First, the rake, stirrer of partially desiccated oak leaves, memories. Second, the rolling pin, essential for pie making, which in turn is essential for keeping friends who read my early drafts. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Surprise yourself. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Certainly both. When it is going well, when visions and voices are competing for space in my head and space on the page, it offers a surge of energy. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Over-narration, trying to tell the reader what to feel. Speechifying dialogue. All, I think stem from a lack of trust in readers’ intelligence. What is your writing Kryptonite? Bulleit. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes, often. I read and edit a lot of student writing. Seems every semester I hit a kind of wall – like where do my opinions come from? Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Tough one. Strong emotions can be as much a hindrance as a help, I think. One must care. To paraphrase Heidegger, caring precedes experience. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? So many of my friendships are with fellow writers, too many to list, but I’ve put a few in my acknowledgments. How do they help? In a number of ways, but most important – they offer honest responses to my work, and sometimes very creative suggestions. 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? Separation Anxiety is my third collection of stories. Each is organized by theme, but they have some common elements. Neuroses manifests in work relationships, in families, in romantic encounters. My characters are often in search of identity, stability, courage and love. My stories, as whole, might make a good companion to the DSM-5. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I don’t know that it changed my process. It gave me a boost in confidence. I loved (and still love) doing readings. Perhaps I wrote more 1,000-word pieces with that in mind. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? My first book was published through a contest. I suppose that fee, whatever it was, was well worth it. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Heavily descriptive writers like Nabakov, Conrad and Bellow are difficult for me. My mind wanders. But in the right state of mind, I can be enamored with the richness of the prose. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? In high school I read William Carlos Williams’ Poem As the cat climbed over the top of the jamcloset first the right forefoot carefully then the hind stepped down into the pit of the empty flowerpot It seemed like magic the way the words put the picture in my mind, the way I could feel the movement of the cat in the movement of the lines. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Osprey, aka, river hawk. It circles, it glides, it sees into the depths, and when it strikes there is no hesitation. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Plausible deniability. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Two half-baked novels and half a dozen stories. What does literary success look like to you? I happen to have a long answer for this one: http://losangelesreview.org/daniel-coshnear-the-balanced-life-of-a-successful-writer/ What’s the best way to market your books? Strong reviews, readings, lots of readings, online and god willing, in person. Radio appearances. I wish I could say there is a niche audience for this book. Mental health workers. Mental illness sufferers. Members of families. Short story readers. Worriers. Bedwetters. Comedians. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? The difficulty arises if I dwell on this idea of “opposite sex.” Are we not each a composite of those we have known? We are a concert of voices; the fiction is this thing we call self. That said, I know nothing about dress sizes. What did you edit out of this book?” A couple of stories that seemed too similar to others. A few quirky short pieces that didn’t pertain to the theme. A mock daytime TV drama. An interactive story that presented a formatting nightmare. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Well, I guess I’m doing it. I work at a group home for homeless, mentally ill folks. And I teach. Both at times draw from the wells of the writer in me. When I was a child, I wanted to be Gale Sayers. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I love so many authors it’s hard to narrow it down to one. I’d host a series of dinners, and the first invitee would be Rohinton Mistry, who wrote A Fine Balance, one of my favorite books. I’d serve whatever he prefers. I’d also love to dine with Naguib Mahfouz, author of Midaq Alley, another book I love because of his facility with the omniscient narrator and his ability to illustrate the messiness and unexpectedness of life inherent in the arc of the lives of his characters. I’d serve him stuffed grape leaves and pilaf. Alice Munro (love all her work), Joyce Carol Oates, and Frank Conroy whose book Body and Soul is among my favorites and Andre Dubus III, (loved his book, House of Sand and Fog) would make interesting dinner guests. I’d have to host a never-ending salon to break bread with all the writers I admire. Oh--and Philip Pullman! I’d love to have dinner with him and discuss his Dark Materials double trilogies. He is a children’s book author but his books work on many levels that speak to adults too. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The what-comes-next question. It’s a matter of knowing the character intimately because each one reacts differently to the same set of circumstances, but getting to that point of intimacy with character can be scary. I always start by reading the beginning of the chapter or section that i’m working on and stop the writing day with an unfinished sentence so I have an idea of what comes next. I also do rough outlines. I do writing exercises when my mind is totally blank or blocked. I also write from a different perspective other than the one I’m focused on--to reveal other information about characters or other information that the narrator may not know. Not being disciplined enough is scary but keeping disciplined is a way to combat fears. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? For a long time, I was crushing on Michael Ondaatje because I loved the sapper in The English Patient. I’ve also long loved the stories Issac Bashevis Singer, for his short stories, which I first discovered in The New Yorker. I admire his boldness. Michael Chabon is another literary crush--I’ve read all of his books, beginning with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. What books are on your nightstand? Little Axe, by Lauren Francis Sharma The Death of Bees, by Lisa O’Donnell Half of the Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead What I Can’t Bear Losing, by Gerald Stern Pushcart Prize collections for 2019 and 2018 All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Boerr The Cost of Living, by Deborah Levy The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The semi-colon because it’s an elegant way to connect ideas. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? The all-girls Catholic school I attended distributed summer reading lists and required book reports at the beginning of the fall semester. I do remember reading books NOT on the list, such as DH Lawrence’s scandalous Lady Chatterly’s Lover, the Women’s Room, by Marilyn French; and all the science fiction books I could pinch off my older brother’s bookshelves. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My laptop. It’s a workhorse. I appreciate its steadfastness and its sturdiness. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wadsworth Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize me. When I’m always energized when I’m writing and it’s flowing. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Not reading enough. Many aspiring writers these days don’t seem to like reading books or know the greats in the cannon. What is your writing Kryptonite? Not filling the well enough, not getting refreshed and renewed with new ideas from other arts like theater, music, visual arts, and string arts. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes when I’m overtired. I often do craft exercise or tackle a character from a different perspective. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? No. Writing that comes alive is about moving readers. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? Susan Muaddu Darraj, author of two story collections and a children’s chapter book series titled Farrah Rocks, is one of my best friends. We bounce story ideas off each other, help each other set writing goals as we navigate the writing life as mothers with child rearing responsibilities and as professional women with full-time jobs. https://susanmuaddidarraj.com/ Jen Michalski is another good friend. We trade stories and workshop them in terms of craft, what’s working, not working. We also look out for opportunities for each other. http://jenmichalski.com/ I consider Tom Jenks of Narrative Magazine online as my mentor. In addition to being his student in his workshop, I’ve been a reader for Narrative Magazine since 2003. 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? Each book stands alone to create a body of work that spans worlds, characters, and cultures. My novel, now in progress, is titled Delia’s Concerto, and chronicles the summer of a 15-year old girl, who is a gifted pianist but nothing about her life is working. A second collection of short stories is completed and explores loss and grief. Another work in progress concerns survivors of the Sikh Holocaust of 1984. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? So far, it hasn’t. Maybe that will change when it comes time to promote the book. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? The Writer’s Studio classes in NY and workshops with Tom Jenks, both after having completed Hopkins. I wouldn’t have understood the Writers’ Studio or workshop classes as well without having completed the work at Johns Hopkins. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Philip Roth. I hated Portnoy’s Complaint. But loved his later book, The Human Stain. What’s the best way to market your books?
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Trying to write a male character that isn’t passive or feminine. What did you edit out of this book?” Dialogue that wasn’t working. Some verbal bad habits that found their way into the narratives. Unnecessary and imprecise words. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Real estate development or city planner, reusing and transforming defunct properties. I loved writing the real estate, neighborhood, and property stories for the local newspapers and magazines.  If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I’d love to hear Alejandra Pizarnik read either Árbol de Diana or La tierra más ajena, and to know more about her experiences. I’d offer her tea, coffee, and/or coriander strawberry salad. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I tend to write about difficult experiences, events, and circumstances. I think this is important for a number of reasons. For example, poetry can serve as a companion to a reader, helping us to feel less alone and/or to better understand ourselves and the world around us. Moreover, poets are a sort of historian, ensuring important events, perhaps especially the emotional information surrounding those events, is not lost. We must learn from the past. However, I certainly fear that my more difficult work could evoke painful memories in a reader or listener. For this reason, there are poems I will not read at a reading unless the event has been marketed in a way that the audience clearly understands which topics will arise. Moreover, I am deeply fortunate to have a community of fellow writers to whom I can show my work and with whom I can chat about my concerns. I trust them to be honest about how they receive the poems and how they feel the work may be otherwise received. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Lee Ann Roripaugh. Perhaps more than any other books, Lee Ann Roripaugh’s poetry collections have taught me about the craft of poetry, especially cohesive collections, effective book-length topography, as well as the effects that literature can have on the intersection of our hearts and our minds. I teach her most recent collection, tsunami vs. the fukushima 50 (Milkweed Editions, 2019), in my Asian American Literature class at Nevada State College, and we read some individual poems in my Creative Writing courses, as well. I had the exceptional honor of hosting her for a reading and a generative-writing workshop through my Clark County Poet Laureate programming, and my adoration for her only grew. She is eloquent, brilliant, and generous. What books are on your nightstand? Currently books are cascading from my nightstand, which is a prettier way to say that I have a mess. However, a few of them are Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Lee Ann Roripaugh’s Beyond Heart Mountain, Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s Oceanic, Lisa Ciccarello’s At Night, Jake Skeets’ Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko. There are also a few proofs of Tolsun Books, a small press for which I am a founder and editor. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I’m currently in love with the em-dash for the ways in which it allows me to shift meter and pacing. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? This isn’t quite the same, but perhaps sometimes our Band sheet music. On occasion, we’d riff and improvise, often much to the conductor’s dismay. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I might thank my saxophone. Long before I became a poet, I learned musicality--phrasing, meter, pacing, and more--by playing the saxophone. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? I have two thoughts. First, I might write, Make time for yourself. Authors’ successful writerly processes vary greatly, so I hesitate to give too much advice. However, I think that if we don’t take some time for ourselves, it can be difficult to exist as creatives. Second, something I tell my Creative Writing students is to try each poem 11 different ways. I learned this from one of my MFA mentors, H.L. Hix. I can’t remember if the exact number was 11, but the message I took from a conversation with him about revisions was to try our work in a variety of ways so that we can learn and grow as writers as well as allow a poem or story to discover its truest version of itself. Does writing energize or exhaust you? It depends. If I can strike a balance between teaching, hiking or swimming, and writing, then writing energizes me. However, if I’ve already spent too much time sitting still in a day, then I need to get up and outside to brainstorm. This said, this, too, is part of my writing process. What are common traps for aspiring writers? I think it is important to read often and widely and to spend more time writing than submitting. What is your writing Kryptonite? An empty bag of coffee. I know this is a bit cliche, but I really love light roast coffee. I get in my own way in plenty of other ways, too, such as anxiously prioritizing to-do lists. However, I’m lost without coffee. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes. Well, more specifically, while I was Clark County Poet Laureate, especially during 2020 in the thick of the pandemic, I was often too tired to read. This might sound wild, but even holding up a book was cumbersome. This said, I did listen to audiobooks like On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous; hearing that novel in Ocean Vuong’s voice was exceptional. 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 admire books that are deeply cohesive within themselves, such as Roripaugh’s tsunami vs. the fukushima 50, which explores the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, and Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler, which tracks the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. I like to understand how poems fit together within a book. Otherwise, I might prefer beautiful broadsides of individual poems, for example. All of this is to say that I would like each of my books to gather deeply connected pieces together to make a whole, but I don’t endeavor to have a set of books with clear connections to each other. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? My experience confirmed the importance of cohesion. I want to explore the topography of a book, how poems speak to one another, what themes might be present, how the collection-length narrative may be discovered, however gently that arc might be weaved. Certainly, there are plenty of exceptions, but as I mentioned, many of the collections that move me the most gather poems that are deeply tied to one another. This is something I already knew about myself from reading, editing, and reviewing other poets’ collections, but publishing strengthened my understanding and, therefore, commitment to this aesthetic. Especially today when we can find singular poems or brief suites of verse online, and we can create breathtaking single-poem broadsides, my messy heart-brain yearns to know how poems work together within a book, harmonizing and/or building upon one another. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I get anxious if I can’t travel. Going abroad has been life changing, but I don’t always need to go far. Even a day trip to Mojave Desert Preserve in California helps me make new discoveries and then return to the page more creatively. I loved riding the train from Nevada to Chicago with my husband; I brought my Royal Eldorado typewriter. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I grew into poetry in general. I misunderstood poetry in middle school and high school, probably because of standardized tests or textbooks geared toward them. It thought that poems had singular specific meanings, implied thesis statements, if you will, and this is absolutely incorrect. Part of what makes a poem a poem is that it is difficult to paraphrase. Poems have themes. They can tell us stories. Most certainly, we can learn from them. However, they aren’t emails, memos, or expository essays. That’s not how art works! It is subjective, and the multifaceted nature of a poem is part of what makes poetry beautiful and brilliant. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? When I was very young I dreamt that space aliens took me to their ship and then vacuumed my voice out with our shop-vac. This is a nightmare that I’m still unpacking, but even then, I think it spoke to the importance of communication. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? I think I’d like to take this moment to share how deeply I admire both Ugly Duckling Presse’s Lost Literature Series, which is how I discovered the work of Pizarnik, for example, as well as Milkweed Editions Seedbank series of world literature. Here’s a few lines from Milkweed’s “About the Series” page: “just as repositories around the world gather seeds to ensure biodiversity in the future, Seedbank gathers works of literature from around the world that foster conversation and reflection on the human relationship to place and the natural world—exposing readers to new, endangered, and forgotten ways of seeing the world.” I am deeply grateful for the important work of Ugly Duckling Presse and Milkweed Editions. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Many. Right now, however, I’m working on a collection of pantoums. I started to be drawn toward them early on in the pandemic. Due to the form’s repetition, they became a way for me to sit with what frightens me most as well as to rediscover even the most seemingly mundane aspects of life. They allow me to hold images and experiences almost within the palms on my hands, to roll them around, to see them from many angles, to contemplate what everything means. Of course, I almost always discover more questions, not answers, and I find comfort in this. What does literary success look like to you? For me, literary success is having a lifestyle that both allows me the time to write as well as to give back to other writers, such as my undergraduate students, the authors we publish at Tolsun Books, the diverse voices my Nevada community champions through workshops and open mics, and/or the authors whose small-press books I review to help spread awareness about their important work. What’s the best way to market your books? There are so many factors. I think finding a publisher that believes in your work and will champion your book is invaluable; astute line edits, a stunning cover design, professional press releases, a timeline that accounts for review copies, and an active relationship with distributors can be deeply important. This said, authors also must work to market their books by sharing the news with their communities, encouraging presales, being available for interviews, reading at events, and more. This may be less about marketing one’s book, but especially because I have mentioned the importance of making time for oneself, I should share this, too: I hope all writers might consider taking on some form of literary stewardship, whether that be editing poetry journals, hosting open mics, leading community storytelling workshops, reviewing small press books, etc. There’s so much that writers can learn from one another. Moreover, I believe in the importance of writing communities and of giving back. On that note, I’d like to express deep gratitude for S.R. and everyone at Unsolicited Press; you folx are exceptional. What did you edit out of this book? There is so much that I edited out of this book. I revised this collection countless times. One poem I removed was a sonnet. Between the rhyme scheme and the iambic pentameter, that metrical foot which mirrors our heartbeats, the form felt too neat and tidy, too perfectly controlled, for a collection that explores, in part, the complexity and unpredictability of grief. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I’m a Lecturer with Nevada State College. I teach classes such as College Success, Creative Writing, and more. This said, if I didn’t write, I’d probably play my saxophone more often; I miss playing out with bands, but there are only so many hours in a day. I’ve also been a barista, a communications and development coordinator for a nature center, a Certified Veterinary Technician, etc. Gathering Broken Light If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? It would definitely be Anne Sexton. I would probably have to order take out, but also, I am I wouldn’t be too concerned with the food. I would, for sure, learn how to make a killer martini and I would keep them flowing. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I don’t think it’s too original, but what scares me is that one day I will just stop writing. I think the best way to stave off this fear is simply to put your ass in the chair and write even when you don’t want to. I am in a lot writing groups and do a lot of generative workshops to make sure I am always giving myself structure and space to write. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? This is kind of an awkward question, but for sure, Terrance Hayes. What books are on your nightstand? Currently Gina Frangello’s memoir Blow Your House Down, Dave Berman’s poetry collection Actual Air, and some books I just bought at Third Man Records in Nashville Pain the Board Game by Sampson Starkweather, Nine Bar Blues by Sheree Renée Thomas, and The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? This is kind of a cliché answer for a poet, but the em dash. Its rules are murky and versatile and I am not a fan of rules. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Probably everything I was assigned, which in retrospect is kind of a shame. As an English teacher, I feel woefully under-read and I had to read a bunch of books I should’ve read before teaching them. I am playing catch up now. I for sure never read all of the Scarlet Letter when I was supposed to. I just couldn’t get through it. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? Trikafta, which is the drug that saved my life. Most of the poems in this collection were written when people with Cystic Fibrosis generally died in their 30s or 40s. With this new drug, the prognosis is much more hopeful. Unfortunately, this means I now have to start saving for retirement, but I guess that’s a good thing. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Say what you mean and stop bullshitting. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Usually it energizes me. It’s only exhausting when I can’t do it. Once the writing starts, it’s exciting. What are common traps for aspiring writers? I think sometimes people are too hung up on trying to be really deep or “poetic” when they first start writing poetry. They can’t just get out of their own way and just say what they want to say. I think it’s best just to trust your words when they arrive simply and straightforwardly. What is your writing Kryptonite? A lack of time or focus on the wrong priorities. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes. Many, many times. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I mean, I think they could be a “writer,” but I am not sure they could be a really great writer. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? My poetry queens and dear friends, Jessica Piazza and Jill Alexander Essbaum, have not only helped me by being stellar role models but also constantly providing me with much needed validation and guidance. Reading their work and following their journeys has given me a guide for what is possible. I am truly a better writer for having their friendship. Also, Tod Goldberg and Wendy Duren, who I met at the Bennington Writing Seminars, have been a constant source of joy and love and support for me. They are always willing to listen to me and give me advice on my work. Tod has been more than gracious in lending me his brilliance whenever I have needed it. I am also in an accountability group with a group of friends from Bennington College and we meet on zoom a few times a month. This group just helps keep me grounded and connected to the writing. It is a group of really talented and kind people who offer me a wealth of support and resources. I am very grateful to have it. Finally, for over ten years, I have been in a writing group called Brass Tacks with an insanely talented group of poets, including my dear friends Tina Posner and Judy Jensen. If I hadn’t been invited to that group by poet David Meischen, I truly believe I wouldn’t have ever published this book. 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 don’t think I ever consciously thought about this when putting the collection together. However, I have finished a full length collection and I do think it’s connected to this first one. After that, I am not sure, but for now there are connections. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I don’t think it changed my process of writing too much except that it sort of gave shape and validation to what I was doing. I now think of the poems more of a collective whole or in terms of connections rather than just single poems floating in isolation. When I write now, there is a sort of universe in which my work lives. I think more about how my voice fits into the world. I am not sure I always thought of that before the book was accepted. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I waffle on this issue a lot, but since you can’t put a price tag on connections and friendship, I am going to say spending the money on getting my MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars. I think MFA programs are a lot of money and not always “worth” it in terms of job prospects or things of a practical nature, but for me, I don’t regret spending the money because it gave me a writing life. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I tend to just move on quickly if I don’t like someone’s work. There’s so much out there that I can connect with that I don’t re-visit writers who I don’t connect with very often. But maybe James Joyce. I didn’t appreciate him much until I read Dubliners. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I started writing when I was in fourth grade. I stole a stack of paper from my classroom and I was going to write a novel that was basically a rip off of a novel I had just read. And I guess in that moment, I realized I was so moved by a story that I wanted to write my own. Though, I quickly realized that novels were most likely not in my future and by middle school I switched to poetry. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim. Or really any of Scott Heim’s books. He writes the most heartbreakingly beautiful work. I really want a copy of his poetry collection, but it’s impossible to find. I wish more people would read his work. He deserves all the money and awards. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I have a lamp I love with a frog that looks kind of apathetic. So, I am going to go with an apathetic frog. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Well, my poems are about me and the people who appear in them are real people, though always fictionalized in some way. Poetic license and all. And some of them, I don’t owe anything and some of them I owe everything to. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have one unpublished right now and maybe one half finished. I have a legion of abandoned ideas for collections though. What does literary success look like to you? Creating work that I am proud of mostly. If it also gets out into the world, then that is a nice bonus. What’s the best way to market your books? With poetry, I think it’s mostly word of mouth and doing events/ readings. I guess love it or hate it, social media is helpful. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I don’t really write characters, but I do worry that some of the situations and people that appear in my poems will make the real people annoyed or angry. However, the beauty of poetry is that it allows for a sort of conceptual version of the truth and not a journalistic approach. This usually alleviates the issue. But I guess the hardest part, particularly in this book, was deciding on telling my truth and not caring if people were offended. What did you edit out of this book?” I cut out a lot of poems I liked a lot but weren’t serving the narrative arch of the book. I am not always good at that so many thanks to my friend and fellow poet Tina Posner who really helped me find the story I wanted to tell. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Well, I mostly teach for work, so I guess I would just teach. I can’t really imagine a career I could do well that didn’t involve some kind of writing. Maybe I’d try and be a private investigator-- that type of work always seemed interesting to me.  Who’s Going to Love the Dying Girl tells the story of a woman diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis who is trying to navigate life and love in a body that is failing. These poems capture the collision of a reckless past and a foreshortened future with unwavering honesty. They confront the title question thrown at her one terrible night.
 If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? My cooking is a work-in-progress. But I would put on an evening pot of coffee for the late great Charles Bowden. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Everything about writing scares me. But accepting fear is essential for any successful creative pursuit. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Desire is the root of suffering. What books are on your nightstand? A mixture of social histories, Buddhist philosophy, environmental studies, and strange novels. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? Probably the em dash. I don’t know any better. What books were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Most of them. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The beat-up REI backpack I’ve been rocking since 2002. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Get to work. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Exhausts in the short term, energizes in the long term. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Ego and procrastination. What is your writing Kryptonite? Insomnia. Have you ever gotten writer’s block? Sure. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I’m so new at this, I don’t really have author friends yet. But someday we should all meet up for espresso. 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’ve adopted the view that all works of art are in conversation with one another, either directly or indirectly. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Publishing my first book convinced me that top-to-bottom rewrites are worth the time and uncertainty. I’ve already done it again. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Gas money. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? The reverse occurred with most of the Beat Generation. I still love Ginsberg, though. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Swearing in elementary school. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Tears of the Trufflepig by Fernando A. Flores. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar? The pronghorn antelope. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I suppose they would have to tell me that if they ever found out. If their demands are reasonable, I’ll listen. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I wrote my first novel when I was sixteen, from 2007 to 2008. Since then, I’ve been churning out about one project a year. Probably about a dozen unpublished novels, in other words. What does literary success look like to you? Respect from my readers. Maybe also a nice one-bedroom apartment. What’s the best way to market your books? With confidence. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? No matter the character, I always ask: What does this person want, what are the contradictions of that desire, and what are the consequences of those contradictions? Works for everybody. What did you edit out of this book?” This book began as a trilogy, so technically, I edited out two other books to get this one. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? In my early twenties, I survived a brief but memorable career as a behavioral health specialist. I got stabbed at one point. By a child. Snag a Copy of Jay's BookIf you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
Kurt Vonnegut, though I’m not certain what I might make him for dinner. I feel like it might be best to bring him to a diner where they still allow smoking. I imagine us having the meatloaf but barely touching it. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I’m obsessed with time. Do I have enough?, am I using mine wisely?, etc., therefore, I fear not having enough time to write, which I most certainly do not. I have to make time, and making time means creating little quiet pockets everywhere and anywhere so I can get words out of my head and into the computer or in my numerous journals and note-taking apps. I used to be much more regimented about dedicated composition time, but at my current stage of life, that’s just not feasible. Another fear of mine is not being able to find where I placed that crumb or nugget or spark amongst all the places I keep my ideas. One running Word doc seems to help with this. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Steve Almond, final answer. I was in Steve’s workshop at the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop many years ago, around the same time that I was getting into his writing. The combination of meeting him, learning from him in live time and via his books, created a perfect storm in my writer’s heart. He’s honest and raw, and yet a million times sensitive and mindful of character. His mantra is mercy, and that too has become a recurring thread in my work. What books are on your nightstand? One or two works of fiction, either a literary magazine, collection, or a novel, plus, some super thick non-fiction book about history or a biography or something that I keep there to make myself feel smart. I also have something in Spanish: a textbook, novels, or magazines. I’m always trying to brush up on my second language. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? Em dash–isn’t it lovely? I like it because it’s not a comma (my least favorite punctuation mark), and the em dash is itself a slightly longer bit of time. It’s an exhale, a passing thought, a tiny dream. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I’ve been forever trying to read Don Quixote. I assigned it to myself in high school and actually tried to cram it over a weekend because I had procrastinated before an essay exam. To this day, I still have not read it cover to cover. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My bookshelf. Sometimes I just stare it, feel the spines, etc., to remind me that one day I might have a book on that same shelf. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? This art is dying, kid, do everything you possibly can to keep it alive. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize me, most definitely, however getting to the writing itself is exhausting. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Trying to make something perfect, or thinking it will be perfect, in the first round. Just get as much as you can out of your head, and then come back again and again. Revising is where the magic happens. What is your writing Kryptonite? I suffer from a common writer ailment: Too-Many-Projects Syndrome. I’m invariably writing something in my head all day: a novel, short story, screenplay, poem, family history, or Season 1 of a Coming Soon hit Netflix series. Finding the vein is great, but finding too many veins overwhelms the process of creating itself. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? I get reader’s block all the time. I’m a painfully slow reader to begin with, so sometimes I grind to a halt and may not pick up the book again for weeks at a time. However, I almost always finish reading every book I pick up. Only very few have I put down and quit reading completely. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Sure. They write User Agreements, Terms of Service, Cancellation Policies, etc. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I consider my mentors my friends, but do they consider me, theirs? This would include Jess Walter, Laura Hendrie, Steve Almond. I’m Twitter pals with Leigh Camacho Roarks, Claire Rudy Foster, Tabitha Blankenbiller, and Deborah Reed, plus, my good friend Larry Feign. I went to MFA school with these aforementioned souls, and I’ve loved watching them evolve as writers. They’ve kept at it, and they’ve grown that skin that only writers have. 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’d like to go with connections, but I believe my books might stand on their own. Reason being is I have so many interests and I like to use different voices. I also believe in the audience--they want to be challenged, and being a versatile writer is critical to a thinking audience. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Getting to publication means editing, editing, editing. Becoming a ruthless self-editor who is deft with line edits, but who can also offer objective editorial advice is a skill all its own. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Paying the money for contests, reading fees, workshop attendance, and yes, getting my MFA. It was all worth it, every penny. Writers support other writers--there’s no other way around it. I will gladly pay a fee for someone to read my work. My mentors’ salaries are priceless. Contests, tip jars, bring ‘em on. Oh, and submission services. I worked with Writer’s Relief years ago, and it was entirely worth it. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I came to like authors I never knew before because of friends’ recommendations. Sometimes those recommendations were good, others not so good. I will say Joan Didion was one of those and I was blown away by what I thought I was getting into and what amazement I experienced. I also have had a reverse experience with George Saunders. I worshipped him, even tried to emulate him, for many years, but I’ve had to take a long break and I’m not exactly sure why. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? When I understood my grandmother’s Spanish. While Spanish wasn’t my first language, it was spoken enough within my family that I could only make some sense of it. For my grandparents, it was their first language, so they used it more often. I remember when I translated what she said, and she was shocked, amazed, and worried--now I knew what she was saying! What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Bless Me Última was the first book that I could not put down. I read it at a time when I was really getting into literature as a young man, plus, it’s kind of like a spiritual handbook for hispanos from New Mexico. It’s widely known, but often overlooked because of its specificity in Chicano literature, however, its themes of love, death, and family are universal. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Spider. I love spiders so much. I protect them and let them be. I always have, and I think they have a magical gift being able to spin webs. There’s also the perfect writer symbolism with their skill--spinning tales. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I owe thanks to those people upon whom I base my characters. Thanks because I took a little part of them and immortalized it, made it into something. I do, however, think it’s a little like theft, but it’s also a compliment. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? One big one that’s been on ice for years, plus, an ongoing autobiography and an epic family history that may never truly be finished. I also have reams of false starts, inchoate chapters, fragmented stories, and a dustbin of “almosts.” What does literary success look like to you? Truly, one acceptance. That one editor, that one literary port, that one reader. That’s all we need. That’s all I’ve needed. I still remember that first letter telling me my story had a home. That and a teaching gig, a workshop, or a lecture series. Would love to do those some day. What’s the best way to market your books? All means necessary, being mindful of where readers traffic. Social media has its benefits, but I wouldn’t say that’s the end all, be all. A strategic tour and readings, local media outlets, and interviews will be effective, too. I also plan to hire a publicist. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Believing that you know what is truly going on inside their mind and body. I’ve received feedback from editors and readers who have said that my writing (when written as a woman) just didn’t feel like a woman. I’ve pushed myself to truly put myself in my femenine characters’ minds and ask myself: “Would she really think/feel/do or react this way?” When I’ve done that, the results are both rewarding and eye-opening. What did you edit out of this book? The stories in this book are the whittled down versions of often much longer, messy drafts. Each one took many passes before it was just right. “Agony in the Garden,” for example, first started like a novella with extensive backstory and longer scenes, but it ended up being a few flashbacks and one long climactic scene. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I work full time in healthcare, which I’ve done for over 15 years. I like my day job and don’t see myself leaving it, however I do wish to close the book on it before I turn 50. I am also a husband and father, which I consider to be my most important jobs. Fantasy jobs: a showrunner for a T.V. series. That, or be a skinny vegan yoga teacher who lives in Taos, New Mexico and smokes un montón de mota. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
James Baldwin. As a gag dish, I’d present him with hominy grits, which he hated. Then I’d bust out the steak and fixings. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I often fear that the data I’m using may be inaccurate or inadequate. To overcome it, I end up obsessively rechecking everything. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? I so wanted to meet and spend time with Toni Morrison. She would have been a great mentor to me. What books are on your nightstand? Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward; Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel; and Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I keep asking myself why all of the time. So, yes, it’s the question mark. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Probably “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Catcher in the Rye.” What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My trusty reclinable office chair. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? I’d quote Lydia Davis: “Do what you want to do, and don’t worry if it’s a little odd or doesn’t fit the market.” Does writing energize or exhaust you? Writing memoir content is draining, while sci-fi or speculative writing is thrilling. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Believing that the quality of their work and even their self worth are defined by the number of rejections from writing contests. What is your writing Kryptonite? I’m not sure what this question means. What weakens or undermines my writing? I guess I tend to go too fast, making lots of little typos that cost me dearly during the proofing process. I must slow down and perhaps follow Hemingway’s advice by writing and rewriting each sentence dozens of times, one at a time, until I’m absolutely sure that it is correct. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes. When I become bored with an author’s extensive treatment of the mundane or pornographic violence, I lose the ability to power through and simply put the book aside. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Absolutely, especially when writing nonfiction instructional or technical material. Whoever wrote the dictionary on my bookshelf was probably braindead by the time it was done. Lol. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I’m a longtime friend of Marita Golden. Her prose is smooth like Agatha Christie’s. The work of both writers, as different as they are, have validated my own tendency to lean toward an elegant style. 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? Each book must live his or her own life, although all them may have similarities in terms of values and style! How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I learned to maintain orderly records and an index as I’m writing. This allows me to easily check the authorities that I’m working on. I also learned to save discarded text, which may find new life somewhere else in the narrative, or in another book or story. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Attending writing conferences that featured published writers on panels that shared their experiences and entertained questions from attendees. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Charles Bukowski and Junot Diaz. I almost threw away their books. I’m sure I discarded Oscar Wao. I still haven’t finished that book but I eventually came to appreciate Diaz’s other work. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? After a LIFE Magazine photojournalist published the frame-by-frame police killing of Billie Furr (an in-law cousin of mine) in the summer of 1967, I began writing protest essays in high school that distrubed my teachers but inspired my classmates. I was only 17 but discovered the power of my written expression. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Spoiler alert, imminent shameless promotion ahead: My own first novel, Brotherhood of the Gods, was not accepted by numerous agents and publishers--perhaps a dozen. I then published it myself. I probably should have continued to pitch it but I didn’t know the business. At any rate, the people who read it loved it. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? A moose, a bull moose with huge antlers. Solitary, quiet, but strong. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Their gawdawful racism, bigotry, and foul behavior have provided some wonderful storylines that are filled with conflict and drama. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? OMG! I must have several partially completed stories and about three books. What does literary success look like to you? When a friend genuinely likes an unpublished story I’ve shared. That feels like love. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
I would like to have the poet Li Bai over for dinner, and talk about swords, calligraphy, and maybe corvids (I think he would very much like the research that has been done on corvid brain function since the Tang dynasty). Because the conversation is the priority, I believe I would make my standby of unsauced pasta and egg, with the potential addition of Dino Buddies microwaveable chicken nuggets. We could sit on the counter and eat. This is optimal dinner, with optimal human. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The fear of misrepresenting an experience or idea. I don't want to write something in ignorance that contributes to a societal prejudice or that streamlines a complex reality. I try to write, first and foremost, from what I intimately understand. If I'm writing from a perspective, featuring a character, or engaging with an idea that's not coming from my direct experience, I try to do in-depth research so that I'm better able to capture it. I try to continually ask myself whether I'm the best person to tell a given story. I want to be able to create casts of characters that aren't carbon copies of myself. I think that it's important that white writers, especially, research and engage with people and writers of color to write casts that aren't solely white. That might mean cowriting, hiring beta readers, and/or engaging with extensive interview/research processes. But I also understand that there are some experiences and cultural contexts that writers of color, or writers who come from those contexts, are going to be able to capture with an attention that's far richer and more sensitive than I could. While I think it's important for white writers to do better and write better non-white characters, I don't want to try to tell a story that just isn't mine to tell. So I listen and endeavor to seek out non-white perspectives on white people writing characters of color (the Tumblr blog Writing With Color is a really spectacular resource for anyone wanting to write characters of color: featuring mods from a variety of backgrounds talking about ideas ranging from tropes to stay away from to ways of describing skin color/hair texture to accurate representation of non-European cultures). And I'm continually learning from comrades of color who talk about what they, personally, might want to see from white writers -- one opinion does not speak for an entire group of people, but every thought I hear is another piece of data that I can learn from as I put effort into doing better and sharing what I learn with other people in my community. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Ahh. The time-honored & difficult question: life goals or wife goals? It's hard to separate people who are crushes from people who I would like to be, especially considering that many of the people who I thought were crushes before my transition turned out to be gender goals. A combination of both life goals and wife goals is Dominic Seneschal, from Ada Palmer's brilliant sci fi series Terra Ignota. He is a philosopher, genderqueer lad, and swordsman who embodies ideals of quick wit and quick rapier. I also have a crush on Ada Palmer herself -- professor of history? creator of exquisitely detailed fantasy worlds? imaginer of utopian futures? My type entirely. What books are on your nightstand? Looking at my nightstand, I see Alberto Giacometti's "Notes Sur Les Copies" -- a set of journal excerpts and interviews about the artist's views of creative exploration and growth through copying the work of others. I also see a children's edition of Die Beliebtesten Märchen der Gebrüder Grimm with which I'm practicing my German, and a copy of Taliessin Through Logres, a fabulous set of Arthurian epic poems by C.S. Lewis' friend Charles Williams. (The poems are so rich with allusion and labyrinthine stanzas that Lewis published a companion to the work to explain the thick mythological web the text is situated in; certainly the sort of friend I would like to have.) Favorite punctuation mark? Why? Semicolon, hands down. How else can I connect threads of thoughts and associations that extend rhizomically through disciplines when brain go brrrrr and there is the need to convey thematic association and/or refrain from breaking the rhythm and connection of a sentence without adding commas or creating an insufferable, inconceivable run-on? Also, I just like the combination of crispness and fluidity; semicolons look like they would have a good mouth texture were one to eat them like chips. ;;;;;;;;;;;;; What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I was a fool in high school who read every assigned book when it might have been more productive of me to spend that time sketching strip mall architecture or getting into fights behind the bike racks. Liminality, dead people, and lives in paper were home and safety, though; consuming everything in front of me as profligately as I could was a ballast at a time when things were very unstable internally and externally. I've been able to become more productively critical of the media that I consume now that I'm not relying on it so intensely as a survival mechanism, which is positive for myself, my community, and my writing. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The paper Rimbaud head I cut out and pasted on my first notebook in 2016. It fell unperceived from grace, likely at a Jewel Osco somewhere in the Kenosha, Wisconsin area. It may be floating there still. If you're out there, paper Rimbaud head: I salute you. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? "But motive is a matter of belief; you would not want to do anything unless you believed it possible and meaningful. And belief must be belief in the existence of something; that is to say, it concerns what is real. So ultimately, freedom depends on the real." -- The Outsider, Colin Wilson Does writing energize or exhaust you? It depends on the sort of writing, and the time. Poetry is usually more exhausting for me than prose: if I'm writing a poem, it's a concentrated expression of emotion where every line, juxtaposition of word, and presentation of sound, space, and semantic color on the page is subjected to intense scrutiny. Poetry is where a singular and visceral confrontation with the part of myself that feels -- something which I'm still not comfortable with -- takes place. It's all here, all at once, and all being communicated within the space of a few pages; like how a slow motion camera allows visualization of components and movement that might not be visible at faster speeds. That's exhausting, but in a gratifying way. Though I still care about craft and truth when I'm writing prose of some sort -- whether it's fiction or nonfiction or somewhere between the two -- there's more time for the emotion, idea, or dynamic to unfold when what I'm writing is 12, 25, 200 pages. That prosebound process of meeting characters who emerge like Athena, and watching as they claim space to grow and fail, is energizing. I know I've created a story I can be proud of when just thinking about the characters makes me electrically happy, and when considering the components of plot makes me want to hasten to my keyboard even if external circumstances mean that writing right here, right now isn't possible. It's more energizing to engage with emotion and ideal when it's more diffuse. What are common traps for aspiring writers? I can speak to traps that I've fallen into and that people in my writing community have as well, hoping that they apply on a more universal level. A major one is looking to the outside for reasons and affirmations for art. A community of fellow artists and writers who can challenge you and your work is vital. But developing and inhabiting a rich inner world from which comes conviction, joy, and vision for what you do will increase the efficacy of artistic comrades honing and disrupting your work, because they'll have good material to work with. What is your writing Kryptonite? Being in love? I genuinely think so. Beyond extreme circumstances like chronic illness flare-up and hospitalization, or housing instability, whose impediment to writing is more about their limitation of time and energy I can allocate, being in love is the next greatest culprit. I'm 19, and I don't know jackshit about what a committed, healthy partnership should be. I'm also aromantic, so there's a whole process of 1) getting close to a person, 2) attempting to figure out whether the person is interested in a committed intimate relationship more like a Star Trek t'hy'la bond than conventions of romance or friendship, and 3) realizing that they're not and pining after them until I am able to jam the feeling into a few works of art and move beyond it. That is distracting and inconvenient, to say the least. It's full of emotions I do not particularly understand or want to act upon, but which prove very persistent and frequently lead to interludes of staring out the window longingly and listening to my hanahaki playlist instead of typing or scribbling, which is far more important in the end. It's incredibly troublesome, and I'd rather not have crushes or love interests at all. Dear Ghost Writers In the Sky: please consider taking me out of all romantic plotlines for an indefinite period of time, and instead devote my character solely to plotlines involving revenge, betrayal, ethical use of power, and the temptation towards madness that's been ingrained into our culture's view of creative work. Please? Thank you. I'd like to get more writing done. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes. Sometimes. It makes me sad. If I can, I try to find an inspiring bit of library architecture wherever I'm living; architecture built to evoke & house the feelings we have while reading is almost as good as the real thing. Otherwise (and frequently concurrently), I pick up fanfiction about some of the characters I adore most; the themes and tropes of this distinctive cultural world are comforting and I can sink into them even if I can't devote my whole focus to them. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I'm resistant to making statements like this. I've been criticized for how I interact with emotions all my life -- I'm not feeling enough; I'm feeling the wrong things; I'm a robot; I'm unable to dialogue and interact with my emotions. (On one memorable occasion, someone called me a sociopath; in the spirit of Warhol's commercialization and commodification of emotion, I borrowed a button maker from my engineering teacher and made a whole slew of buttons emblazoned with "Marion Deal is my Favorite Sociopath," then handed them out to all the students and teachers I could find at high school.) I'm on the autism spectrum, which modulates and affects how and when I experience emotion; I care a lot about things that many people wouldn't think worthy of anger or tears or going nonverbal, and it's hard for me to figure out the appropriate emotional response to things that people consider intuitive. (Note: it's my responsibility to ensure that my divergence doesn't harm others overmuch, and to understand the people in my community around me such that I might support them if I can.) But all this means that I don't think it's accurate or useful to make statements about what feeling an emotion strongly or weakly looks like. Everybody has different barometers by which they judge what "strong emotion" is relative to context including class, gender presentation, cultural background, and the sort of stimulus one might be responding to. I think that good writing comes less from experiencing emotion in a certain way, but rather from understanding how one, individually, interacts with emotion. So too, it emerges from becoming more comfortable with expression in both self & others by overcoming internalized biases about emotions typically considered "negative" or "irrational" when presented by certain people in certain circumstances. (E.g. stereotypes surrounding race or gender like the Angry Black Woman trope, a discomfort with men expressing emotion, or a judgement of intensity/type of emotion in neurodivergent people.) I think of Spock's character arc through the Star Trek original series and movies: he becomes better able to interact with his emotions and those of others by unlearning Vulcan biases towards his own human heritage and his crewmates. He'd be a better writer by the end of Star Trek IV than he was in the first season of The Original Series, I'd wager. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I'm friends with an absolutely absurd (and absurdist) short story writer, Markus Klimas, who is very discerning and frequently doesn't like, get, or write poetry of his own. Sending poetry to someone who has an active predisposition against poetry is a good challenge. I don't take any dislike of his personally, knowing that I'm shooting predisposed to miss, but it is a delight to have a safe space to have my work completely obliterated. Frequently his criticism, even if I don't wholly agree with his general philosophy towards poetry, helps me get out of a solipsistic isolated system of my own thoughts on the genre and how to articulate through it. Being able to perform at open mics (virtual, these days) with poet friends of mine is also a privilege: seeing words reach and illuminate in real time makes me better because it makes me want to connect to other people with my work, and become more human in the process of doing so. 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? Each book should be able to be read and enjoyed as its own entity, but I am hoping to create a loosely connected extended universe of sorts with my writing. Each book will serve as a raggedy flashlight beam in a surrealist world that contains havens for the dead and haunted, late-nite otherworldly diners at the intersection of traditions and times, languages nonexistent in our world (I am fond of con-langing, the process of constructing my own languages), and wandering artists and ghosts who construct momentary cathedrals with their words and who are forever oscillating between places lit and unlit. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I feel much more confident that the oddments I write down can engage and matter to other people. The first book I published, Cool Talks, Dead I Guess (Bone and Ink Press, 2020), is... certainly bizarre. It's an amalgam of many of my hyperfixations and research topics: the intersection of ritual, obsession, "Greatness," and linguistic invocation, tied together by the continuous presence of the ghost of Jim Morrison. It also comes from an exceedingly personal place: my hyperfixations and fascinations are things I'm emotionally invested in and are a genuine attempt for me to communicate emotions in a way that makes sense to me, even though an infodump about the use of language in Confucian texts isn't listed in most "acceptable expression of emotion" categories. Seeing that someone could take this microcosm of myself that I put on a page and see enough value in it that they want to invest time and money to print it, and then hearing from people I've never met who reach out to tell me how much the book meant to them, has been heartening for me. Now that there's some concrete data that the things I write truly and deeply can in fact connect with other people -- data added to by the publication of Messiah, whose poems came into being when I was just beginning to write and in one of the worst depressive episodes of my life -- I am more confident in writing things oddly, rawly, and truly. I try to listen to myself more in the process, and care less about whether what I'm doing is something that's going to be "understandable," or "accessible," as long as it's true. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I bought a cup of hot tea after a frigid outdoor LARP (Live Action Roleplaying event) at a Denny's when I was maybe 13 that ignited my love for all-nite diners and liminal spaces. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? I honestly can't think of one, even though I've returned to this question again and again. I've either liked an author, or I've not, or I've been marginally lukewarm about them. Those states haven't tended to change. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? The Renaissance Faire community that I grew up in has a certain tradition: the Bardic Ring. Rings are passed from generation to generation, along with a title: "the Steadfast," "the Musical," "the Keeper of History." When an artist, storyteller, or performer creates something that truly astonishes and touches another (especially a senior member of the community), the affected party may pass a ring on to the other creator. This might be one that they've worn for generations, or a new ring. When I was 14, I had been performing at the Faire for two years already, as well as writing and performing my art in other locales. A mentor and pillar of the community who I respect immensely stood at an end-of-day meeting, and began talking about a bardic ring she'd worn since she was young: the ring of the Wise Young Storyteller. This ring is traditionally given to someone who displays passion, relative wisdom, and desire to wreak change with creation. She talked about how she'd received it from her mentor, who'd received it from his mentor before him. And then she gave it to me, for the words that I'd been spinning in my performance at the Faire, in my poetry published and performed, and in the dialogues that I'd been sustaining with the community around me. It's a thin circlet of silver -- in her words, "It will bend, but will never break." I wear it proudly every day, a memory of the power my words have, and an impetus to keep the ring and the title in good stewardship until the time comes for me to pass them on. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? The Last Days of New Paris, by China Miéville. Surrealist artists and their sentient works of art joining forces to fight Nazis and demons in an alternate WWII-torn Paris? Brilliant, ravishing, labyrinthine. Precisely the sort of absurdity, worldbuilding, and stylistic boldness I crave. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? As a person, I think I am a flock of monstrous, many-eyed crows flapping around in a human suit, but as a writer I'm the fishman from Guillermo del Toro's film "The Shape of Water." What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I don't think I owe them anything. I consider it a personal imperative to treat every character with compassion, even if they're despicable. But that obligation towards compassion and the attempt to illustrate truth extends to anyone I would meet: human, nonhuman, fictional, or otherwise. This isn't a compassion that means nonviolence or a mandate to avoid harm at all costs. Sometimes harm is necessary: both to humans and characters. Sometimes truth is about what's needed for the character, not what directly mirrors the person/people who the character is based on. I've not heard of a valid construct of absolute truth yet, so though I'm bound by my own experience and biases, I'm doing my best to write characters that are true to themselves, or my view of them, whose accuracy is rooted in my compassion for both the characters and the people they're based on. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have three major unpublished longform books: a surrealist novel set in a Paris of the Dead, a memoir/fever dream/treatise on language and philosophy, and a poetry book which attempts to capture the architecture and layout of a cathedral in poetic form. The surrealist novel delves into legacy, history, and perceptions of Greatness through prose, poetry, and maps, documents, and security footage of a meticulously mapped otherworld. The memoir is comprised of a constructed language (created by me), prose-poems, thoughts on philosophy of language, and photography. Another fantastical novel exploring what it means to be coming of age during a time of revolution is in the works. If you, dear reader, know anyone who'd be interested in the interdisciplinary amalgams above... send them to me! What does literary success look like to you? I want to be able to write every day, engage with the study and creation of words as my mode of making a living, and know -- at least every once and a while -- that my work has reflected, challenged, touched, or engaged with people, individually, or a People, structurally, in a fashion that makes things better. What’s the best way to market your books? I'm grateful to have a supportive artistic community ranging from my fellow actors at the Bristol Renaissance Faire to a set of poets in Paris. I promote through my social media accounts -- there's a lot of great people and artists in the indie lit scene who have a presence on Instagram, and being able to connect with them and their goodness of spirit is not only professionally positive, but personally fantastic. Having a central website -- as I do, www.mariondeal.com -- is also a fabulous place to refer people after readings, via business cards, or after other associated artistic events like performance art. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? My first thought about this question is... *shrug, error 404, gender not found* I'm genderfluid, masculine leaning. I grew up socially presenting and being responded to as a young woman, so that's the degree of social response to gender that I have the most experience with. My experience in the past year and a half, though, has included being responded to either as a man (with masks and presentation cues, I can "pass" as "male," though that's not always my goal), gender = ???? (a response of what-the-fuck in everyday life that I prize), or a transmasculine/gender-non-conforming person in queer spaces. The idea of "the opposite sex" really doesn't apply here, but I do try to represent characters like me -- people who occupy spaces between the binary masculine and feminine, trans men, butch women -- alongside people who don’t occupy those gender spaces. When I write people who don't necessarily conform to my gender identity or identities that I've been perceived as (like trans women, or cis men), I try to rely upon the experience of my close friends and chosen family who've shared some of their inner worlds and experiences/experiments with how they're perceived in various scenarios. Trying to take that data into account, and sharing my work with people I trust who can challenge or suggest details to make those characters richer and more accurate, is a different process than writing from my own gender experience. It involves methodical listening and research, collecting and collating vast amounts of data, and asking people questions about their stories and experience, all things which are among my favorite pursuits. I'd say that's the most important thing about writing characters from gender identities who don't align with mine. It is difficult, but it doesn't feel draining most of the time. What did you edit out of this book? These are all poems I wrote in high school. They are some of the first poems I wrote, and some of the first poems I workshopped with enough positive response that I felt confident in being "Someone Who Writes." That being said, these poems came from a whole fray of paper and herd of notebooks. There are a lot of truly heinous pieces in those notebooks; mournful self-indulgent poems about loneliness and prairie flora, me experimenting with center-justified text (gasp!) and forms that patently did not work, me writing poems that were cheap Rimbaud, Morrison, and Neruda knock-offs. I don't begrudge myself those poems. They were necessary for me to grow as a poet and to get the confidence in my work as a vector for emotion that's kept me writing three years later. Sometimes I find a line or a stanza in the flotsam of that time that I can cannibalize and use in a poem even now. But I am certainly not going to air the outtakes for public consumption. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I'd be an academic -- which is something I'm working towards, though I'm still an undergraduate. I'm hoping to be able to knit a golden braid of psycholinguistics, poetics, translation, and Buddhist philosophy. My research, at least right now, focuses on emergent systems and the use of language in ritual and revolution; specifically the use of poetry in 19th-century French anarchism & queer spaces. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
I would love to cook dinner for Richard Bruatigan and I think that I would make him dandelion soup. I want to bug him about his book, Please Plant this Book. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Getting started. My biggest fear begins and ends with the words, “is this idea good enough?” How I combat my fear is by looking for other media which aligns to what I’m trying to do; I look for similar pieces and people and then I just start working. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Robert Langden from Dan Brown’s novel series; I have wanted to become Robert my whole life--it’s the closest thing I have to a crush. What books are on your nightstand? Astoria by Malena Morling and The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The semicolon, it is the most aesthetically pleasing piece of punctuation. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? To Kill a Mockingbird. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? South Mountain for being my home for so many months. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? True genius is just hard work. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize, I can write for 40 days and 40 nights without stopping to eat or drink. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Thinking that you have nothing to say. Everyone has a voice--learning how to wield it is the hard part. What is your writing Kryptonite? The fear of needing to get everything published. The fear of wasting my time. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes, it took me 9 years to read Jonathon Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. I could never make it past the first chapter. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes, writing is not always about sudden inspiration--passion comes in all shapes and sizes. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I had some very influential mentors circle in and out of my life over the years and the best advice they ever gave me was to at least write something that I’m interested in. That helped me form a style and voice that was unique to me and helped shape my later work, especially. 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 that if I wrote another book in this vein I would want them to be interconnected. I think John may have more to say about his little slice of heaven in the Southwest. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Well, it wasn’t so much the publishing but my commitment to publishing. Turning writing into an actual 9-5 job for the course of 6-8 months really helped me change the way that I think about creative writing and the art of writing. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? The $8 it cost me to get Malena Morling’s Astoria at bookmans--her book changed my understanding of what lyric and descriptive poetry could be. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Jonathon Safran Foer What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? The first time I cussed in school. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Beasts of No Nation As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? An agave plant What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Well, I based my character off myself and James Woods in the movie Salvador; so, I guess I owe myself a beer and James Woods a movie ticket. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Three, and three that will never see the light of day. What does literary success look like to you? Finding the perfect home for your work. What’s the best way to market your books? Readings and alumni networks. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Getting the motivation right. Understanding their needs in relation to their desires. What did you edit out of this book?” Jeez, half the poems maybe. I found myself writing better versions of the pieces already in there and decided to go with the new work instead. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Well, I’m a teacher so there’s that. 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. 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. 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! |