WRITERS TALK

Writers Talk - Nancy Krygowski

2011-08-04T05:00:00.006-06:00

Happy Thursday, everybody! We’re here with the latest installment of Writers Talk, which is an interview with Robert Frost’s Banjo’s newest contributor, Nancy Krygowski. I’m excited about this one!

Poet Nancy Krygowski is an adult literacy instructor and was co-founder & poet booker for the Gist Street Reading Series. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, River Styx, Southern Poetry Review, 5 A.M., and other magazines. She is the recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant and awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.

In addition, Nancy’s book Velocity won the 2006 Starrett Prize & was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The University’s press release stated, “Poet Nancy Krygowski is a fresh, surprising voice that speaks for the intelligent heart in each of us,” while poet Gerald Stern, who selected Velocity for the Starrett Prize, described Nancy in this way, ““This is a wide-eyed, assertive, wild, well-read, street-smart, edgy, loving, suffering, heaven-crazed poet. It’s a joy to find her.”

If you’re a regular Robert Frost's Banjo reader, you know that Nancy Krygowski has stepped in as the blog’s “Visiting Poet” while L.E. (AKA Dani) Leone is off on a series of jaunts. Based on Nancy’s first poem, “Moving Van,” (which you can read at this link) & this interview, I have to agree with Stern’s assertion that “it’s a joy to find her.” I’m very happy to have Nancy participating in the blog even on a temporary basis. Don’t forget: next poem by Nancy will appear next Tuesday, August 9th, & her poems will appear every other Tuesday alternating with regular contributor Barbie Dockstader Angell, for the next while!

& now—the interview!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I grew up in a big, practical, Polish family, and though lots of reading happened in our house, I never thought that actual people wrote what we read. In college, I started to hang around people who identified themselves as writers, real live writers. This was a huge deal for me. I had written poems for myself since I was young but never even thought to show them to anyone. When I found these poets and fiction writers (Robert Frost’s Banjo’s Dani Leone was one), my world started to shift.

At first, hanging out with writers affirmed my identity as a reader—I thought of myself as an appreciator of their work. Then I got up the nerve to show my poems to my writer pals, and things started to change. They liked what they read, and I liked that. I was in graduate school in New Hampshire at that time, not for creative writing, and I brazenly showed some poems to Charles Simic to see if he would let me into a workshop. He did. That’s when I started to feel like a poet.

I struggle with my identity as a writer. Yes, I’m a poet, I know this, but writing poems is still, at least initially, something I do for myself. I get personal satisfaction from writing a poem that I like. I feel way more at ease identifying as a teacher because teaching is something I do for others. (I teach English as a second language, mainly to refugees, and specialize in teaching reading skills.) I get a larger, social satisfaction from that.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

The most fascinating writing process for me was putting together the final draft of Velocity. I had gathered up poems and sent them out to book competitions and even got good responses, but I knew they weren’t working as a book. The poems weren’t bouncing off each other, speaking to each other enough. I showed the collection to a smart poet friend, and he asked the simplest question I hadn’t seriously considered: What is the book about?

I don’t usually think of poems in terms of about, like you do with novels or books of non-fiction. So I got on my living room floor and started making various stacks of poems. I stacked poems by content, by emotion, by length, by whether or not they contained swear words, anything to try to see the poems in new ways. I kept asking myself, What is it about? After many stacks, I made a conscious decision to use my sister’s death as the book’s backdrop, which meant cutting poems I liked, digging up and breathing life into some older poems, and writing new ones. I made the more intuitive decision to order the poems to recreate the feeling you have a few years after someone you love dies—you go on with life, but the death is always on your mind, sometimes staring directly at you, sometimes hovering as a feeling of loss that permeates how you see the world, that sense that something is always missing.

When I finished, I didn’t show the manuscript to anyone; I sent it off to competitions. I felt like the book would either be taken or I was going to give up (I had been at the process of sending out the manuscript for about 4 years), and at that point, I thought either end would be okay. I’m really, really happy things turned out as they did.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

Damn. I know this sounds unprofessional, but honestly, I feel pretty disconnected from the publishing process. I’m awful at sending out poems to journals. It feels too impersonal, too distant, like I’m depositing little drips of thought into a very large and hard to find bucket. Publishing a book was much better—I felt a huge sense of accomplishment—but it made me confront the fact that part of publishing is self-promotion, which I suck at. I’m essentially an introvert. (See below.) Nevertheless, my favorite kind of ‘publishing’ is doing readings. I have a strong belief that poems should be heard, and though I write with an emphasis on sound and hope that readers can hear my poems on the page, I really like the immediacy of reading to listeners, of having the poems in my voice filling a room.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Writing has brought a lot of great people who are writers into my life: Dani Leone, Aaron Smith, Sherrie Flick, Neno Perrotta, Terrance Hayes. But writing makes me a pretty serious introvert. (Or being an introvert made me a writer and trying to get the work of writing done makes me more of an introvert?)   In either case, because I am a slow, often unfocused writer, I need lots of time alone to create anything. I need silence. I need to read and stare and listen to people on buses. I need to take walks by myself. I go interior and I don’t want to talk. I have months of not seeing my dear friends. Writing hasn’t helped my social life.

I’m married to an engineer—a very eclectic, wonderful, engineer—and writing plays a very small role in our relationship. Tom seems to like the idea that I’m a writer (I can’t say for sure if he’s ever read my book) maybe only because that gives him time alone to read whatever geeky stuff he reads. The truth is, I like having the perspective that writing is simultaneously hugely important and not important at all. My marriage helps me remember that. My husband’s at work making decisions that will affect whether or not people get clean water, and I’m spending some mornings wondering if I can use the word giggle in a poem. I never want to take myself too seriously as a writer; this helps.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

Right now, my main community is my dear, old friend Dani Leone (see her sweet response to this question) and my wonderful poetry students at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Dani and I write for each other each week (though she’s behind). I love her wild, sturdy, beautiful writing and am committed to our pact of making sure it comes into the world.

My poetry students inspire me with their joy, their willingness to be pushed and to share, and with all they have to say in their poems and to each other. They make me happy about poetry. (In fact, I’m using my RFB posts to showcase what I create from the prompts I give them.) Also, I’m lucky to have great poet friends like Aaron Smith and Lois Williams to turn to when I need smart poetic eyes and serious edits, plus other writing and visual artist friends who I can talk to about creating in general.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I’m working on another manuscript, and my goal is to have a draft done in the next few months. I’m just about at the point where I want to start making stacks on my floor, and that excites me.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

The metal slide you put on your finger and wiggle around to make those soulful, eerie steel guitar sounds.

Two Poems by JoAnne McKay

2011-06-23T05:01:00.001-06:00

From The Fat Plant

Diamond People

There was a shooting once in Bristol
on a brilliant shining august day.
Unsurprisingly, I can remember
the name of the killer: Crackhead Trevor.
The man who died?
His name? His name I have forgot,
but not his roles: jewellery shop manager,
victim, nor the golden hair still gleaming
on the remaining side of his head –
it was a shotgun job, you see.

And there were others too that blinding day
whose names… whose names I have forgot.
The woodentop, recently excised
from collator’s office where he had sat
amongst paper shadows and bad men’s names
for far too many informing years,
he had the brains to grab the witness
and drive her straightway to St. Pauls
to tour the area to see if he,
the suspect (name unknown then) could be found.

And that witness was a youngish woman
with a daughter dressed in sparkling blue
who she gave away to a passer-by
older woman, but stranger still
trusting child’s life to an unknown other
to seek the killer of an unknown man.

She found him, by the way, and I was there.

And we chased Trevor in our escort
and knocked him down and he got up
and we jumped out and ran and got him
and as I held him, found I was holding still
the cigarette lit as we left the scene
tiny comet trail sparks on bloody jeans.

Once he was safe at the station and swabbed
I returned to shining Park Street,
where the sunlight bouncing off the stone
made the whole rising street heavenly.
When another woman walked up to me
and handed over an eternity ring
worth fifty-seven thousand pounds,
and she looked so sad that a man had died,
so she did her bit, for this could be
important, unsoiled, evidence.

Trevor had been emptying his pockets as he ran
and in the following hazy days
many others, nameless now
handed us precious, shining jewels
whose glints made hard certain that we’d found
the route Trevor ran down to get to ground.
All these people, these good, good people
and the only name I can now recall
is that
of Crackhead Trevor.

JoAnne McKay

© 2009-present

From Venti

The Magdalene Fleur-de-Lis

Call me Iris. Call me Lily. Your flower.
I’ll keep the boys’ chins up in wartime,
French letters and kisses a lover’s mime
that only costs them three francs for an hour.
It’s memory of me that lends them power,
yellow flag on an azure bed through time
of all the symbol whores I reign sublime;
meanings bloom with every passing shower.
Bas-relief in Babylon, carried by kings,
my spear-head as sceptre shines divine right,
the splayed sepal structure inside me cries
to the Three-In-One whose salvation sings
from within to those who can hear the light:
I split as prism before your rainbowed eyes.

JoAnne McKay

Writers Talk - JoAnne McKay

2011-06-23T05:00:00.001-06:00

Please be sure to check out JoAnne McKay's Writers Talk interview on Robert Frost's Banjo!

House of Exile – James Weeks

2011-04-21T05:01:00.005-06:00

House of Exile

My address is Oliver Ave, Oakland CA 94605; I welcome cash, money orders, credit cards and flowers. Do not send ill will or personal problems—we strive to get our troubles locally. Several years ago, for example, an elderly woman in my neighborhood, who might be en route to hell, called the Oakland authorities and claimed I (of all people) was raising chickens in my backyard– something that immigrants and rural folks have been known to do. These days, I get my eggs from the supermarket just like everybody else.

Chickens are not welcome in Oakland. Neither are goats, roosters, ducks and pigs–the very creatures that remind me of home. Chickens played an important role in "Operation Breadbasket" –my ambitious project to become somewhat self-sufficient in food production. Besides chickens, Operation Breadbasket also called for growing organic vegetables and raising New Zealand rabbits for meat.

But "Operation Breadbasket" was about more than just food. Deep down, I think, I was trying to reconnect with my Caribbean roots. Chickens strut in and out of backyards back home, without a care in the world. And one of the things I miss the most about home is the sound of roosters crowing. Shouldn’t all beings awaken to this concert of nature?

My neighbors don’t seem to think so. We live on the same block but in different worlds, and sometimes these worlds collide. And when one isn't clashing on the outside, one clashes on the inside –often it's rooted in nostalgia but sometimes it's prompted by plain old guilt.

"When are you coming back to live?" asked the mother of a close friend the last time I went home to visit. "Are you going to stay away while outsiders come in and take over the island?" She wasn't joking; she was visibly upset and wanted an answer.
This badgering went on for several minutes. I felt like I and other expatriates were being blamed for the islands' woes. I didn't know what to say. "I'll be back," I finally said sheepishly. But honestly –I don't know when. I'm married, and I have a family. When making decisions I have to think about the welfare of five people. Maybe I'll return to live when I retire or when the kids are in college, I sometimes tell myself.

Nostalgia, however, has to be weighed against economic, political, social and cultural realities, and sometimes the realities conspire against you. The Virgin Islands are in dire economic straights, salaries are low and we have mounting social problems just like anywhere else. Yet I still feel the ancestral pull....and the years passing.

James Weeks
© 2008-2011. All rights reserved

Writers Talk - James Weeks

2011-04-21T05:00:00.001-06:00

Please check out the Writers Talk interview with James Weeks on Robert Frost's Banjo!

Two Poems by Barbie Angell

2011-03-31T05:01:00.003-06:00

the meeting.

i bumped into Truth on the subway,
his clothing was ragged and torn,
and he looked with dismay
at Hatred and Rage,
and with pity at Anger and Scorn.

it seems he had left with the world in this mess
and had given up trying to try.
and he gazed up at me,
with this look so serene,
and the tear of Fate caught in his eye.

he had hidden himself in the details
by sealing up all of the doors.
he retreated inside,
just a new place to hide,
far from the violence and wars.

he had lost all his faith in Humanity
and Humanity lost faith in him,
as he started to fear for his sanity,
seeing children abused
and the face of Love bruised
while Ignorance lied on a whim.

’cause he needed a decade to think
and mix it around in his brain.
the Hurt we inflict,
the Evil, the Sick,
the Torture, the Horrors, the Pain.

he returned with a sense of frustration
that no one could help him defeat.
quite unable to find
a Peace in his mind
that would aid his attempts in the street.

see he couldn’t abide by Injustice
and he didn’t find Racism fair
and he just couldn’t see
why someone like me
could’ve found any reason to care.

i bumped into Truth on the subway
and our meeting just doesn’t seem real.
to encounter blind grace
in such a chance place,
that’s made up of concrete and steel.

barbie dockstader angell
© 1995-2011

She’s Come Undone.

I saw her today
and she’s still unraveling.
She twists her hands in her lap,
as if she could somehow knot the ends.
For a sense of closure maybe,
or to keep herself together.
Either way, it doesn’t seem to be working.
Pieces of her scattered across the coffee shop floor.
They mixed in with the stray cigarette butts
and empty sugar packets finally released
from the confines of their ceramic caddy.
And I stared at her.
Wanting to talk to her and let her know that
someday,
somewhere,
I was certain that a glue would hit the shelves of
some tiny, little environmentally friendly store for
$29.95 an application and she would be saved from
the daily chore of reassembling her jigsaw self.
But before I could decide just how to correctly
phrase all that was swimming furiously through my
brain, she was gone.
She left behind quite a bit of herself that afternoon.
And it took the bus boy a half an hour to clean up the mess....

barbie dockstader angell
© 2011

Writers Talk - Barbie Angell

2011-03-31T05:00:00.003-06:00

A happy Thursday, dear readers! As advertised, today we have Writers Talk, & this is someone with a refreshing & to my mind, quite unique take on the writing biz.

As has been the case with several of the writers involved in this series, I’ve gotten to know Barbie Angell on Twitter, where I find her humor & her perspective on the world & its quirkiness to be both compelling & entertaining. As I came to know Barbie a little better, I began exploring the poetry on her blog, & was delighted to find a fresh & unique voice, chockful of wit & demonstrating a sparkling facility for rhyme & rhythm— undervalued skills in "poebiz" these days. Here’s a brief writerly biography:

It has been said that if Shel Silverstein & Dorothy Parker had conceived a child, the result would have been Barbie Dockstader Angell. Razor wit & simple rhyming verse combine to create an innovative style. Barbie has named it “poetry for the common man.” (Although she does have plenty of women readers as well.) Bitter, satirical, humorous & sometimes brutally honest, her portfolio contains everything from rhyme to free verse, children’s and adults, as well as short stories.

Barbie was raised in Illinois & has lived in the Asheville area since 1999. She has been writing since 1986 and has won awards both academically and artistically for her poems & short stories. Barbie has been published in small press books, magazines & newspapers throughout the years & has performed her work for audiences small & large around the country.

& yes, she does have an odd obsession with Alice in Wonderland.

Barbie Angell says: “my life is in progress….constantly seeking renovations but unable to find an affordable contractor.”

I know you’ll enjoy this interview, & please check out a video of Babrie Angell reading her "Ode to Shel Silverstein" at the end of this post. Then you can read two more of her poems—“the meeting” & “She’s Come Undone”—in the post just below; these poems are also posted or on the Writers Talk blog!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

from the time i was 6 years old, my dream was to be a lawyer. i had seen the t.v. show “paperchase”and desperately wanted to make that my life. while i was living in the children’s home “Mooseheart”my english teacher Miss Ruch encouraged me & i won the only award that the school gave out for writing; the memorial day award. i met Jerry Dellinger my senior year & he convinced me to turn down my acceptance to harvard & instead attend lincoln college where he taught theater. by my second semester freshman year, he had become such a force in my life that i didn’t hesitate to follow his advice. he assured me that i was a writer not a lawyer and he encouraged that up until his death in august of 2010.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

a great deal of my pieces begin with one line. typically it’s something that i say in conversation or post on a social media site. there are poems which i have been revamping for years and ones which took only a few hours. i am constantly editing & revamping my work. mostly i try to look at anything from a new perspective. of course, this becomes difficult when the perspective i’m trying to steer away from is my own. there is a piece entitled “the meeting”which i began writing in 1995. it starts with the line, “i bumped into Truth on the subway” i was hanging out with my friend michael horn at denny’s after seeing the movie “mr. holland’s opus”and for some reason i spoke those words. at michael’s urging i wrote them down with the intention of using them in a poem. it was a full year before i ever was able to continue that thought. the poem was originally “completed”in 1996 and went on to help me garner much attention, multiple publications and achieve a 12th place out of 1400 poets in competition. last year i gave it a complete overhaul and i still don’t know if i’m done with it. at times i write while listening to headphones....my favorite music for this is Peter Gabriel....but other times all i need is a place to sit and ideally be uninterrupted.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc) ?

my poems are normally not accepted in the world of academic poetry. rhyme goes in and out of vogue and most publications do not even finish reading a work in that style. i consider my writing to be “poetry for people who don’t know they like poetry.” because of this, i typically get passed over in publications geared toward “traditional”verse and instead find opportunities in places where one does not normally find any type of poetry. i currently publish my own books as it is difficult to find an entry into the world of publishing when one has an untapped area in the world of literature. the bias in literary circles doesn’t bother me however. if one is so close-minded that they will not accept rhyme as a viable art form just because it wasn’t written 75 to 100 years ago....then that is obviously their own issue to deal with.

Has being a writer affected your relationships?

absolutely. arguing with spouses in the past, the thought of, “are you going to write about this?’or “was that line or piece about me?”has come up. when i was living in bloomington, illinois i was incredibly well-known as a performing poet. this caused quite a large problem with my boyfriend at the time since i was garnering more attention than he was a musician. we simply couldn’t go anywhere without my being recognized & asked to sign something or recited a piece. i’m far less well known here in asheville, nc but it never bothered me at all. i think that it’s really only an issue because i’m a performer and not just a reader or writer.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real”or “virtual”(in more than one sense) community.
most of my community is online. i’ve found them to be predominantly supportive, even if my style of work isn’t what they believe is the “correct”way to write poetry. i get a lot of messages and critiques from people who attempt to convince me that i shouldn’t rhyme. they seem to not notice that i do write in a variety of styles including micro-fiction, prose and free-verse. but, as i’ve said, the anti-rhyme perspective doesn’t concern me at all. if i painted my house green and green was someone’s least favorite color then their dislike wouldn’t bother me....so why should a dislike for rhyme be an issue for me either?

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

literary world domination. : ) i’d like to get a literary agent and ideally be published with Grand Central Publishing. my goal used to be Harper Collins because they published Shel Silverstein, but Grand Central publishes two of my favorite authors....Rachel Simon & Steve Martin. i’d also like to have work in The New Yorker. Dorothy Parker and Steve Martin were both regular contributors and i feel that my work would be well-received by the magazine’s audience.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

the violin. it’s an instrument which can be used both as a violin or a fiddle. the versatility of it is reminiscent of my variety of styles and genres. as i understand it, a slight change in pressure and tempo can change the same combination of string, wood and space into an entirely different instrument. that appeals to me and is precisely what i attempt to do with my words. recently a theater company in illinois produced some of my poetry for the stage. i wasn't involved with any part of the production, not the choice of poems, order of pieces or how they were performed. i was happily surprised to see that some work, which i had always thought presented itself as comedic, came off well as dramatic or vice versa. i was honored to discover that not only was my writing far more adaptable than i had imagined, but also able to be enjoyed as a performance even without me being onstage.

it is my habit online to type in all lower case unless i capitalize to illustrate respect or for emphasis. this being an online interview i chose to continue this practice....i hope that it has not interfered with your understanding of my responses. : ) thank you for reading.

"Blackbird Lawn" - Juliet Wilson

2011-03-17T05:01:00.001-06:00

Blackbird Lawn

This male blackbird has one white eyebrow
but sings as beautifully as the rest.
His mate is the brown of polished chestnuts
with a beak as bright as his.
Dutifully they collect food, wait
every morning for the scattered raisins
to carry to their brood.

Soon they will come to the lawn
with large-mouthed, speckled young -
teach them to pull worms from grass,
to recognise the footfalls
that promise sweetness.

Juliet Wilson
© 2010

from the chapbook Unthinkable Skies, published 2010 by Calder Wood Press

Writers Talk - Juliet Wilson

2011-03-17T05:00:00.005-06:00

Please check out Juliet Wilson's Writers Talk interview on Robert Frost's Banjo!

Wolves at Bay - Jack Varnell

2011-03-10T05:01:00.002-07:00

Wolves At Bay

I loved you enough to not understand.
I could not fully relate or sympathize.
I did not really want to, even if I could have.
Whatever he, or they, did with you, or to you,
will die with you, though it lives, churning in you now.

Rusty autumn day, leaves fell like youth abducted.
Stumbling from the abandoned house on Bay Lane,
late using your latchkey, emerging disoriented,
with school uniform blouse ripped, and a bloodstain
red like maple leaves, on your skirt.
"Do you believe in God?" was the first thing you said.

For the first and only time in my life
I was very aware and very sad I wasn't God,
and that holding you seemed wrong.
Comforting you, an elusive goal.

Together, over the years,
two creative spirits led by denial, and fear
conspired enough to create a band-aid tale.
One of how you encountered, in shortcut alley
a slobbering, rabid alpha wolf,
followed by his frenzied omega pack.

You escaped out the window,
with the leaves raining orange and red like fire.
You stumbled down leafy paths,
into the safety of the concrete paths
where kneeling, you were reborn.
By asking if I believed in God.

It seems so long ago,
almost another time and place.
Even now, when I hold you in my arms,
I wonder where you are.
If you are hiding from me.

From my deepest slumber
I sometimes awaken to hear
the howls of wolves at Bay,
and your sleepy whispered cry.

I wonder if it is their night.
I check out the window,
with leaves raining orange and red like fire
wondering if the moon is full.
I ask myself if I believe in God.

Jack Varnell
© 2011

Writers Talk - Jack Varnell

2011-03-10T05:00:00.002-07:00

It’s Thursday, & time for Writers Talk! I’m most gratified that we can include Jack Varnell, AKA The Emotional Orphan, in this series. His poems are memorable: flashes of emotion & image, & are very direct, a characteristic he shares with one of my own favorite poets, Kenneth Patchen. Here’s a brief writerly bio:

Jack Varnell is a contemporary prose poet & writer living in the suburbs of Atlanta, Ga. USA

Usually writing under the pseudonym "The Emotional Orphan", & predominantly an online writer, he has been published at Culture Sandwich, The Literary Burlesque, Verses In Motion, Undead Poets Society, Sick Of 'Em, Pigeonbike Poetry, & Red Fez.

Print Selections include Guerilla Pamphlets 7, & due this spring from Popshot Magazine, & All The King's Horses-Volume 3 in the 'Expression of Depression' anthology series from LittleEpisodes/Little Brown Book Group in the UK

Jack's blog is Emotional Orphan.
His RedRoom author page is at this link.

Please be sure to check out Jack Varnell’s poem “Wolves at Bay” over at the Writers Talk blog—& now, on to the interview!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?
I began writing at a very young age. I wrote a short story called “Freddy the Rat” at around age six. It was around the same time my mother held a figurative gun to my head in order to encourage me to play the piano rather than concern myself with silly games like baseball. I had seen “Ben” with Michael Jackson, and “Willard” - those cheesy 70’s movies about the rats, and decided the theme from Ben needed to be the song I did in my recital. “Freddy the Rat” was homage to him. Ben. Not Michael.

Since I never really attended school successfully, I really didn’t write too much in my teens and early twenties. My imagination was always on spin cycle, and I was more concerned with living the stories that eventually become poems. I read all the time, and developed a keen taste for some of the masters like Hermann Hesse, Sartre, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche and the likes, but missed a bunch of the more familiar contemporary authors, and studied few contemporary poets. I tended to lean more towards a spiritual, philosophical, or even utopian or dystopian type of write, so when I did pick up a pen it was usually something flavored by those writers. My writing output was limited, with the exception of sappy, silly love letters, legal briefs, letters to the Parole Board asking for leniency, and Writs of Habeas Corpus for my hoodlum buddies.

I am a recovering addict, clean for seventeen years now. In rehab I was told I was told I was an “emotional orphan”, and that I needed to learn how to get in touch with my feelings at a deeper level. Journaling on a daily basis was the tool they used to have me learn that, and I discovered that it worked, and more importantly offered a way to express myself in a truthful and creative manner. I rarely do fiction, and have been writing essays, stories, shorts and poetry since then. Much of my work is under the pseudonym “The Emotional Orphan” for that very reason.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.
Most all of my poetry follows a similar pattern, and it is a little different than most poets I have known or read about. I generally am focused on the actual who, what, where, when, and why of my own life experiences. I don’t usually shy away from topics that are not that easy to swallow because that is how a lot of my life has been. I have had a colorful and exciting life with exposure to things most have only seen on television or read in books. Anything I may be exposed to may end up on the page at some point. Some have notebooks of stories, poems, etcetera. I have phrases, anecdotes, half finished pieces, observations and random thoughts.

My writing usually includes two important factors. The first is honesty. I cannot succeed if I am afraid of telling the truth, or with too much concern of how it will be interpreted. Secondly, my experiences are the key piece of evidence in my crimes against poetry or literature.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)
At this point, my relationship with the publishing process is a bit like two teenagers at a school dance. She is the homecoming queen, cheerleader - too pure for any car backseat. I am the acne scarred guy, leaning against the wall staring lustfully at her from across the room. The secret weapon is poetry, not beer.

I have been writing, and refraining from doing submissions for about two years, and simply focusing on the art, and the mechanics involved. I also want my voice to be heard so I read any and all journals, lit mags, and different publishers with the intent of learning where that voice might get heard. I did a little self publishing test online to evaluate the potential, and timing for a chapbook or larger collection.

I’ve been experimenting with Broadsides, and simply writing to build an arsenal of poems ready to be …somewhere.

Having a sales and marketing background, I have also been somewhat a student of the changes in the publishing world and who is responsible for the success of a writer. The reality is that ultimately the writer controls his own fate. Branding has been important to me with the Emotional Orphan Blog, and twitter, tumblr, posterous, and many other social media outlets, blogs, and writing / arts communities. So, if you look at your business card and the words Penguin, Copper Canyon, or something similar is attached to the company you work for, I have done half the work already.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Although writing is a solitary exercise, I have been given so much from the writing community from across all genres, and forms. My real world relationships may have been minimized a bit.They have been replaced by a strong core group of creative and talented friends who support each other and offer critique and feedback, from an honest perspective with the intention of perfecting their craft. Writers like Caroline Hagood, Laura Mercurio Ebohon, Fran Lock, and Jodi MacArthur, whose writing styles are completely different, have been particularly gracious and instrumental in sharing words of wisdom and making sure to pay attention to my work that gets “out there”

Besides them, there are possibly hundreds of writers online that I read as often as I can, and many others who lend support through Facebook and other social media outlets. Daily, I am embarrassed by running across someone that I meant to keep up with that I have neglected to read.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I have some long time friends and writers who I try to interact with regularly. I also float in and out of various groups designed to support, enlighten and critique each others work. The HIGHdra Syndicate is an outstanding group of young writers and poets who study at the feet of the masters from the Outlaw Poetry Movement. We are pretty headstrong about making some noise, and a difference in the publishing world, and the reception and recognition of poetry at large. Outlaw poetry, as described by the incomparable S.A Griffin just last night, is not picking up guns, robbing banks and going on the lam, it is about having a finger on the pulse of society and having the courage to shake things up a little in order to wake up the masses. Poets like S.A., A.Razor, Rafael F.J.Fajardo, Scott Wannberg, John Dorsey, and infinite others have been doing it for a long time. There are many others like Frankie Metropolis, Edaurdo Jones, Diana Rose, Murphy Clamrod, Jason Hardung, High Jack Flash, Jack Shaw, Christian Alvarez, Yossarian Hunter, Newamba Flamingo, Sean Hogan, and a host of others are making some noise. Publishers like Epic Rites Press, and Wolfgang Carstens are giving an outlet for the voices of writers like Rob Plath, John Yamrus, Jack Henry, and Karl Koweski, while keeping alive the words of Todd Moore, one of the original Outlaws and a master no longer with us …in the physical. We believe pretty strongly in the power of both the spoken and written word and make use of any and all tools available to connect with the masses. These tools include everything from banged up antique typewriters, to iPhones, and our internet radio channel on BlogTalk Radio.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the community of artists and writers at Little Episodes. Primarily based in the UK, LE has a stated mission of “Dispelling the notion that art is a corporate commodity-Giving the artistic industries back to the artist- Promoting the arts as a platform to incite empathy and understanding.“ It is an incredible community of support, and talent that has proven to be an indispensible place to give and take in order to grow as an artist.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

For now, my intention is to keep writing, and submitting. I have had some success, but I don’t necessarily measure that in number of books or poems published. It is more about gleaning all I can from those more educated, and experienced, and following the proven method of getting the words out there. I tend to be a little analytical about it all. The words of my fellow writers are more powerful to me than how often I have been published, the rejections with critique more valuable than the acceptance letters.

I think finding a cure for my aversion to apostrophes and extreme addiction to ellipses may be equally as important, and I do have a secret desire to actually finish an English class one day. Hopefully royalties from my first book may provide the means to actually go to college. For a while, at least.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Let me clarify, would a machete be considered a musical instrument?

Seriously, I think my Mother’s statement many years ago about how I would one day regret that I didn’t pursue the piano with a little more dedication holds true. I believe a piano would accomplish what I would like to with my writing. It has the potential to offer intense and powerful music, while also having the ability to calmly tickle the imagination and take it to places unseen. There is a journey to be enjoyed, and if you just close your eyes it can take you almost anywhere through the good, the bad and the ugly. For the bad and ugly, it offers a solution and some peace. You can find a home there.

Erasmus on Rise Again - Lana Bortolot

2011-03-03T05:01:00.001-07:00

Erasmus on Rise Again

New York, February 1, 2011

As the abandoned, 225-year-old Erasmus Hall Academy in Flatbush slips into decay, some have been dismayed by the Department of Education's apparent lack of interest in saving the building and by private donors' broken promises to do so. But it now looks as if Erasmus will finally get its angel.

A new, $300,000 matching grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is likely to jump-start restoration of the building, which once housed the oldest chartered high school in New York and counts Founding Fathers John Jay and Alexander Hamilton among its early benefactors.

While the DOE had no apparent plans for the academy building, it gave the New York Landmarks Conservancy its blessing to pursue a rescue plan. When previous attempts by the alumni association to raise awareness or funds were unsuccessful, the conservancy sought grants on behalf of the city and commissioned a survey of conditions in the building. The report, completed in December, raised new hope for Erasmus.

"Now, for the first time we have a report that says here's what has to be done, and it's not a building that's going to fall down unless people allow it to," said Peg Breen, president of the landmarks conservancy. "It's to [DOE's] credit that they're willing to work with us and turn us loose."

Built in 1786 on land donated by the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church, the Federal-style wooden structure has good bones and an undisputed pedigree. In 1966, it became one of the earliest city-designated landmarks; it received National Register for Historic Places designation in 1975.

Inside Brooklyn's Very Old School

The 225-year-old Erasmus Hall Academy in Brooklyn once housed the oldest chartered high school in New York and counts two founding fathers among its early benefactors.

But the academy, enclosed in the quadrangle formed by the newer Erasmus Hall High School, a Gothic structure that's also a city landmark, has been vacant for more than 10 years. Cracked paint, crumbled porches and broken shingles now define its exterior.

Inside, a few artifacts—mannequins in period costume, Colonial furniture and school memorabilia—hint at its failed stint as a museum. It's now used as storage for school records and discarded band instruments.

Ron Schweiger, Brooklyn's borough historian, visited the site three years ago. "I don't know what's going to happen to the thing—it's a piece of local and national history," he said. "It's a shame because it's part of the education history of New York and Brooklyn."

No schooling has taken place in the academy building since the mid-1930s; students attend the adjacent high school, which boasts a long list of noted alumni such as Barbra Streisand, Eli Wallach, Mickey Spillane and Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis.

Despite the exterior deterioration, a sagging attic and considerable water damage, the consulting engineers who surveyed the building gave the former school a good report card.

"It's remarkable that we still have this building intact and in a condition that's not so bad that we have to throw our hands up," said Daniel J. Allen, partner at Cutsogeorge Tooman & Allen Architects, the firm that prepared the conditions report.

Still, exterior restoration is estimated to cost $2.2 million. Paint abatement for toxins such as lead, a new roof, dormers and windows are the highest ticket items. Structural work is estimated at another $500,000.

Before restoration can begin, the conservancy must first match the state grant. Then it can prioritize work to stabilize the building. Full-on restoration likely won't begin for a couple of years. In the meantime, the conservancy has recommended no-cost measures such as gutter maintenance to allay further water damage.

"Bringing in the funding is on the horizon. We first had to understand what we were dealing with," said Karen Ansis, the conservancy's funding manager and an Erasmus alumna. She met with alumni Jan. 22 to apprise them of costs and funding strategies.

Finding a use for the quirky building is another challenge. Its location within a secured school setting presents access and related issues for others using the building. People close to the project envision a cultural or community center or administrative offices for educators.

"It's an issue for the DOE to figure out how to use the building; we don't regulate the use," said John Weiss, deputy counsel at the city landmarks commission, adding, "[But] the future certainly looks bright for a building that is very historically significant on a national level."

A DOE spokeswoman said it was too early at this stage to comment. The department will remain owner of the building, and the School Construction Authority—DOE's building and design division—will likely oversee restoration. What remains uncertain is whether a user will be found for the building.

That doesn't deter Ms. Breen. "I think in the midst of all this—who's on first and how we're going to do this—we have this incredible building with ties to our Founding Fathers: How can you not go all out to save it?"

Published in The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 2011

Writers Talk - Lana Bortolot

2011-03-03T05:00:00.005-07:00

Happy Thursday to you! I’m so pleased to announce that after a month-long hiatus, Writers Talk is back—& we’re celebrating its return by interviewing a special writer & a special friend, New York City journalist Lana Bortolot.

My association with Lana Bortolot dates back to the early 1980s when we were both studying English literature at the University of Vermont. Lana moved on from studies of Henry James, Geoffery Chaucer et al. to work in a Washington, DC law firm, but on to study journalism & obtained her masters degree from New York University by way of Virginia Commonwealth University. Lana is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and amNewYork, where she covers arts & culture, & urban affairs as well as other travel/lifestyle magazines. She specializes in historic preservation & community development, wine & travel, especially in regions where grapes grow (she is someone who gives her passport a regular & thorough workout).

I know Lana as someone with a dry & incisive wit, deep passions & an equally deep sense of integrity. All these characteristics come to thefore in her writing, which is consistently crisp, clear & inviting to the imagination as her words take the reader to exotic locales—whether those locales exist on the shores of the Adriatic or the sidewalks of Astoria. I’m very pleased to bring a journalist’s perspective to the Writers Talk series & even more pleased that the journalist is my dear friend, Lana Bortolot.

Please check out the companion Writers Talk blog for a piece Lana contributed to the Wall Street Journal (published in the Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2011—here's a link to the article on the WSJ site, where you can watch a super slideshow the Journal put together for the piece), & you can also check out more of her writing, as well as find back stories for her reporting on Lana’s excellent blog. & now—here’s Lana:

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I wrote my first short story when I was nine years old and that’s when I thought I would be a writer. I didn’t write anything again until a few poems in college after a heartbreak. When those poems were dwarfed by the more brilliant writer in my life, I didn’t pick up again on writing until I went to grad school for journalism about 10 years later. But it took a while to figure out what to write because I was never interested in a news beat: I fancied myself a features writer. Which, of course, is in high demand and pays quite a lot. As I’ve evolved as a journalist, I found I could cover news stories in a humanistic way—and even incorporate those elements of creative non-fiction to which I’d always been attracted. People don’t think news stories are crafted. But that’s not true. And when I realized that, I evolved from being a journalist to being a writer.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

While living in Italy, I wrote a number of travel essays for newspapers and guidebooks and I always remembered what Zinsser said about travel writing, which pertains to much writing: “The writer must keep a tight rein on your subjective self … and keep an objective eye on the reader.”

So, my approach was experiential: what did it feel like to be in a place and why? Was it mystical or romantic because of history? Some sense of loss or abandonment? Why would a reader forsake the better-known sites to come to this one and what were the rewards? Those were always the questions I had to answer before I pursued some folly of a story. Those details have to be significant to someone other than me. Once I articulated the experience of being there, I went back and inserted the facts that were the backbone of the story. The goal: make the story serviceable, imaginative and free of cliché.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I’m on deadline for everything I produce, and it’s a pretty clean relationship: my editors assign and I deliver. But now, with the onslaught of social media and the necessity of engaging in that as a form of self-promotion, I spend a lot more time thinking about how I can extend the story beyond my assigned word count. Having a blog, for instance, allows me to write the back story. And it also allows me to deliver uncluttered copy to my primary publisher, usually a newspaper, knowing I can explore related ideas or segues into a blog. It’s a lot more work—sometimes writing the story twice—but it also gives me license to combine experiential writing with more candid observations outside traditional journalism.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

I have made a vow to never become involved with another writer. So, while I have no competition, I also have no support. Oh well.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I find journalists fairly supportive of each other because there’s enough room for everyone to find a niche and thrive. So, there’s a lot of room to be admiring, supportive and congratulatory. Maybe that’s because NYC, where I live, is so huge, there are a million stories and a million opportunities to succeed. And when things are bad, we all bitch about the same thing, and that’s strangely bonding. About half the time I write about wine, which is a much smaller community. Still, I find my wine-writer colleagues friendly and willing to share sources and ideas. Maybe it’s because wine journalism is such a social vocation?

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I think I have a memoir in me somewhere. I would like to try writing in longer, more descriptive form that doesn’t bow to the ecomony of words. But, I am also very happy in my current urban-affairs reporting gig, which allows me to pursue under-the-radar stories, and I’d like to develop that more. Technology is causing us to lose so many human stories; that kind of journalism helps preserve them.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?
A cello: long and deeply thought. Not easy to get into, but, I think, with an unexpected reward at the end.

Image of Ms Bortolot in the Writers Talk graphic is from a photo by Uschi Becker.

Nine Ladies Dancing - P.J. Kaiser

2011-01-27T05:01:00.002-07:00

Nine Ladies Dancing

My back hurts me. I stand, stretch my arms over my head, and then settle back onto the concrete stoop. I push myself up against the door so I don’t hang off the tiny step too far. Folding my hands on my lap, I look up and down at the front doors lining the city sidewalk.

I really got to pee.

There’s that pigeon again, strutting on the sidewalk like he was a peacock. I swear he gets paid to keep an eye on me. He bends to the ground, pecking among the brown leaves at invisible treats. If he gets paid more than I do to sit here, I’ll be pissed.

I lock eyes with the pigeon. ”Can you watch while I go pee?”

He nods. I jump up from the stoop, fling open the door and slip into the bathroom just inside. I hear their voices from the basement. Some laughing. Some yelling. Panic runs through me at the thought of them hearing me come inside. I almost can’t pee. Oh, there it comes. I button up, fly back out the door and sit on the stoop again.

The pigeon looks up from his pecking. His expression seems to warn me not to leave my post again. I knew I shouldn’t have had that soda this morning. It always makes me pee.

I scan the doors and windows around me. I catch a glimpse of a shadow in one of the windows across the street on the second floor. Squinting, I see the apartment is still vacant, the way it’s been since the old guy who lived there died a couple of months ago.

Tom Spinosa walks down the sidewalk towards me. He must be running late today. Or maybe he had an errand to run.

His loud voice always startles me. “Morning, Howie. How’s it goin’, kid?”
I stand and step to one side so he can go in the door. ”Oh, you know, Mr. Spinosa. The usual.”

“Take it easy.” He closes the door behind him. I sit again.

I check my watch. 10:30am. I hope I didn’t miss her while I was inside peeing. I crane my neck around the side of the building. Nope, here she comes: my favorite scenery of the day.

She floats down the sidewalk, blonde hair slicked back. Her long black coat is unbuttoned; it sweeps open as she walks so I can see her costume. I’m going to cry when she has to button it against the cold. Pink, gauzy fabric covers her. Her hips sway, ruffling the gray ballet skirt flaring out from her waist.

Some days she is running late and doesn’t glance at me. Today she’s early. She smiles at me with fiery lips and tosses her head, flipping her ponytail. I attempt a smile but it feels more like a smirk on my face. She walks past and leaves a soft scent of fancy perfume behind in the crisp air. I breathe it in as I watch her continue down the sidewalk.

Once she’s out of sight, I pull on the corner of my baseball cap and settle back against the stoop. The pigeon looks at me again and seems to raise his eyebrows, if he had any.

“No, you can’t have her. She’s all mine.”

I hear Christmas music from one of the nearby apartments and recognize it instantly: ”Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies” from the Nutcracker. I have plenty of visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.

*****

Chief Miller falls to the carpet in the second floor apartment, as Howie looks straight at him.

He says, “Shit. He might have seen me.”

The Chief crawls on his knees until he is well back from the window in the shadows and resumes peering down at Howie on the stoop. He sees Spinosa arrive. Scanning the checklist on the table – the only furniture in the room besides three folding chairs – he makes a checkmark next to Tom Spinosa’s name. All the other names already have checkmarks. At some point during the morning, all gang members have entered the house and nobody has left.

The Chief says, “I figure we have at least another hour while the group is there to make our bust. Let’s go ahead and radio the guys to take their positions. Tell them ten minutes to ‘go’ time.”

The Lieutenant picks up the radio mic and says into it, “Attention all units. Operation Ballerina will commence in an estimated ten minutes, at 11:00am. Take your positions and wait for the signal.”

Chief Miller turns to the rookie standing next to him. “OK, kid. Your job is to get Howie away from that door without him ringing the buzzer. I think our plan will work, but in the end, just do whatever you have to do. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you know what I mean. I’ve known his family for years. I’d really rather not have him involved in any of this.”

“OK, Chief,” the rookie says. “I’m ready.”

*****

A kid about my age comes walking down the street. He stops when he gets to where I’m sitting.

“Hey, how’s it going?” He says.

“It’s going okay. What’s up?”

He slips his hands in his pockets. “Oh, nothing. I’m just on my way to the dance studio around the corner.”

“The dance studio?”

He grins at me. “Yeah. You know there’s a class going on right now in the front room. You can stand on the sidewalk and watch it through the picture window.”

My heart beats in my ears. “Really? Those classes are normally in the back room.”

“I know, right? Well, my buddy called me and told me that today it’s in the front room and …” He leans towards me and whispers. “They’ve got nine ladies dancing in there today.”

“Nine? You’re shitting me. There are usually only three or four in that class.”

He nods slowly. “Nine. My buddy just told me. You want to come with me to watch them?”

I shake my head. “No, sorry, I can’t. Um, I’m waiting for a friend to come.” I have butterflies in my stomach thinking about my blonde with eight other ladies dancing.

“Are you sure? It’s just around the corner and it would only be for a minute or two. These women are incredible in their dance outfits with their fluffy skirts …”

“Oh, okay. But only for a minute.” I look for the pigeon but I don’t see him anywhere. My hands shake as I walk with the kid down the street.

We round the corner and I rush to the window of the dance studio. Darkness fills the front room, but a glimmer of light shines through the doorway to the back room. I look at the kid and start to ask him what the deal is.

He says, “Kid, you’ve got to get out of here. A bust is going down.”

I just stare at him and then I hear the shout from around the corner. ”Police! Open up!” My eyes fly open.

“Run, kid!” He pushes me. I stumble and then run in the direction away from my stoop. I hear more shouts in the distance. A staccato of gunshots.

My raspy breathing drowns out any further sounds from my ears. I run many blocks until I feel my lungs seize up and my legs buckle. Panic has now spread to every corner of my body. An image flashes through my mind: the look on Spinosa’s face when he finds out I wasn’t at my post when the bust went down.

I reach into my pocket. $71 and some chewing gum. Plenty to get some lunch.

I have run and walked further than I thought because I see my favorite diner just across the street. I cross, swing open the door and enter, taking a seat at the counter. Sweat pours down my face and neck. I mop myself with a napkin. The silver-haired waitress takes my order, but then my eyes are riveted to the television hanging in the corner.

Dozens of dancers recede to the edges of the stage and one ballet dancer in soft pink floats across the center of the stage as if a string suspends her. The soft plucking sounds come at my ears for the second time today: “The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies.” Anger and shame boil up in me.

I say, “Could you change the channel, please?”

The waitress purses her lips and sighs, but she flips the channel with the remote.

The head and shoulders of a newscaster fill the screen. I pour cream into my coffee from a tin pitcher and stir. I put the cup to my lips. The next image on the screen is that of Tom Spinosa. The newscaster says, “We have some breaking news to report…” My hand begins shaking. I put my cup down on the saucer as coffee splashes out of either side of the mug.

“We don’t have many details at the moment, but we are working on a story for the evening report regarding the arrest of the notorious crime boss Thomas Spinosa and many of his gang members. We are getting reports of up to twenty-two arrests. Three of the members of the gang were fatally shot during the bust, which was carried out a short time ago by local police. Be sure to watch the six o’clock report for further details on this story.”

The silver-haired waitress appears with my plate of food in her hand. She sets it down in front of me. “Are you okay, son?”

I pick up my napkin to clean up the spilled coffee. “Yes, thanks.”

As I chew each mouthful of food, I run some calculations. Twenty-two arrests. Three dead. That leaves seventeen gang members who are still free. That leaves seventeen gang members who will be coming after me for betraying them by leaving my post. Seventy-one dollars. Subtract fifteen dollars for lunch. That leaves just enough for a forty-nine dollar bus ticket to my cousin’s house in Spartan. My mom’s been trying to kick me out of the house for years, anyway.

I finish my lunch, leave the fifteen dollars next to my plate and walk outside. It feels much cooler than it did earlier. The pigeon sits just outside the diner door.

“You want to come with me? You know, you weren’t there either.”

The pigeon twitches his head from side to side.

“Okay, suit yourself, but I’ll bet they have ballet dancers in Spartan.” I head towards the bus station, leaving the pigeon to face his fate alone.

PJ Kaiser
© 2010
This story appeared previously in the 12 Days 2010 anthology, edited by Jim Bronyaur.

Writers Talk - PJ Kaiser

2011-01-27T05:00:00.004-07:00

Happy Thursday, folks, & welcome to another edition of Writers Talk. Today’s writer is PJ Kaiser, a real presence in the Twitter & blogging writing communities & a wonderfully supportive person as well as a talented writer. It's been my observation that Ms Kaiser has a good grasp of how to utilize social media in her career as an independent writer, & I believe she has a lot to teach others who are looking to make a mark in fiction or poetry outside the traditional publishing model.

P.J. Kaiser stays at home with her two young children and finds time to write – generally in thirty-second increments. She writes mostly flash fiction and serial stories in a variety of genres. Several of her stories have appeared in print and electronic publications. Two of her stories - “The Request” and “The Foot of the Bridge” have appeared at Soft Whispers. Her story “The Turtle Dove” appeared in the anthology 12 Days 2009. “Halloween Guests” was selected for the Best of Friday Flash Volume 1 anthology. Her micro-fiction “Ditz Alert” was selected for the chapbook Dog Days of Summer 2010 – Not From Here, Are You?. She also assisted with editing the anthology 50 Stories for Pakistan, which includes her story “Arthur’s Emptiness.” In early 2010, she won the February writing challenge at Write On! Online with her story “Waiting for Spring.” She also has stories forthcoming in 100 Stories for Queensland and in Nothing but Flowers: Tales of Post-Apocalyptic Love, a publication of Emergent Publishing. She can be found hanging around at her blog Inspired by Real Life. P.J. is also the co-moderator of Tuesday Serial, a weekly collection of links to the latest installments of some of the web’s best online serials. P.J. is working on publishing a collection of her stories and is working on her first novel. P.J. lives with her family in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Don’t forget to check out PJ Kaiser’s story “Nine Ladies Dancing” on The Writers Talk blog!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

In high school I had an assignment to write a short story. So I wrote the story, but I wasn’t sure of the ending. So I kept writing. And writing. It was, of course, complete drivel, but I had great fun writing it and I began to think that maybe one day I would like to learn how to write “for real.” I’ve always been an avid reader and I think most avid readers harbor dreams of being a writer.

We lived in Mexico for several years and while we were there I met a woman originally from Germany. She told us the most fascinating stories about her life and I told her she should write her memoir. She dismissed the idea since she had no interest in writing. So I decided to take up the challenge. I spent a summer interviewing her and gathering information for the book and then unfortunately we lost touch. So the book will be fiction but very loosely based on a real story.

I decided that I had to learn how to write properly in order to do her story justice and it’s been a fascinating journey for me. This first novel is in very rough draft stages right now (I won NaNoWriMo 2009 with it) but in the meantime I have enjoyed learning how to write short stories and serial fiction. I’ve experimented with a wide variety of genres, but haven’t yet found one with which I want to be monogamous.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

My most recent serial story “Rainy Rendezvous” was inspired by a friend’s Facebook update. He commented that he enjoyed going kayaking alone because it was so peaceful. I commented that would be a great inspiration for a story…and no sooner had I made the comment than my mind began churning on an idea and within a week I had drafted five installments of a serial story.

Recent short stories have been inspired by seeing a woman fall on a street corner next to a crossing guard, getting a pedicure, and going swimming (not all at once ;-). And several stories have been inspired by dreams. Nearly all of my stories are inspired by something from my real life, even if it’s just a tiny nugget of real life. Hence the name of my blog “Inspired by Real Life.”

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

My main publishing activity at the moment is blogging, apart from a few short stories that have been published. I began writing in the summer of 2009 and my main focus at the moment is on improving my craft rather than publishing. I am, however, beginning to pull together and polish some of my stories in hopes of publishing an e-book collection.

My blog recently crashed and I am in the process of reconstructing it. So, because it’s fresh in my mind, I can tell you that I have written 71 stories – including flash fiction and serial installments. Twenty-four of these, by the way, will not be carried over to the new blog (or anywhere else); they are being “retired.”

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Most of my family thinks I’ve been pursuing a strange little pastime. That might have changed a bit when I gave each of them a copy of “50 Stories for Pakistan” which includes one of my stories. ;-)

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I don’t have a “real” writing community because I can never seem to leave the house without my two children. But my virtual community more than makes up for its absence. I got the bug to write originally from people I encountered on Twitter and my writing community has grown organically through Twitter. I participate off and on in various Twitter chats such as #writechat and #litchat and my main writing communities come from #fridayflash and #tuesdayserial. I can’t even begin to describe the friendships that I’ve made and the things I’ve learned from my friends in my virtual writing community – they’ve been indispensible.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

At the moment, my goals are very loose. I want to keep writing short stories and serial fiction as I have bits of time here and there. I want to continue to improve my writing by taking classes and working with editors. Eventually I want to finish my novel. I find that if I put too many deadlines or milestones on my plans, then I get too stressed out and I turn away from writing. So, keeping things low-key allows me to continue to enjoy it and stay with it.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Hmmm, I’m going to say a piano. When it works, the sound is fantastic. Every now and then, though, I strike a clunker that sticks out like a sore thumb. I am just trying to work on striking clunkers with less frequency.

Writers Talk - Caroline Hagood

2011-01-13T05:00:00.003-07:00

It’s my pleasure to introduce this week’s writer, Caroline Hagood. Ms Hagood is yet another writer I’ve meet in the Twitterverse—you writers out there who aren’t on Twitter, I must say you’re missing out on lots of smart & supportive folks. Since meeting Caroline on Twitter, I’ve also begun to follow her excellent Culture Sandwich, an aptly named blog that I recommend highly. Ms Hagood’s writerly bio reads as follows:

Caroline Hagood is a poet and writer who spends way too much time on the internet. She teaches English and writing at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. She has written on arts and culture for The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post, and her own blog, Culture Sandwich, among others. Her poetry has appeared in Shooting the Rat (Hanging Loose Press), Movin' (Orchard Books), Huffington Post, Angelic Dynamo, Ginosko, and Manhattan Chronicles. She has also written a collection of poetry and a novel. She's always looking for adventure, the perfect slice of pizza, and new creative projects.

& now, on to the interview:

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

As a weird little girl who thought everything should be either magical or funny, and when it wasn’t, decided to write it that way.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

Whenever I’m working on anything, the equation seems to be writing with a side order of life. So my typical Sunday would look something like this: Writing with brief interludes of eating anything in the chocolate family; watching old Twilight Zone episodes; crying over little things; laughing over little things; going people-watching; reading some big book that I feel I should have read already; calling my friend to tell her something funny; and googling for entirely too long.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I should really hatch some green plan to recycle all my rejection letters into something extraordinary. Yet my relationship to the publishing process remains…hopeful. I’m certainly grateful to all the people who have agreed to publish my poems and articles.

Actually, publishing takes on a whole new meaning when you start your own blog. I remember being nervous at first, then hesitantly sending my words out into the blogo-verse. Suddenly, I got to assume all the roles in the little play of my own publication. I had a place to air my interests and found myself with more of them than ever. Having a blog is like being able to place each of your orphaned ideas in loving homes. It’s pretty powerful.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

It’s a wonder my husband hasn’t left me. Just kidding (I think). I like to think that my all-encompassing fixation brings new things to the lives of those I love. This is true on good days. On bad days, I can be a moody one—one of those horrible writer stereotypes that’s true, in my case.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

At this point, it’s definitely more virtual because most of my in-flesh friends aren’t writers. Of my cyber-writing-squad, I’d say we’re an obsessive, lonely, self-deprecating, goofy, excitable bunch, in love with information and putting together and taking things apart with our minds, who can take out a box of donuts in one sitting, oh wait, that last one is just me.

There’s one blogger in particular, Hansel Castro over at Hallucina, whose blog I love. I befriended him in the first flush of my blogging life, but have never met him, at least not in that boring, real-world sense.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

Besides taking over the writing world and reinventing language? No, but seriously, I would like to be able to complete the writing projects on my exceedingly long to-do-list, which I revise in my mind pretty much all the time, but especially while on stopped subways, in boring movies, or while being chewed out by authority figures, which happens more than you might think. It would also be nice to have those writings be appreciated by the public, but that might be asking too much. At this point, with Manhattan real estate being what it is, I might just settle for a room of my own.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?
It would definitely be a trombone. No doubt about it. I was never one for subtle.

Don't Fall Asleep, A Dream Assassin Novel (excerpt) - Laura Eno

2011-01-06T05:01:00.002-07:00

Excerpt from Don't Fall Asleep, A Dream Assassin Novel

Light bounced off alley walls in odd places amid the swirling tendrils of fog. Cassandra's heels clicked on cobblestone, the only sound in this junkie's paradise. She knew her quarry heard her footsteps, but imagined his mind tried to fit the sound into his fevered dream as something he created. She smiled. He was in for a nasty surprise.

The only smell in this jumbled place was the man's essence—a mixture of onion/cold/mold that made Cassandra's sinuses ache. Doorways hung at odd angles on either side of her but she ignored them. The man she came for sat against the wall at the end of the alley, a pool of light cast over him like a damn spotlight.

Bloodshot eyes studied her without enthusiasm; she wasn't the pre-pubescent type that got his rocks off.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Death." A blaster appeared in her hand. His eyes widened in understanding just before she shot him.

The alley disappeared, replaced by a gray nothingness that swept his stink away as well. Cassandra smiled in grim satisfaction before stepping out of the dead man's head. Another pedophile off the streets, dead from an apparent heart attack.

She awakened back in her own body, superstition driving her to a mirror to make sure she came back unchanged. Angle-cut auburn hair and startling blue eyes gazed back at her, allowing Cassandra to let go of the tension in her body.

Relaxing on the black leather sofa, Cassandra took in the high ceilinged room with its white walls and carpet, letting the minimalist effect wash over her. She stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing at the city lights far below her perch on the cliff. Peace stole over her with surroundings so unlike the jumbled constructions of other people's dreams.

One of the hazards of being a Dream Assassin, she thought, having to poke around in the sewers of someone else's creations. She climbed off the sofa and stretched. There was still much to do before the sun rose. She left the house to continue her search.

Cassandra headed to the underbelly of the city. She wanted to experience the heartbeat of the metropolis, not shiny metal and glass buildings full of tourists ogling the sights. The Dream Merchants didn't work up top. They plied their trade down below among the desperate. One of them would make a suitable partner, although she hadn't found one yet in two months of searching.

The nondescript bar Cassandra walked into seemed like dozens of others—smells of booze and sweat, her senses reeling from unsavory essences only a Dream Merchant could read. She blocked them out and wove her way through the tables in the dim light, sitting in a corner where she could watch the customers.

There. In the opposite corner. Another Dream Merchant, weaving dreams for sale as she once had. Cassandra studied the good-looking man as he dealt with a steady stream of customers. He must be an excellent weaver, with a clientele who raced over to him the moment they hit the door.

She let down her barrier for just a moment and watched his head pop up, scanning the crowd as he sensed her. Good. He's quick-witted.

During a lull in his work, Cassandra walked over to the dark-haired man. "Can I buy you a drink?"

He looked up at her with jade-green eyes and a sardonic smile on his face. "Sorry, lady. I don't swing that way."

She smiled back and dropped her mental barrier, watched his eyes first widen then narrow as he recognized what she was.

"I'm not asking for a date. I might have a business proposition for you though." She walked back to her table and let him think it over. His essence was the first one she'd found that Cassandra thought she could work with. He was cinnamon/warm/lemon with a bitter tinge to it. She wondered what had happened in his life to put the bitter there.

Menace rolled off a heavy-set man as he walked in the door, his pug-face scowl deepened further as he walked by the Merchant's table before disappearing into the back room. The man Cassandra waited for raised his glass at the bartender and strode over to her table, flipping a chair backwards before sitting on it.

"The name's Nathan Wilder. And yours?"

"Cassandra Dade." She watched his expression—cool smile but alert for any trouble. "What's the story on Mr. Big, Bad and Ugly?"

Nathan laughed and relaxed a fraction. "The owner thinks I should give him a cut of my profits for using his bar."

Cassandra chuckled and twirled ice in her glass, taking in the faded red wallpaper and burned-out lights above the liquor display.

"You probably bring in more customers than he would ever see without you."

"He knows that, but he doesn't believe in Dream Merchants. He thinks I'm dealing in illicits and complains that Enforcement will find out."

"Did you ever weave a dream for him?"

"Sure, I did. He called it the power of suggestion, although he did admit it was unlike any dream he'd ever had." Nathan shrugged and downed his drink. "I haven't seen you around and I know most of the Merchants. What's your specialty?"

Cassandra observed him while he studied her with greater interest than he would care to admit. That told her he was bored with his present circumstances and looking to put his talent to something new. Otherwise, he would have defended his territory against her.

"I'm looking for a partner. If you're interested, meet me Topside tomorrow in the Golem Café at noon." She stood to leave, meeting his puzzled expression with a smile. "As for my specialty, I don't weave dreams anymore—I enter them."

Writers Talk - Laura Eno

2011-01-06T05:00:00.004-07:00

Happy Thursday, one & all. We're back with the first Writers Talk interview of the New Year, & it's my pleasure to introduce Laura Eno, a fiction writer with numerous publications—her Goodreads author page lists five novels & eight fiction anthologies.

Laura Eno lives in Florida with a very tolerant husband, three skulking cats and an absurdly happy dog. She has a pet from the Underworld named Jezebel and a skull called Mr. Fluffy who help her write novels late at night. Please visit her strange imagination at A Shift in Dimensions. Links to all of Laura Eno's published work can be found on her blog. In addition, you can read an excerpt from Ms Eno's novel Don't Fall Asleep: A Dream Assassin Novel over on the companion Writers Talk blog. Please do check that out!

I have to thank Karen Schindler, whose Writers Talk interview appeared here last month for connecting Laura with Robert Frost's Banjo. The result was the following delightful interview:

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I think it was when the voices in my head tied me to a chair and demanded a venue of their own. Since then, we've enjoyed an uneasy truce; they speak and I write down what they say. If I ignore them, my sleep is severely disrupted and the arguments become verbal. It's not a pretty sight.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

I will jot down story ideas, creating a simple outline, but the characters grow rather organically from there. They have much to say when I shut up and listen to them, weaving intricate stories of wonder.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

Ah, relationships… First, and foremost, I have a relationship to my story. For that reason, I am an indie author. That means I have complete control and responsibility over content. My readers are the only ones judging my story's worth.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Being a writer has strengthened my relationships. I'm happier for having the outlet and my family can now put a label on my strangeness. "Well, she's a writer" as explanation smoothes over many a faux pas—especially if I'm staring off into space or examining a knife with a maniacal look on my face.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

Blogging, Twitter and Facebook have opened a wonderful world of like-minded friendships for me. Many writers are introverts and I am no exception. The online community feeds my soul and understands me in a way that I've never encountered before. I'm no longer sitting in the dark, afraid to reach out.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I plan to keep writing, both short stories and novels, always looking to connect with my readers. Bringing laughter and tears to those who would immerse themselves in my work is the ultimate thrill for me. It is what keeps me breathing.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Definitely drums. The beat of a heart, the pounding of fear, the light tap of laughter—all pulsating in the rhythm of life.

Dick Jones - 3 Poems

2010-12-30T05:01:00.003-07:00

STILLE NACHT

On the night
that I was born,
the bells rang out
across the world.

In Coventry, in Dresden,
the cathedral bones sheltered
worshippers with candles,
witnessing the ruins.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau,
the story goes,
the death’s-head guards
sang, “Stille nacht,

heilige nacht”. Their voices
slid across the Polish snow.
The sweetest tenor was Ukrainian,
the man they called Peter the Silent.

He never spoke and he killed
with a lead-filled stick.
In the Union Factory, packing shells,
they dreamed of Moses.

**

In Horton Kirby, fields froze
and ice deadlocked the lanes.
My father rose in the cold
blue-before-dawn light

and cycled sideways,
wreathed in silver mist,
to the hospital. Each turn
of the track betrayed him

and scarred by thorns and gravel,
he bled by our bedside.
My mother laughed, she remembers,
as the nurse administered.

“Been in the wars?” she asked.
Outside, across the Weald,
from out of a cloudless dawn
the buzz bombs crumpled London.

**
Outside a town in the Ardennes
Private Taunitz hung
like a crippled kite
high in a tree.

A cruciform against the sky,
he seemed to run forever
through the branches,
running home for the new year.

Outside Budapest three men
diced for roubles
in the shelter of a tank.
Fitful rain, a moonless night.

Sasha struck a match
across the red star
on his helmet, the red star
that led them to this place.

Extra vodka, extra cigarettes,
a rabbit stewed,
the tolling of artillery
to celebrate the day.

**

The blackouts drawn,
December light invaded.
We awoke, slapped hard
by the early world.

Our siren voices
climbed into the morning,
a choir of outrage,
insect-thin but passionate.

Through tears our parents
smiled: within the song
of our despair they heard
a different tune.

And as our voices
sucked the air, swallowing
the grumble of the bombs,
only the bells survived.

...

LIGHT

Some mornings I lie half awake
waiting for the slow secret
of light to be revealed.

From rumour
into palpable fact,
the proposition of light

is merciless: the great affirmative
blades its arrival
into walls and ceiling.

Light like a voice
talks in corners,
disputes with darkness.

Light besieges the house;
a million photon breaths
liberate the windows.

In love with light,
called out of black sleep,
I rise into its clamour.

...

SLEEP AND MAISIE

Night falls. It bellies up
to windows, crowds the house.
Da capo – dancing blind again:

stuck in a lift, trapped
in a mineshaft, premature
burial. A hood, a mask,

a carbon lens across the eyes.
A brush with oblivion, I mutter,
cottonmouthed and bitter. Sleep

is a secret whispered
to everyone else;
I’m kept in the dark.

Then cries from your cradle:
birdsong, catcalls – you have
a menagerie in your throat.

I climb the stairs in twos
and find you caught
between solstice and equinox

with a pulse beating behind
your eyes. I hold you tight
and draw your dream

in a heartbeat. You smile
and, turning in my arms once,
you spill sleep like a benediction.

The cipher cracks. Darkness
has no name. I slide
between its sheets.

Dick Jones
© 2010

Writers Talk - Dick Jones

2010-12-30T05:00:00.002-07:00

I don’t recall exactly when I first started visiting Dick Jones blog, Patteran Pages, but it has been a regular stop on my cyber rounds for some time, & I’m also most gratified to note that Dick is a frequent visitor & commenter here. Dick Jones is, as far as I can determine on cyberspace, a kindred soul: a poet musician who has served an apprenticeship to the Beats & also loves old-time blues. His poetry is of a high quality—his language is precise without calling attention to the fact, his poetic thought & expression are clear, & he has an admirable understanding of poetic form in the most important sense—not as an ability to reproduce poems in various set forms, but as an ability to allow for organic shaping of poetic line, stanza & expression. Asked for a brief writerly bio, Dick offered the following:

"Initially wooed by the First World War poets and then seduced by the Beats, Dick Jones has been exploring the vast territories in between since the age of 15. Published in a variety of magazines throughout the years of rambling. Amongst them are Orbis, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Ireland Review, Qarrtsiluni, Snakeskin, Mipoesias, Three Candles, Other Poetry, Ouroboros Review. Grand plans for the meisterwerk have been undermined constantly either by a Much Better Idea or a sort of Chekhovian inertia. So I have no prize collection to my name; I have masterminded no radical creative writing programmes in a cutting edge university department; I have edited no recherché poetry magazines with lower case titles.

I’m a male version of the playground mum, looking after three young kids and vacuuming the stairs while my partner goes out to work. For fun and profit, I play bass guitar, bouzouki and percussion in a from-Celtic-to-the-blues unplugged trio. "

Please check out Dick Jones’ set of three poems over at the Writers Talk blog—& so: on to the interview!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I self-identified as a writer one winter’s afternoon at the age of 11, on the completion of a short story that I was quite sure at the time was a small masterpiece. I was so impressed with it that I determined there and then to discard my ambition to become a space shuttle pilot and instead to become an author.

A little more realistically, I recognized in my mid-teens that, whatever was, in fact, to be my métier in life, I was unable to stop writing – that it was a compulsive activity that served needs at the deepest level of my being.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

My most recent poem arrived in bits while I was caught in traffic on the way to a hospital appointment. It was raining, not hard but persistently, and the windscreen wipers were on the setting whereby they only operated when there was a certain quantity of moisture on the screen. As I stared mindlessly at their patient, unhesitating response to the pocking of rain across the glass, I was struck by the notion of persistence in the face of certain failure. The confident sweep of the blades seemed to imply a calm assurance that a single 180-degree passage forward and back would eliminate the presence of water in one swift movement. But there it was again across the windscreen as the wipers rested horizontal, their task fulfilled. So back they swept...

And as they moved with undiminished energy each time, the first line of the poem arrived in one piece: ‘Sitting traffic-jammed in rain, the wipers’ all-effacing hand...’ The traffic was edging forward and although I had my notebook open on the passenger seat beside me I couldn’t scribble anything down so I pinned the line in place by repeating it out loud several times. Repetition established a sense of rhythm and propulsion and the increasing need for continuation towards an immediate conclusion and the initiation of the next line. At that point I had no clear idea of any unifying theme or intended direction to the emergent poem. But I knew that the hypnotic action of the wipers across the persistent reiteration of the raindrops had drawn up some current of creative thought, inchoate at that point but demanding content, form and structure.

By the time I parked the car I had the first stanza composed in my head and I scribbled it down immediately, relieved as I always am by the appearance of written words on a surface. Then, sitting in the grim waiting room for a good hour-and-a-half for my blood test, I wrote out the rest of the poem, my pen simply recording the arrival, spasmodic but persistent, of words, phrases and entire lines.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I have had poems published fitfully in journals during many years. Initially, this meant sharing cramped foolscap pages in floppy mags stenciled off duplicators in editors’ living rooms (my first at age 16), with occasional appearances in posher print mags via moveable type and offset litho. I was early online and in the mid ‘90s I thrilled to the sight of my name above a piece of deathless verse in one of the first online poetry journals (whose name, disgracefully, I now forget!)

I opened up the Patteran Pages within the legendary Salon Bloggers community in February 2003, posting poems from the start. The Salon Bloggers were, in the main, very articulate, very vocal liberals firing off flaming arrows in the direction of Dubya’s White House. So the company was good and the quality of writing excellent. I shared houseroom with several fine poets and the sharing of criticism and appreciation was enormously supportive and encouraging.

Finally exhausted by the rickety steam-punk technology that drove the blogging software (or more frequently didn’t), I bailed out in 2005 and decamped to Typepad. Shortly after (but unconnected with) my departure, Salon pulled the plugs on their blogging platform and the resultant diaspora took the Salonistas hither and yon. Those with whom I’m still in touch remain amongst my most cherished of comrades-in-blogs.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Not a bit. It remains the solitary, sometimes almost hermetic activity it’s always been for me. Beyond a cheerful and forbearing acceptance of its importance to me, my partner takes no interest in my writing. I’ve always written most productively either surrounded by noise and activity (provided I’m left on my own as a single, still point at the eye of the hurricane) or during the long, silent watches of the night. So I neither intrude on family time, nor does it intrude on mine. (As I write now, 6-year-old Maisie is playing, alternately, a harmonica and a penny whistle, both at volume; Rosie [7] is looking for a pair of pyjamas that I know are hanging off the back of a chair only feet away from her; and Reuben [8] is watching a DVD of the highlights of a Manchester United versus Juventus game).

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I was, briefly, a member of a local poetry group and I enjoyed and benefitted from the interaction with the other members. But I never really penetrated the sanctum sanctorum at the heart of the group and eventually I drifted away.

I have regular interactional contact with a number of bloggers, many of whom are also in constant communication with each other. This provides a sense of community – the more so in respect of those bloggers with whom I have had long-term relationships, or those with whom I share specific offline interests.

But, like Groucho, I’m not a natural joiner of clubs and the strange, paradoxical balance that is held between intimacy and distance within online relationships suits me well. That having been said, I have met several of my blogger friends and have found that in all cases the personal closeness and commonality of interest and priority have been reiterated face-to-face.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

These goals are simple and shameless. a.) I would like to expand my constituency of Patteran Pages readers so that, without losing any of the particularity of relationship that I enjoy now with my current readers, I might achieve what all writers, if they’re being honest, want to achieve: widespread communication. And b.) I would like a reputable and well-constituted poetry publishing house to bring out a book of my poetry.

But even if neither of these goals are achieved (and my efforts to propel myself with greater force towards both have met with no success so far), the writing will continue because it’s an imperative – a bit like breathing in and out!

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

It varies, but most of the time I’m working my way down the sax section from a Branford Marsalis soprano, through Charlie Parker alto and Andy Sheppard/Jan Gabarek tenor to a driving, throaty Gerry Mulligan-style baritone.

3 Poems - Peadar O'Donoghue

2010-12-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

Pictures and Postcards

Mountains to mist, Beckett to boxer to blonde-
platinum of course, looking me straight in the eye,
over the slope of her shoulder.
She says nothing, and a million things.
not one can I catch as, like the accusations, I fly.
I’m back on the midnight bus as it pulls out and pulls in
passengers from the random roundabouts of my youth,
girlfriends dressed to kill and dying from the cold.
Yards and years away are barges passing,
coal powered, just like the square panes of light from the
Arndale block that lure people like moths.
The bigger picture hints of a hunt, of war, of winter,
brothers in arms, their quarry sought their silence confident,
reflective, pleased with themselves and whatever they have done.
I remember their faces peering in from the streets to the dreamy Cafés
‘Stay a while’, they seem to say, ‘Drink your coffee,
Compile this list for lesser days.’

(This poem originally appeared in The SHOp #27)

Platform eleven, Hoje Taastrup in early spring.
'“Did you ever say the words?”
“Wait. I can’t hear you!”
Woman leaving on lipstick red train,
brunette, young, and beautiful, asking Old man.
He’s dying, hands behind his back, unforgiving,
and, like a black-strapped Swiss wristwatch, inaudible.
His spectacles and bald patch frame
the last snows of his winter.
Nobody knew them, or about their lives, so who cares?
A flag was waved, a moment found,
two lost strangers, father and daughter
caught in my mind.
Too late, the train leaves,
accusing in rhythmic fading whispers,
“Don’t paint this,
don’t feign mystery,
don’t make poetry,
of a flat-packed scene.”

(This poem originally appeared in Revival #6)

God Woman.

They weren’t fish from the sea
Any more than blue bears were
Black silhouettes of herself
God Woman mother of all
Making progress reach for the skies
Evolution not revolution,
parity stars, lights trouble
uncalled for. We all have a monkey
on our backs ,crystal clear,
blue is black in light relief.
I love the city, I hate the reality,
rapid fire irritation jarring.
We knew it was wrong,
Alchemy, conjuring.
Sing, sing ,sing,
reaction in the nightime:
Hearts on fire;
Blazing light;
Break my heart
Like an egg, like the question,
cracked into the heat.
We who could do anything choose
To do this, or this, or this?

I know the answer
If it's a poem, it has a million
beginnings a million chances,
I’m just dreading the end.

Peadar O’Donoghue
© 2010

Writers Talk - Peadar O'Donoghue

2010-12-16T05:00:00.011-07:00

It’s a real pleasure to introduce today’s Writers Talk interview subject, Peadar O’Donoghue. When asked for a brief biography, Peadar wrote: “I’m an Irish poet photographer and editor of The Poetry Bus Magazine. I’ve been published in magazines including The SHOp, Revival, Village, The Dubliner, Magma, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, and online (!) in Ink Sweat And Tears.”

I’d point out in addition that Mr O’Donoghue is the the proprietor of the always entertaining & often raucuous Totalfeckineejit blog where you can find his poetry, photographs & musings on the meaning of existence—or lack thereof. This blog gave rise to the popular Poetry Bus series which has spurred creative work from a number of bloggers. The series eventually took 3-D form in The Poetry Bus Magazine, an excellent publication, which you can purchase here.

Please be sure to check out three poems by Mr O’Donoghue on the Writers Talk blog. & now: Here’s Peadar!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I don’t think I have yet. I think I am constantly changing, evolving, getting older (obviously), thinking more, gaining knowledge, yet paradoxically understanding less. I have no set idea of myself as a human being, let alone as a writer. Maybe I was one, maybe I could have been one, maybe I’m yet to be one, maybe I never will be, but I do know I’d quite like to keep tying to be one! I started late and am beginning to feel a sense of running out of time.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.
It’s always the same scenario and always at the keyboard. Pen ,or pencil, and paper (I used to have special pens and special notebooks) were once all I could use, but now it’s exclusively the computer and I’ve got fairly speedy with one finger! For me writing is the (temporary) resolution of an internal conflict. I have something , Im not sure what it is, it’s not quite an anger, a hurt, an emotion, a loss, a hunger, an energy, but it is buried deep inside and is the catalyst of everything I write. Whether it be a poem about love, or a drunken brawl, or the moon, it all comes from the same place. It starts as a mood, becomes feeling then that I have to write, most times drink is involved and music, (I find contemporary music a great inspiration) often it’s in the early hours of the morning, it’s slightly surreal and usually pleasurable no matter how horrible the poem may be. I don’t think I’ve ever written sober, not even answering these questions. I 100% don’t recommend it though. The poem will be written quickly, usually five, ten, up to twenty minutes at the most and I rarely re-write. I feel that the magic is in the rawness, a rough diamond, polished pieces are not my style.I’ve tried a few times and the whole thing falls apart. I’m not too hung up on form or style or punctuation or even spelling, within reason of course. Some writers are alchemists, I’m just a miner, I keep digging mainly coal to keep the fires burning,but if the odd piece of gold turns up now and again then I’m happy!

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I rarely submit poems and if I do it’s usually either to The SHOp a (County) Cork based magazine here in Ireland or to Revival in Limerick. The SHOp has been a huge help to me, an encouragement and an inspiration. It’s my favourite magazine. I don’t really consider anything to be properly published unless it’s in a physical magazine or a book. I’m not a fan of ezines, there’s no romance about them, no magic, no tactile organic earthiness to them, they are cold and clinical. Ask me again next week though, and I might say I love them! But for now I think paper magazines have a personality that is often greater than the sum their parts, online mags no matter how good (and there are some splendid ones) are invariably the opposite. Electronic books are now being foisted on us too as they will make more money. I say fuck money, give me a book that I can keep on the shelf with a book mark in, that can gather dust, that I can admire as an object with a beautiful cover, that I can flick to a certain page and back again instantly with the skin of my hand on a dead ( but replenishable) tree, that I can smell and touch and grow old with. I can even rip it up or burn it if I hate it! If I got to the stage where someone wanted to publish a collection of my poetry but only as a download, I’d be delighted, but bitterly disappointed too.I know the numbers game but I’d rather ten people had my book on their shelves than a hundred downloads.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

That’s a tough question. Collette, my wife, is a good critic and supporter, she takes an interest without being too interested! If she likes something, she’ll let me know, but she wouldn’t pretend and she is really pleased when I get things published. Other people (relatives) have virtually no interest in my writing or my magazine. If anything it irks them. I don’t know why. I don’t tell anyone else that I write, it’s not something I like to be known really, I like to keep it quiet. I guess overall it has a negative effect.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I don’t belong to a real group of writers but through the internet I have met other writers. I think the internet is a fantastic tool for this. The Poetry Bus (The Magazine as well as the weekly task) would be nothing without the internet. There is a real community out there that help and support and promote and congratulate/ commiserate with, each other. I’d like to think I’m part of that community. We all get on great, maybe because we never actually meet! I’m joking!

Blogging itself is addictive, exhausting , wasteful, wonderful, affirming, insecurity inducing, bragging and brash, I’m ambivalent about it, but the love far outweighs the hate! It’s a wonderful tool for the ‘poet’up in his lonely garret. There is a huge groundswell in the new online poetry world and spoken events here in Ireland, it has the potential to bcome a revolution. The establishment have the ball and won’t let us play. For years people have been trying to get a touch of the ball and join in. That’s only for a chosen few. So now we are saying ‘Feck it’ we’re getting our own ball and everybody can play.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I’d love to dig up a few more lumps of gold, maybe have a book of them. I’m not terribly ambitious I’d also love The Poetry Bus Magazine to survive (financially) and thrive (artistically)

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Without doubt, a second hand electric guitar!

3 Poems - Tess Kincaid

2010-12-09T05:01:00.004-07:00

Infinity

Somewhere along the line,
the big zero of time was twisted
at the waist to become an eight.
An hourglass of days, slipping slow
from the top, then fast below the belt.
Is it providence, or a lemniscate of fate?
I like to think of myself as a verb
and not the object. Chop-chop!
I wait the hours. I empty my head of winter.
I am frightened by other people’s fears,
but not of the eight, not of the hourglass of days.

Poetic Justice

It started like a guilty thing.
I won’t pretend it was accidental.
He turned and I was lost.
Frost knit his eyebrows,
my lashes. We spit in the gorge
for luck; it landed broadside
on stones and ice. His people
are big spitters; they spit for fate,
mine spit for hate. This was no
dicey romance; what happened
to me, happened to him.
Angels have a way of knowing
things; they spit an avalanche
the day he kissed me in the snow.

Ignition

Take me fast, quiet,
two guards at every door.
Wrap me tight in your extravagant
straitjacket where the strangling
is clean and silent, since when I kiss,
it will not be as a sister.
You have seen my complete dossier;
I would have made a great man,
but I am a woman, subtle,
but effective. Do not toss
me, deranged, in your landfill.
It is more palatable to give me
something rich and strange,
tribal, like a Viking funeral.

Tess Kincaid
© 2010

Writers Talk - Tess Kincaid (aka "Willow")

2010-12-09T05:00:00.003-07:00

Tess Kincaid aka “Willow” is a self-proclaimed magpie, poet, Hoosier by birth, who lives in small town Ohio at Willow Manor, a ramshackle limestone house on the banks of the Scioto River, with her husband and resident ghosts. She stumbled into the blogosphere on a whim one gray February day and her life hasn’t been the same since. Feel free to stop by and pay her a visit at Life at Willow Manor.

I'd just like to add that if you want to put together a successful blog, Life at Willow Manor would be a great model to use. Tess has assembled a blog that is always diverting to read & is always a visual pleasure as well. I had the pleasure of meeting Tess last spring during a cross-country road trip, & I must say that the good spirit found in her blog presentation is also abundantly there when you meet her in person. Finally, please don't forget to check out the Writers Talk blog, where you'll find a set of three poems by Ms Kincaid!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

Poetry has always been an integral part of me. My earliest memories are of my grandmother reading the delightful Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley. As a precocious colt-legged girl, I adored memorizing little pieces for “show and tell”. Fascinated with the rhythm and textures of words, I read poetry aloud to a captive audience, my youngest sister and her stuffed animals. It became a delicious habit, which I imposed on my closest friends, and later, my husband and children. It wasn’t until a year or so ago, waking up one day in an empty nest, that I began to write my own poetic tools of torture. Only in recent months has it occurred to me, that I am, indeed, a poet; a curious, sadistic notion.

Describe your creative process.

I am a collector, a magpie at heart. I keep several notebooks handy to jot down words and phrases that tickle my fancy. Sometimes an entire poem will come to me in that wonderful semi-lucent space, just before waking, and other times the process is like digging a trench. Most of my inspiration comes from my macro views of the mundane.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process?

Since I am a fairly new writer, I am currently sending my first chapbook manuscript out for publication, a process which I’ve found is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, a huge encouragement to know hundreds are currently reading my poetry posted via my blog, Life at Willow Manor.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

My husband and adult children have been my personal cheerleaders, but many of my friends and extended family don’t really “get” me, as a poet. I’ve learned to skirt the subject, if I throw out the word “poetry” and it lands like a dead fish on the coffee table.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to?

It’s exciting to be part of a virtual “Bloomsbury” community of talented poets and writers. The immediate feedback and rapport is tremendously supportive. Last February, I started a creative writing group blog, Magpie Tales, which has been the impetus for much of my writing.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

My current goal is to procure a publisher for my poetry. I also have a rough outline for an autobiographical novel, actually more biography than novel, since truth is often stranger than fiction.

Bonus question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

A button accordion, since my writing is small and quirky.

Counter Clockwise - Karen Schindler

2010-12-02T05:01:00.001-07:00

Counter Clockwise

A simple shift….

a crow bar's wrench

to the left

In the iris of your

dark heart

To make a space,

a sliver….

an opening

To actually see,

touch and feel

The light that

is me

Karen Schindler

Writers Talk - Karen Schindler

2010-12-02T05:00:00.002-07:00

Karen Schindler writes even when she's not writing. A wonderer, a cherisher of experiences, she lives life with gleeful abandon and pulls others into her wake. Karen has been or is about to be published at Eclectic Flash, Voxpoetica, WeirdYear, 52 Stitches, Flashes in the Dark, InkNode, Negative Suck, Blink/Ink and various other ezines and print anthologies. You can find Karen and more of her work at Miscellaneous Yammering, or visit her hanging out as the managing editor of Pow Fast Flash Fiction when she's not busy ghostwriting and editing for a living.

Karen says: "Be sure to visit me at Miscellaneous Yammering where there's always something to make you smile." I concur; & I add: don't forget to check out Karen's poem "Counter Clockwise" over on the Writers Talk blog!

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to?

Oh my gosh, I love the online writing community. I remember the day when I first connected with a group of people who were as prone to flights of fancy as I am. There was a big multi- part fast and furious conversation going on and smack dab in the middle of it, I stopped, dumbstruck with the joy of the experience and said aloud to an empty room “ My god, I’ve found my people.” It was like being struck in the head by lighting, or suddenly falling in love. Or it might have been a bit like those people who snap and run through their old workplace with an uzi….but I think it was more like the first two scenarios.

Describe your creative process?

Most days I feel like there is a meteor headed toward my house and the words, much like rats fleeing a sinking ship, have to get themselves onto the page before the impact. Then there are days where there are no words at all. On those days I go to the park and hug trees. It's a win/win situation.

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I’ve been writing my whole life, but I didn’t describe myself as a writer until the last couple of years. These days I introduce myself at gatherings as a writer/editor. The only problem with that is people now pitch me ideas, or ask if they can just “send me a little something to look at” when I have a minute. When that happens it makes me think that I might know a little bit about how a doctor feels when he gets backed into a corner at a cocktail party so the person can show him their rash.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process?

I think anything that’s been released into the world whether electronically or in print has been published. I don’t understand the hesitation that people have when they hedge their credits with the words “but it was only published online.” There are an amazing amount of opportunities to get your work read on the web. Some print publications have a smaller audience than a lot of ezines. If you create it, and they come to read it, you’ve done the job you set out to do. You’ve unleashed your words into the reader’s imagination, and that’s publishing as far as I’m concerned.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

There are two things that I have to watch out for A) noticing the glassy eyed stare of the poor trapped civilian [read: “non writer”] I’ve button holed and duct taped to a chair to make them, once again, listen while I discuss my latest WIP and B) writing people I know into my stories either consciously or unconsciously before the statute of limitations runs out on whatever it was that they did.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

My long term goal is to one day have my best selling novel on the shelves of the paperback department of any grocery store that I go into. If the buyer who provides books to Giant Eagle has heard of you, then you’re pretty much a household name.

And….most importantly…. in my book jacket cover I want to be on a pony.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

A flugelhorn.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe - HKatz

2010-11-23T05:01:00.002-07:00

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe
(with grave apologies to Wallace Stevens)

I
A man played the piano
with his toes.
Only the pinky fell short of the keys.

II
A man who is drowning
writhes like his pinky toe.

III
Potbellied and self-possessed,
the pinky is a charm
conferring prosperity.

IV
One day the pinky will go to market
and never come back.

V
The pinky sleeps with its head
tucked into itself.
The blackbird sleeps the same way.

VI
The sound of my pinky
tapping on the floor:
a dimple on the flesh of silence.

VII
Wise men say the body
is only as strong as its weakest part;
I take good care of my pinky toe.

VIII
The pinky is the first
to succumb to the frost
and the last to thaw.

IX
Were a hitchhiker to extend his pinky
in place of his thumb
cars would careen to a halt.

X
When the pinky toe bows
other toes follow its lead.

XI
A girl was born with six toes.
She did not know which
was her true pinky.

XII
He loved to kiss his wife’s pinky toe.
It was, he thought,
much cleaner than her mouth.

XIII
A flower’s bud stunted
never to bloom –
only the pinky can understand.

HKatz
© 2001-2010

Writers Talk - HKatz

2010-11-23T05:00:00.003-07:00

By day, HKatz is a mild-mannered graduate student. By night, she’s a mild-mannered graduate student who writes. At school she studies the human mind and is especially interested in young children’s developing language and cognitive abilities. As a writer, she writes about anything that interests her (often the mind of a human or an anthropomorphized creature is involved), and she loves to play around with words. When she was a teenager she won a bunch of writing awards from local to national level and had one of her one-act plays performed at a local playhouse. For several years after she kept to herself writing-wise, though recently that’s changed; one example of this change is the existence of her blog, The Sill of the World, to which she welcomes you all.

On a personal note, I would have to say that The Sill of the World is one of the best blogs I read on a regular basis. HKatz posts a feature each Sunday called “The Week in Seven Words.” The writing in that feature is exquisite—HKatz writes with remarkable clarity & perceptiveness & the condensation of language available to a true poet. Hope you enjoy her interview—I certainly did—& be sure to check out her wonderful poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe,” on the Writers Talk blog!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I had the first inklings in third grade, when I wrote a couple of stories, one from the point of view of a leaf and another told by a groundhog who loved to party all night. But I think it was from seventh grade onwards that I came to understand that, no matter what else I’d be doing with my life, I’d need to write too. My English class in seventh grade was structured such that part of the week was devoted entirely to creative writing, and it was the first time in my life that I wrote regularly; I loved it. From tenth to twelfth grade I took another creative writing class with an inspiring and demanding teacher and wrote different kinds of poems, short stories, one-act plays, and multimedia projects. I also wrote a novel in high school, and though it won’t be presented to the public eye in its current form (not if I can help it) I regard it proudly as my first major writing effort and will maybe rewrite it one day, as I actually like the characters and some of the ideas quite a bit. In college I took more writing classes and in the few years following graduation I wrote almost entirely for myself and for a couple of people close to me. Only in the past year or so have I started to be more public with some of my writing and to work on it in a more consistent and disciplined fashion.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

The creative process is not infrequently marked by the need to write in inappropriate and inconvenient times and places; I’ll get an idea for a story (or for a way to revise a story I’m already working on) or a specific sentence will come to mind, and I’ll want to get it down on paper (and sometimes it’s not enough to just get the sentence or idea down – I need to start writing more and more, because my brain is already supplying a web of associations, characters, connections, plots…). This has happened to me in the middle of exams (resulting in my teacher’s confusion as the margins around a set of equations or an essay on the Battle of Waterloo is filled with little jottings like ‘killed by a falling tree branch’ or ‘why not make them twins???’) It also happens when I’m sitting with other people at a restaurant, or five minutes before a meeting or appointment, or hours before a huge project is due, and it’s like an itch that comes over me and I need to write it down in whatever notebook I have handy, on the backs of assignments and handouts, badly labeled Microsoft Word documents, receipts, index cards (which I sometimes misplace, to my great frustration…); the itch might also come over me on the Jewish Sabbath, when I don’t write at all, so I repeat the words to myself or try to organize the thoughts in easily retrievable ways. This unpredictability is a part of the fun and excitement of writing, and I’m thankful for it.

To be clear though - it’s not that I just sit around waiting for inspiration or illumination. I write as often as I can, even when I’m not necessarily inspired to do so; and this is something I’m working to be more disciplined about – to sit and write and see what comes and resist strong tendencies to procrastinate – because after the first bit of heel-dragging, it’s often possible to be productive. Even on the worse days, when the writing seems to dribble out like sludge, often there are dribbles that I can later work with. I also love when writing surprises me. I can have an idea of certain characters and what will happen to them, but then the characters might take over and nudge me in other directions (which can be amazing, or sometimes result in unworkable absurdity, which is at least amusing). I’m thinking of a character I’ve been working with recently. I meant for her to be a sharp and droll older woman, but she completely derailed and became a saccharine grandmotherly soul who tittered and offered freshly baked cookies as the cure for all of life’s woes… and no, I didn’t want her to stay that way, and I’ve started to do some extensive re-writing to bring her back to the dry sharp-eyed dame in my mind, but I left the cookie-baking part in and that’s made the character more interesting.

For the poem (or whatever the heck it is) that I submitted to the Writer’s Talk blog – “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe” – I share it here largely for personal, sentimental reasons (the earliest draft on my computer is from February 2001, though I’ve revised it and shown it to people since). But I remember writing it because I was in a playful mood and had just talked with someone about whether or not there are things you can’t write about because they’re too inherently insignificant or dull.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I’m not familiar yet with traditional publishing processes. As a younger and more inexperienced writer I often read about the slim to nil chances of getting something published, the cliques and fads that stifle creativity and encourage conformity, and how the quality of the writing in and of itself doesn’t guarantee publication. But until I start sending out a lot of my work, I won’t know where I stand with traditional publishing; at this point I’m still writing mostly for myself and a writers group, and am working to revise and edit my work when I have the time. I already have a strong tendency towards self-doubt, and I don’t want to let that hold me back; I hope to keep plugging away and figure things out as I go.

These days I publish most regularly on my blog, which I’m happy I started (I was wary about blogging at first and didn’t know what would come of it). Thankfully I’ve met wonderful people online and have gotten great thoughtful comments and emails from readers. Although I haven’t posted my own stories or poems there I might in the future. On the blog so far I’ve been working mainly on one ongoing writing project – my ‘Week in Seven Words’ – and also sharing some photos and some commentary on fiction and poetry I read.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Writing is solitary; other than that, I don’t know. I’ve gotten some sincere encouragement from people close to me, urging me to keep writing; others see it as a nice hobby that has its place but is not really a practical use of time (and they have a point, while also missing the point). I also worry sometimes that when I do start making my stories more public, people I know will think that they can figure me out or deduce things about me based on the writing; there’s a sense of exposure and scrutiny. We’ll see how things go.

I think the main struggle with writing now is finding time for it, in light of the fact that I have relationships that I want to form and sustain and that I’m a student, which takes up an enormous amount of time. Writing doesn’t always fit easily with what else is going on in my life, so that’s the main struggle; but I can’t see myself giving up on it either (if I go too long without writing I get terribly restless and feel like a huge pressure is building up inside).

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

Offline, in January 09, I joined a writers group in my community. At any given meeting there are usually no more than 10 people present, and the group is made up of several regulars as well as people who drop by on occasion; we meet roughly once every two weeks throughout the year, except for the summer, when the meetings are usually three or four weeks apart. I love the group. The members come from different backgrounds and have different interests as writers and readers, so they present a variety of perspectives on any given piece. Most importantly, the feedback they give is clear, honest and specific. The group encourages me to write regularly and be productive. And they’re a lot of fun to meet with; we have wonderful discussions, and as a member I also get to see good writing in the works.

Online through my blog I’ve met great people too, and there are certain blogs I visit regularly (Robert Frost’s Banjo included). So I feel like I’m part of an online community of people who love writing, photos, music and art.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

To persist in writing regularly and to manage my time better – even though I don’t like the expression ‘time management’ (it doesn’t capture the messiness of mental processes or the fact that even when you’re not doing anything in particular your brain might be working hard on something). I suppose what I’d like to improve most is discipline – to make sure I’m regularly working on something, whether writing, re-writing, or finding potential venues for the work. I hope to figure out how to fit writing into what is often an uncompromising schedule. Sometimes I feel pulled in multiple directions and respond to that pressure by procrastinating too much, which is a kind of self-sabotage (though on the other hand, taking a break has its place too and can result in better ideas and writing…). These things are tricky.

Since the end of junior year of college or thereabouts I’ve slowly been working on a novel. Work on it has stopped and stalled at various points; I love the characters, but realized about a year and a half ago that there wasn’t much of a plot to speak of (just me making the characters stroll around and talk, which is great for getting to know them better but not so great for a coherent novel). Fortunately by now a better story has emerged for the characters. At some point I’d like to sit down and get it written.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

I’m thinking of a piano in my parents’ house. Mostly I played on the keys and loved it – the range of notes, the grand chords and delicate trills, the blur of sound when I held the pedal down too long. And after I was done playing on the keys I liked to go around to the side of the piano, lean into its belly, and run my fingers over the strings; I loved those other noises too, the strange purr and whispery echoes.

The Grace Poems - Jack Hayes

2010-11-18T05:01:00.000-07:00

Grace #1

A smoky-gray evening fraught with black-headed grosbeaks, when time passes thru you & casts a shadow—you’re at the confluence of what must be
& what might—& radio voices echoing in outer space beyond the cell tower glinting in blush rose sunset atop the mesa

You could reach for the sky but you couldn’t touch it—the phosphorescent planet off to your left—the thin dime moon to your right—the smoky-gray air fraught with hummingbirds & a helicopter’s fixed pulse—you can hardly help but think about deserts: crows swooping giddy over Owyhee fossils & petrified wood & the one diner standing wooden & tin-roofed between Jordan Valley & McDermitt—spiked Joshua Tree March blooms & an abandoned diner its windows boarded with plywood at the Mohave’s northern edge—a black upholstered armchair on the porch in a Nevada ghost town—the sunrise whitewashing mineral deposits across rocks & sand & hot springs

A serving of coconut cream pie in a chrome & linoleum diner in Needles, CA
—a wrong turn at Barstow towards the City of Angels—an angel-winged begonia blooming in a February corner beside a glass-top table—a piper betle’s heart-shaped leaves spilling off a shelf below an icon of Our Lady of Mercy—a mulberry dress with gray print a china bust of the BVM a dormant poplar—time passing thru you & casting an echo across the porch

Grace #2
A smoky gray evening fraught with long-billed curlews & a pergola awash in pink roses & a maroon Pontiac Bonneville marooned in Daly City all unstuck in time—a wall clock lemon yellow & cornflower blue & thistle pink its face scalloped & floral—a checkerboard linoleum floor in a theater lobby
—a single instant that stands in for forever like a luna moth in a truck stop sodium lamp

A Pennsylvania interstate phosphorescent at 3:00 a.m. & strewn with cigarettes & impossible laughter & poetic voices & other suicidal gestures—a smoky gray evening fraught with a gray Dodge pick-up hauling a horse trailer down North Grays Creek Rd & the polyrhythms of hummingbird wings—& here comes another star & it’s just as you say the stars are shattered glass like a C major 7 chord that won’t stop ringing

A mild dissonance a cognitive dissonance a tiger lily a paperback copy of Alcools tipped over on a shelf a pack of Camel lights beside an Adirondack chair a Bloody Mary garnished with celery all unstuck in time—a willow tree fraught with sparrows & the limbs are guitar strings in smoky gray air you cannot touch—a statue of Nuestra Señora housed in a scrap metal shrine beside a pink rose—a single instant that stands in for forever

Grace #3
A smoky gray evening fraught with swallows & electric light wires & a slight anticipation of the underlying pulse—& an N scale Union Pacific derailment somewhere along an N scale Tehachapi pass overlooking the windmills &
cell towers & other metal trees sprouting across the Mohave’s dry wash—a desk lamp equipped with a fluorescent coil light bulb a copy of Ring Lardner’s You Know Me, Al & a paperback open to something by Vallejo on a black upholstered easy chair in a Nevada ghost town

A random silence—a phonebooth under an orange top hat neon sign some miles past Vacaville a grilled cheese sandwich an order of French Toast the sun splashing honey & heartbreak across a gray formica table top—a large orange juice on the rocks beside a cut glass ashtray brimming with stubbed- out Camel straights—a stand of vibrantly orange willows erupting against the February snow how that snow shrinks into muddy earth like memory on a Lake Fork ranch

Time passes thru you a Union Pacific freight train inexorable & liberally tagged with graffiti in motion along the Columbia River—a meadowlark in a bitterbrush an afternoon game in the bleachers at Candlestick Park speaking French—a radio wave in the cycle of Saturn’s rings—time passes thru you a Raleigh 10-speed coasting beside the dahlias in Golden Gate Park—there is no such thing as silence only an absence of articulation—a feeling you’ve been here before amidst the black-headed grosbeaks with the same dish of blackberry cobbler the same Our Lady of Mercy icon—OK let’s get moving

Grace #4

A smoky gray evening fraught with the black-headed grosbeaks & moths—a fountain bubbling with transparent water time is just passing thru a semi- truck on Highway 95 blacking out the poppy orange sunset for one instant— a sleep disorder a marble statue of our Lady in a shrine past Buffalo NY a white sundress dark hysterical sunglasses a breaker exploding on the rocks at Rockaway, OR like an HO Union Pacific freight in an N scale world

There was a row of Chinese Elms in green Vermont light you don’t remember—there was a whitewashed brick building muralled with trellised pink roses—there was a bowl of yellow curry an American Spirit cigarette a wooden table outside the coffee shop a Calla lily you don’t remember—time is just passing thru like a white Plymouth on a 3:00 a.m. interstate like the cirrus clouds in white sundresses outside a wood-framed glass door

Just passing thru—a red tour bus a blue ghost light a silver ring a black & white canvas awning a blue jumper an embarrassment of reflecting pools lined with white quartz a paperback Apollinaire leaning on a pine shelf the tart odor of linseed oil on an August morning under a sky-blue sky the stars’ shattered glass—the catbird’s marimba trills the sparrow’s natural harmonics a statue of the Black Madonna in an upstate gift shop a china bust of the
BVM underneath a dormant poplar in someone else’s hands the same Our Lady of Mercy icon a lullaby goodbye an aluminum full moon sound wave

Jack Hayes
© 2010

Writers Talk - Jack Hayes

2010-11-18T05:00:00.006-07:00

Hello folks—it’s me! No, I mean it’s really me. Due to a change in scheduling, I’m the Writers Talk interviewee this week.

Y’all know me, right? OK, here’s a brief bio, just in case:

Jack Hayes-born Bellows Falls, VT 1956
Educated University of Vermont (BA); MFA in creative writing/poetry from the University of Virginia, 1986.
Some publications in magazines, three self-published books: The Spring Ghazals (poems 2008-2010); The Days of Wine & Roses (San Francisco poems 1989-1996); Nightingales in a Stateside Zoo (Charlottesville poems 1984-1989). All are available here on Lulu.
Maintains this blog & a few others.
Plays guitar & banjo & ukulele & performs on same.
Has lived in Westminster, VT; Burlington, VT; Charlottesville, VA; San Francisco, CA; & Indian Valley, ID, where he currently resides with wife & fellow writer/musician Eberle Umbach.
Apologizes in advance for interview’s length.

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

After an initial go at this question, it now strikes me as a bit of a moving target—I mean my identity as a writer has been quite fluid over a long period of time. If I’m looking at the question as asking “when did you decide that you wanted to be a writer,” then I’d say it was probably when I read J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit at 9 or 10 years old. Upon completing the book, I immediately began a novel of my own, which my mother has preserved to this day. I do not plan to publish it or my other juvenalia, however! From this point—1965 or 1966—I thought of myself as a writer—& wrote on a mostly regular basis—until I stopped writing 30 years later in 1996.

But there were other points of “identity” along the way. For instance, until I was in my mid 20’s, I thought of myself as a fiction writer who occasionally dabbled in poetry. At a certain point in the early 80s, I saw that my strengths were actually in poetry, & I put fiction writing on the shelf—permanently, it would appear. It’s odd to think of this now, but it was only a couple of years before applying to MFA programs in 1984 that I’d actually started writing poetry “seriously.” But the years were so much longer then.

& then, there was the period from autumn 1996 until spring 2008 when I didn’t write at all. What was my identity then? Ex-poet? I actually went out of my way to bury that identity—I turned down offers to come to San Francisco to read, for instance, & in terms of creative life I thought of myself as a musician. & how do I see myself now? My identity locally is still that of musician. Yet I continue to write poetry, even tho from a certain perspective I’m struck by the absurdity of that.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

This is really the hardest question for me, as I don’t particularly like to discuss process—maybe it’s my superstitious side—always on the look-out for a possible jinx. A couple of general points: first, I’m not very big on revision—since I look at my poetic process as being in large part improvisational, I generally stick with what I come up with in the first couple of drafts (not counting “false starts”). Thomas Hardy said something to the effect that a poem “loses its freshness” after a few drafts, & I find that to be true for my writing. I do know others rely on many drafts—hey, whatever works.

Because my poems are improvisational, they tend to be creatures of the moment—in my mind, at least. I’m intent on the process while actually composing—then it slips away once the poem is completed. I rarely look back over past poems unless I’m compiling a manuscript or looking for something to post, etc.

But I’ll try to write about the “Grace” poem sequence—four prose poems that punctuate the various sections of The Spring Ghazals. At a certain point in February of this year I realized I needed to be finished with composing the book—since the fall of 09 I’d been aware of The Spring Ghazals as a “book,” not just some poems I’d happened to write recently. There was a lot of turmoil involved in writing these poems, & I reached a point where I said, “this has to be done.” But I realized I wanted some connecting thread—some sequence that would comment upon & also tie together the books’ thematic elements.

Why did I decide to use the prose poem form?—I can’t recall specifically, but I love the form for its flexibility, & that was no doubt a consideration. Why did I call the poems “Grace?” I’ve tried for 2-1/2 years now to look on the poems in The Spring Ghazals as offering some sort of psychic redemption from some severe turmoil. I believe it was important to me to try to reach a poetic space where there was some “grace” amidst the welter of images & emotions. Did “I” succeed? As far as the “I” that’s a fictional narrator goes, yes, I believe so. Beyond that? Next question. You can read the “Grace” poems sequence on the Writers Talk blog—or you could purchase The Spring Ghazals! See next question.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I’ve written about this quite a bit both on this blog & on The Spring Ghazals blog. When I was younger, in my 20s & 30s, I published in literary journals. At the time, I fully expected to follow the conventional route to a career as an academic poet, with a tenured professorship either as a writer or a scholar. Somewhere along the way, I rebelled against this. However, I think in retrospect that there was a problem with my rebellion in that I didn’t carry it all the way thru; while I remained prolific in terms of poems written thru the 90s, I didn’t really figure out how to “effectively” develop a poetic presence outside the mainstream.

When I started the Robert Frost’s Banjo blog, I didn’t intend to post my own poetry—actually, tho I’d written several poems a few months before starting the blog, I wasn’t writing poetry in August 2008 when the blog launched. At a certain point I did start posting poems, & I was struck by the fact that the poems probably had a larger audience than they would have if published in book form.

But as regular readers know, I decided to self-publish both my poems from San Francisco & my poems from the last couple of years back in February of this year. Why did I opt for putting the poems in books? They were being read & appreciated on Robert Frost's Banjo, & the blog has a good readership in more than one sense. But a blog is not a book. As far as creative writing goes—poetry in particular—a blog may mimic an anthology in some ways; at its best, it may mimic a serialization. But at least using current technology, it can't replicate the experience of a book of poetry.

Given that I wanted my poetry to be experienced in this way—because assembling the manuscripts had been itself an act of making—self-publishing seemed like a “no-brainer.” I knew the grind (& expense) of sending poems out to lit mags & contests in order to build up enough publications to shop a manuscript, & given the fact that I’m not pursuing a potential academic career, this conventional route made no sense to me. These days, with print-on-demand, self-publishing ranges from free to cheap, & I found the actual task of uploading manuscripts, etc. to be pretty painless. In the case of the recent poems, I even shelled out a modest amount money for a better distribution package, confident that I’d more than break even on this.

But the aftermath of publishing has been mostly filled with disappointment, which is always a bad force to allow into one’s creative life. Sales for both The Days of Wine & Roses & The Spring Ghazals have been very slow—as of this writing, we’re talking single-digit sales for each book. Now, I know there’s no real money in poetry, because there’s scarecely any market for it, especially in the States, but I did expect more than this. It’s also frustrating, because I have a tendancy to brood on what I may have done wrong—not publicized enough, publicized too much, publicized ineffectively—or: is the poetry just plain no good? At a certain point, one’s ego gets caught up in this & if you’re not careful it can be quite detrimental.

So I don’t know where I stand vis-à-vis publishing “going forward.” It’s quite possible that if/when I publish more poetry, I’ll do it privately, just for distribution among close friends. This is more than a bit of a ponder these days.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Who thought up these questions! As the old song goes, “If they asked me, I could write a book.” But I don’t know if I can answer this question in any succinct form. Here’s my attempt at doing so: “some of my best friends are writers”—no seriously, it’s true! I’ve always gained inspiration from writer friends, & I generally find their way of viewing the world congenial to mine—furthermore, we all love words, so it's fun to talk with with them or correspond with them. On the other hand: my tendancy to entangle relationships in the poetic writing process has wrecked havoc both on some important relationships & also, I think, on my own psyche.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

With the very significant exception of my wife, Eberle Umbach, my writing community is all in some sense virtual, since Eberle is the only writer I know locally. Obviously I do see some of my “3-D” writing friends from time to time, but at this point we’re far dispersed geographically, so most of the communication is online. I do have writer friends in California who I get to see a bit more regularly.

But I must say, I’ve developed some very satisfying relationships with writers that I know only virtually. Although only a handful of people have purchased The Spring Ghazals, a few virtual writer comrades have really gone out of their way to publicize it, & I appreciate that so much. I also think the Writers Talk series has helped me to expand my virtual writing community & get to know some folks better. Twitter has been a really good tool in this regard—just saying, in case you're still among the doubters.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

To keep writing—I don’t mean this in a flip way. Stopping is always an option—I did it once before. But ultimately, I don’t think stopping is good for me. Continuing despite the fact that it seems an absurd exercise is necessary for whatever part of me might be called a soul.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Ruling out some favorite instruments as not being quite appropriate, I’d have to say the upright bass. Rhythm is a strong element in my writing, but I think I succeed in creating some music as well—at least outlining the chords!

Hölderlin Masked - Mairi Graham

2010-11-11T05:01:00.003-07:00

Hölderlin Masked

The poem near my heart
flutters like a small blue bird held to my breast,
flashes, like a kingfisher plunging after prey,
across my line of sight,
mutters like the wind in its wings,
thrashes like the cold silver thing brought out of its element
by strong claws and a needle beak.
Thus is it ripped untimely.

That is not what I meant to say.

There are sparrows outside the windows,
their dappled backs like sunlight on bare earth.
In the morning I hear them singing -
a stutter of notes and trills
loud in this carceral quiet.
Interrupted complicated
suspended in the cool air
perfecting the silence with sound.

That is not what I meant to say.

The madmen have been deprived of their screaming.
The truth, the doctor reminds us,
is not ours to tell. And anyway,
the world is not ready for it.
I am a hooded hawk –
calm, calm, perfectly calm.
I am a caged canary
muzzled by a rag over my bars.

That is not what I meant to say.

The poem near my heart
hides like a small blue bird held to my breast,
ascends like a raptor to the heavens
on fevered draughts,
rides the shifting wind, glides and climbs then
descends like the dove in foehn and fire
to lose its song in a confusion of tongues.
Thus is it revealed and not revealed to the world.

Mairi Graham
© 2009

Writers Talk - Mairi Graham

2010-11-11T05:00:00.002-07:00

Mairi Graham is a portrait and landscape painter and a writer. She also makes sculpture out of the rusted detritus of our agricultural and industrial past. Her father believes this is a form of insanity but has been known to help carry fifty pounds of dirty metal half a mile over rough ground. She posts her poetry at Secret Poems From The Times Literary Supplement. In another life she writes about late 18th and early 19th century women writers.

On a personal note, I'd like to mention that the poetry on Mairi's blog is remarkably good—her skill with language, image & form are first-rate, & the thematic depth of the poems is always compelling. Given my high esteem for Ms Graham's poetry, I'm most gratified that she agreed to participate in the Writers Talk series; & I'm even more gratified that she has been a staunch supporter of my own poetic efforts. Don't forget to check out Mairi's poem "Hölderlin Masked" on the Writers Talk blog. & now: on to the interview.

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

My mother used to read the dictionary for fun and her favourite answer to any question to do with words was “look it up.” I had to write a poem for a Brownie badge when I was about ten, and realised poems were a great way to use all those words I loved but couldn’t work into playground conversation. I’ve lost the poem but remember it was about “nature” and contained a good deal of gemstone imagery, and sparkle and dew. In grade six, I came across the word “torque” while I was supposed to be looking up something else in the classroom dictionary. From Latin torquere, to twist. It wasn’t the scientific or mechanical definitions that caught my eye but the necklace or armband made of twisted metal, worn especially by the ancient Britons and Gauls. I was smitten, and I knew immediately that there was a story attached to the word, and that I had to figure out what it was. That I was duty bound to do so, because no-one else would or could. That’s the thing about stories, in whatever form. If you don’t tell the ones given to you, they’re lost. A sensible child might have been crushed by the weight of responsibility but I just got a pencil and started to work.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be a book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

I work in all three areas and I suppose there are similarities between the approaches. Somehow an idea comes to me. In the case of a novel it’s usually an image that needs to be expanded on, or explained. Two men sitting under a pier in the rain, for instance. One of them a poet and one a man with no memory. That sort of additional knowledge arrives with the image, in much the same way information is given in a dream. I often write poetry to prompts chosen from the Times Literary Supplement, choosing what strikes me as I’m reading. What strikes me depends to a certain extent on what sort of mood I’m in, and whether the image evoked is one that resonates. “Hölderlin Masked,” for instance, jumped out at me one day, as suggestive and interesting. Ideas for essays always spring from curiosity over some detail of something I’ve read. Why, for instance, did the anonymous author of a manuscript in the Princeton library claim her novella was “imitating” the 18th century German dramatist August Von Kotzebue. Or, why did Jane Austen so much prefer the hero of one unspecified book to the hero of another? And what were the books in question? Nothing earth-shattering in any of these instances, but it’s the way something opens out that’s of interest. Curiosity is the common denominator. Whatever I’m writing, I move from idea to research. I want to know as much as possible about the subject I’m tackling, mainly in order to get hold of that “opening out” aspect . In the case of a novel, I want details of setting and history. A lot of details, as the details are often where the interest of the thing is hidden. I might visit the place and take notes and photographs, and then research background material. Even a poem requires some research, a little or a lot, depending on the subject. In the case of Hölderlin, I read about him, his life, his work and the mask or hood the doctor in the asylum he was confined to put on his patients to keep them quiet, and somewhere I came across the fact that he fed and watched birds. Once the research is done – hours, weeks, months, depending on what it is I’m working on – I let it all sit and stew for a bit. Or for years. I write late at night, between nine in the evening and three in the morning. Six hours of uninterrupted peace and quiet. I don’t mind the dog snoring or the cat purring but I don’t want to hear anything else. If I’m writing a longer piece I’ll try to put together a sketchy outline, but things grow organically and the outline often changes. Poems seem to form themselves in my head. I write them down as they’ve occurred to me and then revise and expand what I have. Whatever I’m working on, revision is the most important part of the process. I revise as I write and I go over prose dozens and dozens of times. Poetry seems a more spontaneous form and I sometimes work on a piece for just a few days, with only minor shuffling and revision, often in the interest of internal rhyme, or metre. In the Hölderlin poem I wanted something that played with the idea of a world inverted, topsy turvy, so I worked on placing the rhymes at the beginning of the lines of two of the verses instead of the ends, and then allowing the other two verses to break out of the restrictions of order or form. The revisions were mainly about getting the rhyme and tone to work with the subject, and matching the bird imagery to the emotional and physical reality of incarceration and mental illness.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)?

Small independent presses interest me. Places that will deal with a manuscript because it’s good, or has the potential to be good, even though it’s unlikely to make a fortune. I have very little interest in the large publishing consortiums that rule the business, or in most of the books they put out. They waste resources, both natural and human, and seem sadly uninterested in advancing literature. A bad book by a known name always seems to trump a good book by an unknown. I know that’s not true in every case, but it’s true in too many. The role of the literary agent underlines this. The responsibility for sorting books has been shifted away from the publisher, making the priority of the business clear. Only a manuscript that will bring in enough money to make it profitable for both the publishers and the agent is worth considering. In order to do that the first question asked about a new property has to be – “Is it promotable?” instead of “is it wonderful?” “Who wrote it,” often plays too large a role in considerations. All of this leads to the policy of one big blockbuster over a dozen books with smaller sales potential. I suppose it must make good business sense but it doesn’t make good reading. I like traditional books – ink on paper – and will go out and pay for them, but I also like the great wide world of internet publishing. I post all my poetry on a blog. If you read it, I’m delighted. If you comment on it, I’m doubly delighted. Many more people read my work there than would if it was on a shop shelf, and that’s worth a lot to me. It’s worth more than whatever small amount I might have made if I’d published it in the old fashioned way, and I don’t have to spend a lot of time I don’t have sending things out to journals. Someday the poetry establishment will pay attention to online work but for now, it seems as if poems on paper are the only route to recognition. Your blog is unlikely to make you the next poet laureate or get you a post as writer in residence anywhere in the real world. On the other hand, I publish my articles in scholarly journals that don’t pay a cent for them but make them easily available to people with similar unaccountable interests and lend them a whiff of respectability. I’m also interested in the possibility, tossed about in various places lately, of patterning publishing on the music business. Offer your work to an audience and ask for a good will offering. Something akin to the storytellers of old. Most writers suffer from a compulsion to share. They want someone to listen. Most people want to be entertained. A nice symbiosis. If the listener likes what he hears he can toss something into the hat toward keeping body and soul together and more stories coming. Will it work? I’m eager to know.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

My dog thinks I spend too much time writing and not enough time playing ball. My cat thinks I don’t work hard enough because sometimes there’s no warm lap available when she wants to nap. My bird – a blue celestial parrot – wouldn’t mind if I worked from seven in the morning till seven at night, as long as I thought out loud and let him help with the typing. After seven, he just wants me to be quiet, whatever I’m doing. My husband is an academic and works about eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. I’m sure he’s happy I have something to keep me out of trouble.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

One of the wonderful things about the internet is its ability to deliver like minded people into your living room, wherever you are. I know a few writers but I don’t see them often, and when I do we don’t sit and talk about writing. In fact, I’m terrible at talking about my work. But in the virtual world there are lots of people who love to write about writing. You can show them your work and they’re often incredibly generous in their comments, or you can look at someone else’s work and share your thoughts. It doesn’t matter what sort of question you have, someone out there has an answer and wants to write about it. The only problem is time. The more of it you spend chatting online the less you have for writing.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

To improve. Uninteresting but true.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Optimally, a ‘cello. It has been described as sounding most like the human voice. It’s the emotional range of the instrument that appeals, its capacity for great intimacy, and poignancy and sorrow and ebullience. It’s something to aspire to. In reality? Probably a kazoo.

Meet Me in Nuthatch - Chapter 1 - Jacqueline T. Lynch

2010-11-04T05:01:00.001-06:00

MEET ME IN NUTHATCH

CHAPTER ONE

Everett Campbell wanted more time. That’s all. He walked the mile into town instead of taking his truck. The icy slush slopped over the tops of his work boots and stung his ankles. He did not mind. It made him feel tough, indomitable.

That feeling indomitable came at so little cost was nice, but made him feel somewhat guilty as well. He had been raised to believe effort was a virtue—maybe the biggest virtue.

Stepping, occasionally sliding down Campbell Road like an unsteady surfer onto Bookbinder Street, Everett ran over in his mind the list of the things he had to say.
Then his work boot traction departed, and his long legs flew out before him in a sciatic-inspired ballet. He landed hard. The back of his head bounced on the ice a couple of times. Fortunately, his rear end took the brunt of it.

Everett heard the slow crunch of snow tires before he saw the accusing headlight beams approaching. With relief, he realized it was Marv’s car, and not Roy Murphy’s. He began to flail his arms and legs rhythmically, as to appear to be making a snow angel.

Marv stuck his head out the car window, guffawed, and shook his head.

“Jeez, Ev, you scared me for a minute. I thought I was coming up to some dead guy. Last thing I need right now. Stop being such a joker, will ya? You’re impossible!” Marv chuckled, rolled up his window, and drove on to the meeting. Everett noted that Marv did not offer him a ride to the meeting to which they were both going. But, he reminded himself, he still needed time to think, even if his rear end was wet and freezing.

He did a systems check on his body, while the clear, deep black sky and the distant, crystal white stars created the classic tableau above his head. He hesitated only briefly to give them notice. They were there, same as always. Check. He got up with relief and gratitude that he was unhurt, marveling at it, and congratulating himself for it.

For Everett, there was only one concern, the ridiculous solution he had planned to solve their problem. It being ridiculous was what really appealed to him.

    The plastic, pink, faux-Dickens lanterns dangled in a more or less straight line down the road, now that he had turned onto Bookbinder Street. They bobbed and waved in the wind, their symmetry broken up only by the few that were cracked or had gone missing over the decades since they first appeared to herald the Christmas season, and from economy as much as sentiment, reused annually. Some in town voiced the opinion that the plastic lanterns had never been exactly attractive, but all privately agreed it would not be Christmas without them. Status quo was, for them, a form of sentiment.

Everett volunteered to help hang the lanterns on every light post that still had a bracket for them, just as his father and uncle had done since the 1950s, when they were purchased.

Everett stopped at the lantern that bobbed in the wind before the entrance to the old school. Built in 1902, the Nuthatch School had closed in middle 1990s when the town became absorbed into the county regional school system. The building that had once held all twelve grades in eight rooms and a hall now housed the Town Offices, the Senior Center, the library, and the storage closet where they kept the Christmas lanterns when it was not Christmas.

Town meeting tonight. About twenty people showed up, generally the same twenty people as always, give or take. The three town selectmen sat behind the big library table at the head of the old kindergarten classroom: Norm Hooker, Marv Howe, and Miss Finchley. All wore their coats, because they did not heat the building over the Christmas holiday.

“Any new business?” Norm asked, “Or can we go home?”

Everett squished himself into an old student desk. A man behind him asked, “When are we going to get town water up my way, Norm?”

“That’s old business,” Norm said, his bushy eyebrows slamming together as he frowned, “and stop asking me. Yes?”

Everett had raised his hand.

“For godssake, whad’ya want, Everett? Just speak up.”

“I got a proposal,” Everett said.

He could feel the room skid to a stop.

“A proposal?” Norm rested his chin on his hand, because he was tired. It made him look cute somehow. “Well, Everett, it’s been the longest time since we had one of those.” There was some perfunctory chuckling, but that was as funny as Norm could ever make himself be, so without milking it, he continued, “What is it?”

Everett stood, like in the Norman Rockwell painting "Freedom of Speech," but not out of respect; the student desk was maiming him.

“I think we should make it a new town ordinance that we all have to live like it was 1904.”

They were hesitant to laugh at first, because it was cold, and because Everett had no reputation for being terribly funny. He certainly was no Norm. What he lacked in delivery, he usually made up for in execution. Everett Campbell was infamous for being the best practical joker in town.

“April Fools is four months away, Ev. And I liked your suggestion last April better, that we make a new town water tank out of Legos.”

“Do you still have the model you made?”

Now there was laughing, more like perfunctory huffing. Their laughter expressed their individual and communal reserve.

“That was a joke then, Norm,” Everett said, “This isn’t.”

“Then it’s stupid. Sit down. Anybody else? Oh, Miss Finchley, don’t bother putting that in the minutes.”

Miss Finchley paused, fountain pen in hand, a green, celluloid Esterbrook she had owned since 1954. She filled the bladder by a small lever on the side. Everybody admired it, took their children to see it while Miss Finchley patiently gave demonstrations neatly writing her name. She had given out more autographs in thirty years than Elvis and Elizabeth Taylor in their whole careers combined.

“You haven’t heard me out,” Everett said, “I want to explain.”

“Explain what?”

“The man has the floor, Norm,” Miss Finchley said.

“He’s not making sense.”

“Doesn’t have to make a bit of sense. That’s democracy.”

Norm sighed and rolled his eyes to the broken ceiling tiles. Miss Finchley was not to be contradicted.

“Fine. Everett, please make it quick. It’s wicked cold in here.”

“Why did we have to have a meeting when there’s no heat?” someone said from the back of the room. “This meeting couldn’t have waited until next month?”

“You’re out of order, Josh. It’s Everett’s turn,” Miss Finchley said.

“Sorry, Miss Finchley. Sorry, Ev.”

“Go ahead, Everett,” she said.

“Yes, Miss Finchley. Thank you. Well, we were watching Meet Me In St. Louis on TV, my family was, on Christmas Day. My daughter loved it. She’s eleven.”

“We watched It’s a Wonderful Life,” Louisa Conroy said, shaking a box of Tic Tacs like a maraca and popping several at once.

“Um, yeah, we saw that five or six times in the past couple of weeks, too,” Everett continued, “But, on Christmas Day, we watched Meet Me in St. Louis. Reception was pretty good, too, with the plating factory shut down in Worsted for the holiday.”

“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” Sam Jurado said, “Reception was quite good. Uncharacteristically good.”

“Hey, yeah, Norm, I got an issue to raise,” Big Fat Jerry called, “when are we going to get cable?”

“You go and call the cable company and have them laugh in your face, Jerry,” Norm said, “I’m tired of doing it.”

“Were you watching Meet Me in St. Louis?” Kenny Mislow asked Sam Jurado.

“No, I didn’t find out that was on until it was almost over. I was watching some German choir singing German Christmas carols, from somewhere over in Germany.”

“That was on PBS.”

“Yeah.”

Everett looked from one speaker to another, and finally found an opportunity to interrupt, “So, anyway . . .”

“It was nice, the Christmas carols, but it was all in German, so you didn’t know what they were saying.”

“They didn’t have the words on the bottom?”

“Yeah, only they had them in German. Assholes.”

Everett tried again.

“About the movie . . .”

“Yes, that was a good movie,” Sam said, “I missed the Trolley Song part. I turned it on after that.”

Bud Markey, owner of the small bar on upper Bookbinder Street, quaintly named in a moment of cheery inspiration “Bud’s House of Beer,” sat on the windowsill, where it was even colder, but he was too big for the student desks.

“I like that part,” Bud said. His voice carried a wistful tone.

“Me, too,” Sam said. “Judy was so young.”

Norm had had it. He began to put on the mittens his mother made him. “Folks, let’s let Everett say his piece and then we can go home and warm up.”

The room quieted with dutiful swiftness and a dubious show of respect, and Everett felt the discomfort again of everybody’s full attention.

“Yes, it was a good movie,” Everett continued, “But, my point is, I got an idea that we could try to make an ordinance to live like they did in the 1904, like in the movie.”

“You want us to run around singing ‘The Trolley Song’?” Norm was on a roll tonight. More chuckling.

“I know most of it.”

“Shut up, Bud.”

“Watch your stinkin’ mouth.”

“Norm,” Everett said, “today my last best friend drove out of town with his family to start over . . .”

“Hey!”

“Oh, no Bud, I didn’t mean you aren’t my best friend, you are.”

“I like that.”

“I’m talking about David Pellier. He and his family left town today. We went to school together. Well, he’s sure not the first to leave, is he? He probably won’t be the last.”

“I still thought I was your best friend.”

“You are, dammit! Jeez, will you let me finish!” Everett swiped his toque off, and brushed his gloved hand through his thick, black hair, now infiltrated with gray.

“My kids have practically no one to play with anymore. They’ve got to ride a bus an hour and a half every day to the regional school. We got sixty-three people living here, no industry, one variety store with a gas pump. No money for roads or water, maintenance, or much of anything. We have to do something. Why not this?”

“Because it’s nuts, Everett.”

“Not that the movie wasn’t good, though.”

“I like It’s a Wonderful Life better. Why don’t we do that one?”

“It’s not the movie,” Everett said, “It’s the idea. It’s for tourism.”

“Tourism? Why would anyone want to come here?”

“Exactly. What is there that’s here? What do we got? We don’t have much land for farming, with the whole town practically sliding off the north side of the mountain. We don’t have a lot of zoned property for industry or business. State forest takes up a good chunk of the land area. But tourism--that’s something else. You don’t need much of anything to be a tourist attraction.”

“He’s right,” Bud said, “Some people will go anyplace just to say they been there.”

“My cousin went out to Los Angeles, California, to take a picture of himself at those concrete steps where Laurel and Hardy had to carry up a piano,” Sam Jurado said. Everybody looked at him for an even longer period of time than after his Judy Garland remark. “Well, he did. He likes Laurel and Hardy. He has a picture of them in his kitchen.”

“Think of the Amish, living the way they do, for generations,” Everett said, trying to pull everybody back on track, feeling his own way as he went.

“That’s their religion. They’re used to it.”

“Yeah, but what I mean is, think of the people driving all over Amish Country just to watch these people doing nothing but being themselves.”

“That’s a little extreme, Ev.”

“Think of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Chocolate factory. Or, take a place like Disney World, that’s a completely made up place. Or think of Plimouth Plantation or Sturbridge Village, recreations of places set in certain times.”

Miss Finchley had been watching Everett, a slight smile softening the hard line of her jaw, noting, but not commenting on the incongruity of lumping Disney World with an Amish community. She asked, “Why 1904, Everett?”

“It was a long time ago--that’s all, really. A hundred years ago. People think of the old days as better. Romantic. Think of the stir we’d cause by choosing to conduct our public business . . . just public, I’m saying. People can still do whatever they want in their own homes, but if we were to wear those old-fashioned clothes on the outside and just . . .”

“Like one of them reality TV shows? I hate those. I hate people who watch ‘em--and worse, I hate people who watch ‘em and talk all about ‘em at work.”

“Are we going to have to eat bugs, do stunts, and be followed around by camera crews?”

“No! I’m just saying, time is running out. We have to try something.”

Bud wiggled on the counter by the window, trying to get comfortable.

“No TV, and horseshit all over the roads, Ev. Oh, sorry, Miss Finchley. I mean poop. Oh, uh, sorry, again. Anyway, Ev, is that what you want?”

“I want to live a good life in the same place my grandparents and great-grandparents lived. I don’t know why I can’t. They had a future here and I don’t. None of us do. How much business are you doing at the bar, Bud?”

“You mean other than Marv?”

“We’d make fools of ourselves.” Norm said. “What’ll people think of us?”

“I think sometimes nobody else knows we’re here, Norm.”

“Are you making a motion, Everett?” Miss Finchley said, prompting him.

“Yes, Miss Finchley. I propose we conduct public business within the town limits as if Nuthatch was living in 1904.”

“Who would be the judge as to what was accurate and what wasn’t?”

“Miss Finchley.”

Miss Finchley smiled slightly with only a quick jerk at the corner of her mouth that always foreshadowed her wry delivery.

“Contrary to popular belief, I am not that old.”

“He just means you’re knowledgeable, Miss Finchley. Everybody knows that. Is anybody going to second this dumbass motion?”

It was growing colder, so several people seconded at the same time, arms reaching for the sky as if they were all being held up at gunpoint, hoping to speed things up.

“A motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor?”

Jacqueline T. Lynch
© 2010

The novel Meet Me in Nuthatch is available as an ebook thru Amazon.com & as a pdf thru Smashwords

Writers Talk - Jacqueline T. Lynch

2010-11-04T05:00:00.003-06:00

I'm very happy to introduce today's featured Writers Talk interviewee, Jacqueline T. Lynch. Before getting into Ms Lynch's curriculum vitae, I want to say on a personal note that Jacqueline is one of the first cyber friends I made thru the Robert Frost's Banjo blog, & she has remained a steadfast supporter of the blog & my various ventures. When I drove to New England this spring I even had the pleasure of meeting Jacqueline!

Jacqueline T. Lynch has published articles and short fiction in regional & national publications, including the anthology “60 Seconds to Shine: 161 Monologues from Literature” (Smith & Kraus, 2007), North & South, Civil War Magazine, History Magazine & several plays with Eldridge Publishing, Brooklyn Publishers, & Dramatic Publishing Company, one of which has been translated into Dutch & produced in the Netherlands.    Her novel “Meet Me in Nuthatch” is now available as an ebook through Amazon.com & Smashwords.

She also writes three blogs:

Another Old Movie Blog: A blog on classic films.

New England Travels: A blog on historical and cultural sites in New England.

Tragedy and Comedy in New England: A blog on theatre in New England, past and present.

website: www.JacquelineTLynch.com

Please check out Chapter 1 of Jacqueline T. Lynch's novel, Meet Me in Nuthatch on the Writers Talk blog. & so: here's Jacqueline!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I was about 14 years old. It was a Thursday. No, wait, a Friday. I don’t remember. The realization came to me unexpectedly, because I can be kind of obtuse. I always wrote from a very young age: stories, poems, notes on things that interested me. But, for all that, I never intended to be a writer. When I was a child, I wanted very much to be a zoologist. I was a devotee of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and I loved its host, Marlin Perkins. I think it was that dapper white mustache and the squared-off handkerchief in his breast pocket.   Sexy. Then I saw myself as Jane Goodall, sitting on an African hillside at dawn in my khaki shorts and shirt, taking notes on chimpanzees.

It was the note-taking, the analysis that appealed (besides the whole animal thing).   I did it all the time. I’m still a chronic jotter-down of things. I actually wrote compositions on things that interested me as a child, just for fun, not for school. It was how I explained things to myself, how I explored the world.

Then when I was 14 I graduated to the adult section of the city library from the children’s department, and started in on their shelf of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. I got hooked on mysteries, and starting writing one myself, longhand on notebook paper. I don’t think I ever finished it. It was harder than I thought it would be. But something clicked, something blew me away about the process of setting, and character, and dialogue, people doing and saying things that I could control, but could never say and do myself.

I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.

So here I sit, in my khaki shorts, typing a play script on a laptop, with one eye cast towards the male house sparrow sitting on my neighbor’s fence.   I have an urge to note it in a logbook.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

One slapstick comedy I wrote called “Delusions of Grandeur” sprang purely from a comment I’d heard about a parent telling her teenager that the she had to be out of the house when she reached 18.   I suppose I could have found more serious and socially conscious message here, but instead, I found silliness. Deadlines can be funny when they’re not scaring the socks off you.

Writing a play is probably like surfing or riding a roller coaster. I say probably, because I neither surf nor ride roller coasters, but the excitement is immediate, the need for balance crucial, and you get right into the action. There is no slow development as you get through a novel; you have to hit the ground running knowing everything about the characters and expressing it through their own voices, which must be unique and individual. Every action on stage must be deliberate and for a specific reason.   It’s all the character as expressed through dialogue, the author gets no omniscient voice. And because the play never really comes alive until the director and the actors get a hold of it, the writer becomes suddenly part of a team.   That’s the most thrilling of all.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I’ve been a published and produced playwright for several years.   I’ve enjoyed working with my editors and publishers very much. I would like to publish a novel, and by the time this piece is posted, I will have likely self-published as an e-book a humorous novel called “Meet Me in Nuthatch.”

The traditional publishing process is formal, a many-layered, highly structured game. There are many advantages to having the support of editors (and obviously, the support of a marketing and publicity department). My preference for publishing a novel would be through traditional publishing, but self publishing as it is gaining momentum today is intriguing. I am interested, and would like to be part of, both processes.

Blogging is personal, and its immediate communication to the readership makes it appealing for the sense of freedom it gives. I enjoy the immediacy of blogging and use it for a kind of writing practice. It’s also an outlet for other interests. I write three of them:
Another Old Movie Blog: A blog on classic films.
New England Travels: A blog on historical and cultural sites in New England.
Tragedy and Comedy in New England: A blog on theatre in New England, past and present.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?
I don’t think it has. Though I’ve enjoyed working and socializing with colleagues, most of the people closest to me are not writers. Some of them are awfully good storytellers, though.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

Since I don’t belong to a writer’s group, I suppose we go back to blogging here. It’s a delightful community of diversity in experiences and interests.   I visit many blogs, though I regret there isn’t time to comment on all of them as often as I’d like.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I just take life one manuscript at a time.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

An oboe, I think. It has a distinct, oddball sound, but one that can be very pleasing, and easily recognizable.   It seems like a minor chord, a less emphatic sound, not flashy or attention-getting, but it still manages to stand out from the rest of the orchestra just by doing its thing, a poignant mixture of somberness and silliness.

I might say a cello, too, for the low undercurrent of the minor chord aspect, but cellos have a greater timbre, and are much harder to take on a bus or subway. My writing, conversely, does not have as much timbre as a cello, but I’m pleased to say it is much easier to bring with you on public transportation.

Licking Knives - L.E. Leone

2010-10-21T05:41:00.003-06:00

LICKING KNIVES

Don’t know why I do
it this way, just one of those
things one does, I guess,
a way. I stir
my pineapple juice
with the knife I sliced
it with, the pineapple. Then I lick
both sides, yes, tongue my tongue
up the cold, foamy steel, savoring
sweet and sexy. Once a guy wanted
me to give it back, what I’d
sucked from him. He guided me
my mouth to his, and parted my lips
with his little finger.

Then I lay back on my back
in the dark, eyes open,
and waited. He had a word
for this . . . I forget. Another one
wanted to tie me up and
I let him, even though, technically,
there was a shotgun
leaning against the wall
in his bedroom. The woman I ate
for hours until she shook
to life, for the first time ever (she said)
in her thirties. I love this shit,
the taste, even, of blood,
and imagine I’d be the sole
survivor of my airplane crash.

That woman, her husband
had a gun too, you know, and used to hold it
to her head: “Don’t ever leave me.”
Probably I shouldn’t have gotten
involved, but those
were the days. Now
I just lick knives. Thank you.

L.E. Leone
© 2010

Writer Talk - LE Leone

2010-10-21T05:00:00.004-06:00

Please check out L.E. Leone's Writers Talk interview on Robert Frost's Banjo!

What We Know - Jonah Winter

2010-10-14T05:01:00.059-06:00

What We Know

Knowing what we know
    about pineapples and tragic endings,

Knowing what we know
    about Shakespeare’s sonnets and The Statue of Liberty,

Knowing what we know
    about Godzilla vs. The Appalachian Lap Dulcimer,

Knowing volumes, as we must certainly know,
    about the frail balance of seemingly tiny things –
        a passing smile, a glass of milk, a single raindrop
        taken out of context, misquoted, magnified
        until it is no longer just a raindrop
        but rather a crystal ball
        in the wagon of a Gypsy
        whose eyes get big as she foretells great things
        about the future of one particular fettuccine noodle,

Knowing how this delicate balance of seemingly disparate elements
    is what holds the universe in-tact,
    keeps the world from turning into one endless I Love Lucy re-run
    in which everything spins hopelessly out of control,
                                as they say,

Knowing what we know
    about the Gods of Randomness, pranksters
    motivated by their singular love of paradox, up all hours
    like a night-shift of Wiley Coyote impersonators,
    planting dynamite behind our smallest and our greatest expectations,
    fiddling around with this or that unlikely outcome,
    moving us in unforeseen directions, pushing us
    like proverbial deer into the headlights
    of what comes next, what certainly must come next,

Knowing as we know
    that it has always been thus,
        whatever that means,

But knowing as we know
    that our story, like all stories,
        doth have a beginning, middle and an end
        and was written in the stars
        ages ago, long before the wondrous moments of our births,

Knowing as we know, however,
    that love has such small windows,
    and that sometimes it is necessary to bring a ladder
    for climbing up into those windows
    which hopefully will be unlocked
    on whatever textbook summer night,
    amidst a profusion of moonflower blossoms,
    we might be bold enough to reach across the galaxy
    between us, extending a hand
    for the first time, knowing, not knowing,
    but mainly knowing,

Knowing as we know
    about particle physics,
which ain’t much, admittedly,
    but nonetheless knowing the sheer unlikelihood, statistically,
that two such seemingly tiny, insignificant bodies in motion
    would ever cross paths,
        much less collide, creating an explosion so massive
as to be felt and heard in the farthest reaches of Heaven,

Knowing all this, and so much more…,

How could we have ever doubted
    that whatever literal conveyor belts brought us right here
        to this current instant
were purely random?
    How could we have doubted
        the irrefutable truth
that everything has always been leading to this one moment,
trickling, rushing, meandering, overflowing
like streams to a river
as yet to be named or even discovered,
how could we have doubted

that our fates are as inextricable as water?

How could we have doubted
    in the dungeons of our lowest hours
        that we were never meant to be alone?

    We have arrived here,
    in this particular place, in this particular life,
    for one purpose, that we might some night,
        aboard this twilight boat-ride through the Magic City,
    look up
        and suddenly see the one face, so lovely,
we know and have always known
would someday appear, smiling, open, ready

for the clock to start ticking,

for this story to begin,
whatever the ending might be,
and whenever.

Jonah Winter
© 2010

Writers Talk - Jonah Winter

2010-10-14T05:00:00.003-06:00

It’s with great pleasure that I introduce today’s Writers Talk interviewee, Jonah Winter. I first met Jonah in Charlottesville in 1985 when we were both attending the MFA program at the University of Virginia, & we struck up a friendship “oriented around talking, analyzing, mulling,” as he puts it in this interview (I also hope I am a “good conversationalist.”) I’ve always held Jonah’s poetry in high esteem, & tho our poetics diverge at some points, we share an enthusiasm for the surreal & for formal experiments, & I can honestly say that his poetry has not only been an inspiration but also an influence over the years. Jonah also has been one of the best readers of my own poems, something that I value a great deal.

When Jonah & I weren’t mulling—or even sometimes while we were—we engaged in some memorable escapades, including an overnight road trip from Charlottesville to Niagara Falls with a couple of other “poets in their youth,” all intent on proving Wordsworth’s dictum, I fear (I described it in a poem as “No Exit except in a/Motel 6 in Tucumcari/one of those Hope-Crosby Road/extravaganzas gone wrong”)—a tale perhaps too wild & ultimately, too sad to tell—& a cross country road trip in an old Toyota that would keep running even if you pulled the key out of the ignition. We both lived in San Francisco during the 90s at which point Jonah was yielding clarinet, mandolin, accordion & tin whistle in the band Ed’s Redeeming Qualities.

Jonah Winter’s poetry has been widely published. In addition to his poems appearing in a number of magazines & in chapbooks, he has also published Maine & Amnesia; the latter book won the 2003 Field Poetry Prize. Jonah has also published 20 children’s books on subjects ranging from Roberto Clemente to Hildegard Von Bingen—perhaps my favorite is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude, his children’s book bio of Gertrude Stein!

Please check out Jonah's dynamite poem "What We Know" on the Writers Talk blog.

Without further ado, Jonah Winter:

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

It was when I was a sophomore at Oberlin College, just having lost the key to my clarinet case (I’d been a music major at another school with the unrealistic hopes of somehow sneaking in to the Oberlin Conservatory through the back door) – that’s when my identity crisis over musician vs. poet came to an end…, well, uhhh…, for about 10 years at least (I later took up the clarinet again and started making some money as a musician).    I’ve struggled from the beginning over my identity, always inexplicably bewildered over just what the hairy heck I am.   At one point, in the ‘90s, I was making money as a musician, an illustrator, and as a poet and children’s book author.   I’m now in my 19th year of making a living as a children’s book author, so I guess I can safely call myself a children’s book writer, but “poet” – I don’t know.   The word seems fraught with pretension and self-importance.   To think of oneself as a poet seems a bit absurd (almost like seeing oneself as a “visionary”) – that being said, I continue to write things that might be called “poems” (and are certainly intended as such) and have several filing cabinets overflowing with such specimens that I’ve written through the years, and a few books to show for my efforts as well.   Should an artist depend on external validation for her or his identity? After giving this question much thought, I’d have to answer with an emphatic “NO.”   You are what you are. And if you don’t know what you are, or you aren’t willing to define yourself with a label, well then, nonetheless, you still are what you are, right? If a tree falls in an unseen forest….     [Author strokes non-existent chin whiskers…]

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.
A few years ago, I wrote a sestina based on Anna Karenina.    Before I even chose my end-words, I had decided that I wanted it to be a sort of aural book report spoken by an inarticulate modern youth.   So, if memory serves me, I chose as my end-words “like,” “relationships,” “like,” “so,” “wow,” and “dude.”    It was a lot of fun to write!    I had to actually stop writing at certain points because I was doubled over in laughter – it was that fun!   I love cracking myself up – that’s probably what keeps me writing.   Who needs anti-depressants when you can come up with a poem called “Burt Lancaster’s Big Head”?!

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)
I have a fairly traditional, old-fashioned relationship to the publishing process.   I publish my books with regular old print-publishers, and for my children’s books, I have an agent.    Proudly “Luddite,” I have eschewed the temptations of turning my kids’ books into e-books thus far, and I am absolutely opposed to pretty much all forms of electronic publication for children, as I believe this is leading to mass-laziness, stupidity, and disconnectedness from reality.   I don’t have a blog, but I do have a website… that is pretty much non-functional!   I’ve published adult poems in online magazines, largely because I’ve been solicited by the editors of these magazines, whose taste is apparently compatible with my own.   Generally, though, I mistrust anything having to do with the internet…, uhhh…, except for this blog!   All of that being said, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the direction the publishing industry is taking – in both the more lucrative trade publishing sector and the small presses of obscure poetry.   The trade publishers are becoming more crassly mercenary by the second, churning out more and more “celebrity” author books every year (in the hopes that this will somehow protect the industry from the ominous storm clouds of Amazon and electronic books), whilst the small poetry presses are doing nothing more than perpetuating the sickening alienation of poets from any real audience by printing increasingly obscure, hermetic, overly (pseudo-) intellectual garbage written by their grad school chums and intended for an audience mainly of other aspiring poets who’ve submitted their manuscripts to the demoralizing, rigged “contests” which provide the only means of getting one’s poems published nowadays other than self-publishing. It’s enough to make someone throw up.   (Excuse me for one moment….)

How has being a writer affected your relationships?
Ha ha – that’s an interesting question!   Well, you know, being a writer has definitely helped me to meet some very interesting, creative, passionate people whom I might not have met had I gone into a field other than writing, for instance, plumbing, though of course one never knows.   If one is a writer, there’s a good chance that one will meet other writers, who by their natures generally love language, communication, talk.   Most of the writers I’ve known are good conversationalists, and our friendships or acquaintanceships have generally been oriented around talking, analyzing, mulling – activities for which I have a nearly pathological zeal.    The fact of being a writer, for me, also entails quite a bit of private time. For 19 years, I’ve been self-employed as a writer.   I work at home – alone.    And I savor the huge chunks of alone time I have to get writing done or even just to daydream or to stare at goldfinches.    Such time helps me to feel more connected to the world around me and also to my own soul.   The sorts of limited-access relationships I have had with other humans, therefore, are not of the sort of daily, constant variety that might happen in a workplace or a communal living situation or any other environment which involves non-stop human interaction.   I suppose, though, that having a lot of alone time does not necessitate being a writer, per se.   But being a writer sure does afford a handy excuse for avoiding people!   The grandfather I never met used to say, apparently, that “the more I see of fish, the more I like bananas.”   The writer in me wants to revise this to “the more I see of humans, the more I like fish.”    Though I do find people “endlessly fascinating,” in general, I also generally find them very exhausting to be around.     Navigating around everyone’s neuroses and egos and opinions and cruelties and “boundaries” can be a fulltime job.   And I, thank God, am a freelancer.

Getting back to the word “relationships,” though:        Might this question also refer to the relationships one has to nature or animals or even inanimate objects?    I lived alone in rural Maine for 2 years, and the relationships I had there were mainly of this variety – and I found myself writing about this realm quite a bit: moose, chipmunks, ducks, snow.   Writing about these things helped me to feel an even deeper bond with them than I would have experienced had I not been a writer.     So, I’d have to say that being a writer has generally had a positive impact on my relationships, especially my relationship with paper.

As far as humans go, though, I do my best to try and focus on the humans I love and admire and on the relationships which I value, but it’s an effort.   All I have to do is to walk outside my front door and see a couple of shirtless white guys with shaved heads and tattoos, shouting really stupid things in loud voices across the street to each other…, and it takes a full hour of yoga to bring me back to anything resembling peace.   Is my “relationship” to such people “caused” by my being a writer?   I don’t know.   Maybe.

For the most part, I prefer seals to humans.    Though I can’t say that I’ve ever had a relationship with a seal.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

The community of writers I belong to?   Non-existent!    I have a couple of friends with whom I exchange poems – but that’s different from a community.   In the best of all possible worlds, I would love to be a part of a community, but I simply haven’t found one that is right for me.   It would have to be a community of writers who are generally skeptical of modern writer communities. This seems… unlikely.    As far as “virtual” communities go, I find them frighteningly alienating – which is not really what you want from a “community”! I was on facebook for about 6 months, and I would have to agree with a writer friend of mine who summed it up as a “creepy online popularity contest.”   But I’d take that one step farther – it’s a corporation providing a template of sociability and self-definition that basically turns all its users into corporate clones:   Here are my “religious views.”   And here are my “political views.”    And here’s “what I’m doing today.”   And hey, if you like you can be “a Fan of Jonah Winter”…!    But only if you sell your soul to the devil and join, join, join this fun, fun, fun “network”…!    I know a lot of writers and editors who swear by facebook and other online communities as a way of “connecting” with other writers and for “promoting” their books and careers.   But as another writer friend of mine said when I joined facebook for that unfortunate 6-month period, “I hope you’ve now accomplished everything you want to accomplish in this life…, because from here on out all your time will be sucked into the soul-draining black hole which is facebook!”    (Not to put to fine a point on it.)

I wish there were more writer communities these days that revolved around real emotional and aesthetic connections rather than just some particular alma mater or the need to get published.   It must have been fun to be a part of the Beats, to be living out some youthful dream that was verbally in an intense relationship to the Real World (as opposed to some academic credo concocted in an Ivory Tower), something alive and pulsing, rumbling, sweating.   As opposed to hipster networking “book parties.”     To quote Ecclesiastes: Vanity, vanity, vanity!

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I really don’t know.   I have a feeling I’m in for some sort of big change on the writing front, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it will be.    Stay tuned.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

A player piano.

What’s in a Name? Meet Frances Burney - Audrey Bilger

2010-10-07T05:01:00.002-06:00

What’s in a Name? Meet Frances Burney
Frances Burney has been called many things. She was most often referred to as Miss Burney or Madame D’Arblay during her lifetime. After her death, sections of her voluminous diary were published, and Victorian readers, given a window into her intimate secrets and family life, took to calling her Fanny, a nickname that stuck through most of the 20th century. With the advent of feminist literary criticism in the late 1970s, scholars began asking whether the name Fanny Burney was appropriate as the primary form of identification for this author. From everything we know of Burney’s sense of propriety, she would probably have been shocked to know that she would be on such familiar terms with generations to come. Using her nickname also emphasizes youth and puts her on chummy terms with readers. Since she lived to be 87 years of age and published her last book, a memoir of her father, when she was in her 70s, the pet name seems even more jarring.

In keeping with the conventions of the time, her name did not appear on the title pages of her books during her lifetime. Men as well as women of the middle class and above often shied away from putting their name in print, seeing this as a vulgar and largely unnecessary display. The English-speaking world was small enough that authors’ names became known in other ways, and title pages of successful writers such as Burney would include the names of the books already published. The habit of referring to Burney by her maiden name even though for more than half her life she would have been known as Madame D’Arblay most likely has to do with Evelina’s triumph over the other three novels. It was the only one of her books to remain in print throughout the 19th century and beyond. Many readers saw the author as identical to the 16-year-old heroine of her work, something that must also have helped along the tradition of calling her Fanny.

Nowadays, new editions of Burney’s work tend to give her back her adult name, Frances. Although there are those who still prefer to say Fanny, this no longer stands as her sole identity, and so it sounds a bit like when people call Shakespeare “Will” or Hemingway “Papa”—light and affectionate, but not definitive.

Audrey Bilger
© 2010

Writers Talk - Audrey Bilger

2010-10-07T05:00:00.002-06:00

I'm very happy to introduce today's Writers Talk participant, Audrey Bilger. Audrey is a good friend & a staunch supporter of Robert Frost's Banjo. In fact, she's written a number of popular posts for this blog, with subject matter ranging from esoteric points of 18th century literature to up & coming rock bands. Which makes sense: Audrey is an English literature professor who has also been a drummer in a blues band!

Audrey—Dr Bilger in point of fact—obtained her PhD in literature from the University of Virginia, & is an Associate Professor of Literature, as well as Faculty Director of the Writing Center at Claremont-McKenna College. She has an impressive list of publications, including Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen (Wayne State University Press, 1998); articles in The Paris Review, BITCH: FEMINIST RESPONSE TO POPULAR CULTURE, ROCKGRL & in various Women's Studies journals, as well as upcoming articles in the print version of Ms. magazine. Audrey also is a regular contributor to the Ms. blog.

You can read one of Audrey's essays on the Writers Talk blog; I'd also recommend searching the "Audrey's Writing" label on this blog to see even more of her work. & so—here's Audrey!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in love with the written word. I stayed up late into the night when I was 6, 7, and 8, reading everything I could get my hands on. Black Beauty, Little Women, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Wrinkle in Time. Books were a means of escape, gateways to alternative universes where I was always at the center of the action.

My first creative works were funny poems. I enjoyed making people laugh and getting praise for coming up with clever rhymes—mostly in the sing-song rhythms of Dr. Seuss. When I hit adolescence, I switched to introspective material and started hiding what I wrote.

What I most remember about my earliest experiences as a writer was how I got lost in the process and how time got fuzzy around the edges. Like the best forms of play, writing was a world unto itself, a puzzle to be figured out, a mystery to be solved and put down on the page.

I don’t write poetry anymore and haven’t since I was a teenager in Oklahoma, but I still feel most at home when I get absorbed in a writing project. It’s a special form of magic.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

Much of my writing has involved research and critical thinking. Almost every piece starts the same way. I get obsessed by an idea or a question—from a conversation, a news item, a book, a TV show, or just something I see out of the corner of my eye—and I have to figure out how the pieces fit together to make some sort of sense. If I’m lucky, at some point in the process, I know exactly what I’m doing, and the words make their way to my fingertips on the keyboard or to the end of my pen. Usually, I have to sit with a piece for a while before I get immersed and find flow. Whether I’m writing a script, a narrative, or a critical essay, the writing only gets good when that fuzzy sense of time sets in. Creativity requires a state of grace—and it comes to you with a mandate. When you’re in the creative zone, you find everything you need; and when you leave it, you know you have to get back there again.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

From my earliest days as a writer of silly poems, I recognized that sharing what you’ve written can be both exhilarating and agonizing. When I’m writing I can’t think about what anyone else will think about my work or I get stuck. Once a piece is published, in whatever form, it’s out there on its own and a part of me goes with it. The level of exposure is intense, and the outcomes can be mixed. I’m miserable when something I write doesn’t get noticed. I’m happy when I hear from someone who has read my work, especially things from a while back—and even more so when the person has good things to say about it!

Because the blogosphere moves so quickly, I usually feel a rush when something I’ve written goes live. This energy lasts for a day or so as I keep checking back to see if anyone has commented or left feedback (I’m sure I’ll do that with this!), and my mood goes up and down, depending on what I see. With print books and articles, the process gets stretched out over time, but it’s pretty much the same emotional ride.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

My wife, Cheryl, is extremely patient with my writing habits. I have to get up really early if I want to find my way to the creative zone, and when she wakes up, I’m either high or low, depending on how the writing has gone. Neither state is particularly pleasant for someone who’s looking for her first cup of coffee. She’s also extremely good about reading my work and dealing with my initial sensitivity to criticism.

I have several close friends—Eberle being one of my closest!—with whom I trade pages and share work. All of these relationships are deep and special to me. Since writing is something I usually do by myself (in the wee hours of the morning), my writing network makes what I do seem more real.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to collaborate with Eberle, and some of our work has appeared here on RFB. The community John has built here is delightfully supportive—it’s been lovely getting to know all of you—so many cool writers!

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I’m currently working on an anthology, Here Come the Brides! The Brave New World of Lesbian Marriage with Michele Kort, a senior editor at Ms. magazine. [Here’s a link to our site, currently under construction.] I blog for Ms. and have a couple of pieces coming out in the next issue of the print magazine. I also have a piece in mind for RFB that I hope to get to one of these days.

I took on a new position at Claremont McKenna College, where I am an associate professor of literature, as the Faculty Director of the Writing Center, so many of my goals are linked to developing a stronger culture of writing at my school and bringing people together to talk about the craft of writing.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

A drum set, of course! I lay down a rhythm and then listen as the melodies gather around.

pic of Audrey in the Writers Talk graphic is by Greg Allen

A Story - B.N.

2010-09-23T05:01:00.003-06:00

A Story

This time I begin with my life story:
The version where nobody suffers
Too much from one of my
Fool-hearted mistakes. For the record:
I began wrong-headed. Bad boys,
Translucent dreams, a stolen lipstick.

The year after my mother took
A lover, my brother and I
Climbed and held secret
Meetings in the attic.
Red-lipped lighthouse keepers
Talking Cockney. We flashed
Beams from the window.

The next year I had my face
Slapped for saying “cunt” in front of
Company, and “lezzie” at the table.
It was like watching a fire—
Room by room the curtains catch. A blaze.
Even the forsythia whips guarding
The house lashed out.
And we were landlocked with
The maudlin cello music, lewd cats
Crying into the small hours.
Changed of heart.

I have learned little of pastorals—
The blue turn of the water, a
Twilight barking of dogs, the way
The past might appear innocent because
Poetics play fast and loose, like
A car careening down a back country road.

On the phone my brother admits that
Sometimes he is still transfixed by the
Light. The way someone lost at sea
Can barely make out the edges of a thing.

B.N.
© 1988

this poem originally appeared in Timbuktu

Writers Talk - B.N.

2010-09-23T05:00:00.006-06:00

I'm so very happy that my good friend B.N. has agreed to participate in the Writer's Talk series. My association with B.N. goes back to 1984, Charlottesville, VA, when she was in the final year of her poetry MFA & I was in my first year. B.N. really was the first person I connected with in the program, & we've maintained a friendship based on both writing & a shared wry view of reality. I have the greatest respect for B.N.'s writing talents, & it's been a privilege to make her work available here on Robert Frost's Banjo; it's also been heartening to see how many people have responded to her work, because I strongly believe her work should have a wide audience, & in fact much wider than what I can offer her here. Speaking of B.N.'s work being posted here: please check in next week for her story Still Life with Girl, which will be serialized from Monday September 27th thru Thursday Septemer 30th.

B.N.'s work has appeared in the following publications: Gulf Coast, The Gettysburg Review, The Cream City Review, Quarterly West, Memphis State Review, Seneca Review & Timbuktu. Speaking of Timbuktu, the production of another dear old friend, Molly Turner, you can read B.N.'s poem "A Story" from that publication over at the Writers Talk blog.

Without further ado, here's B.N.

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I wanted to write from an early age—maybe 12. I grew up in a home with thousands of books. They were perhaps the most significant possession—certainly afforded the most space. Books were sacred objects. This came from a history of the Holocaust—Nazis burned books. I understood pretty early, maybe six, that books were what separated the clean from the dirty, the compassionate from the brutish, the sacred from the profane.

My identity as a writer—me calling myself a writer has waxed and waned over the years. At points I found it deeply pretentious—would rather call myself a wife, a mother. I think that is because I am an Orthodox Jewish woman and our identity in our day to day lives is much more based on family.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

I write reams—or it feels like reams. How I picture the character in a certain situation. I will also have themes—class and money, sexuality and age. In fiction I never plot—although I love an O. Henry twist, these days very out of fashion. In general my creative process will involve one piece of music—a song over and over until a draft is done. As I work a very dull day job, I write small notes all day long and then when I get home I type them into the computer. I review them every few days to see what I can still use.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I have had very limited relationship with publishing. For some early years I published a couple of things a year—both poems and stories. Those few publications a year required me sending out a lot. This became costly both in money and energy. Then I had a family and had to support the family. The last thing I ever wanted to see in those days was a rejection note from a grad student that said something to the effect of—nice stuff but not today. That would have just been too much. My favorite line is: “this just does not meet out needs.” I always have a vision of little grimy editors trying to satisfy their needs—black Lycra.

In truth, I think there is so much great stuff published—much more in fiction than poetry but then there is also a lot of crap—a lot. I can’t figure it out. Taste and trends are not something I have ever had a handle on. It seems that much of the fiction I see published is articulate, not super ambitious and invariably makes gestures toward some third world life in traditional garb. A cult of the exotic—change the characters names to Joe and Dianne, set the whole thing in the rust belt and nobody, nobody would give it a second glance. Unfortunately it does speak to a poverty of imagination that is American—and not very exotic at all. This scares and saddens me. What we take as diversity only (which is morally good) and giving other voices is only happening because to a large extent there are few voices emerging.

Logistically, publication is a challenging. I am also not a very record keeper. It has happened that something was accepted that I do not remember sending, and once I just received a copy of a journal and lo and behold there was something of mine in it. I essentially gave up the whole notion of publication

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

It may have made me more difficult to live with and more messy as there are sheets of paper every place. In reality I am not sure it has had such a huge effect.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I have a few “writer” friends and those relationships are “virtual,” meaning email and phone. They are like any other “long distance” relationship in that in some ways they are more precious than my day-to-day relationships. For people who live far from large communities or cities where there are other writers they are essential.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I want to write the best book of short stories to hit the world in the last 50 years—I want it to knock socks off.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Oh it would have to be something with broken strings. It is hard to be a mediocre violin. What else has strings?—not a guitar—they are too sexual—maybe some kind of dulcimer

Beyond Peaking - Aaron M Wilson

2010-09-16T05:01:00.006-06:00

Elise Winter sat down with a large bowl of popcorn. After a long day of work, she was ready to relax and think about something other than her boss’s pending promotion, which would mean she’d likely have to do the work of two for several months. However, Elise had poured a stiff rum and Coke and her favorite mysteries were on tonight.

Elise didn’t think it was odd that violent imagery, murder, and alcohol helped take the edge off an exhausting day. Instead of the gore, and if you asked her, the gore did bother her, she focused on the sexy, smart detectives and the workplace drama that empathized right and wrong – catching the bad guys. Everyone, including the crime scene cleanup crew, was nothing but smiles. Elise’s work place was full of ambiguity and sullen expressions.

About half way into her first mystery, a reporter interrupted. “Sorry for the interruption. We go live, now, to the White House for coverage of what we have been told will be a turning point in American history. No wait, world history.” The reporter looked pale and ill prepared. “We’ve been told that in just a few seconds we will be addressed by the president.” There was a strange pause as the reporter listened, putting his hand over his left ear. He looked into the camera and sternly said, “We go live to the White House.”

Elise didn’t believe that anything this president had to say was important enough to interrupt her mysteries. As she waited on the couch, too tired to get up, too depressed to even try and change the channel, she started thinking about work. What was going to happen? Should she apply for her boss’s job when her boss got the promotion? She didn’t want to have to work under anyone else. Her current boss was a good boss. She listened to Elise’s input and took it seriously. Elise thought they worked well together and didn’t want the team to separate. Besides, it had been a long time since Elise had had a good boss, and she felt she’d had her fair share of terrible ones.

The president sat in the oval office, but Elise had tuned him out. He wasn’t her president. Her president would have respected the sanctity of evening mysteries. However, she sat up and paid attention when she heard the words, “gas prices,” because she commuted an hour each direction, to and from work, and the trip was too expensive at $2.75 a gallon now.

The president continued: “OPEC and the oil industry, either in an attempt to keep the junkie hooked up or in ignorance so complete, have lied to the American people. They have lied to the world. I deeply wish that I had better news, but we – the human race – have come to a head…”

In her pajamas, Elise pushed aside her popcorn and grabbed the keys to her car. She was seeing an environmental economist a couple times a week. He was a cutie, but he was depressing and overly serious about the state of the world’s natural capital, whatever that was. What he did have going for him, besides his looks, was a deep voice that cause Elise to dream of better tomorrows on sandy beaches. She hung on every word he spoke. One night, he had told her over dinner that if the president ever said “OPEC” and “lied” in a national address, she’d only have a few minutes to act.

Elise couldn’t believe that her boyfriend was right about all this fossil fuel mumbo-jumbo. She had wanted to stick around and listen to the end of the presidential address, but she had taken her boyfriend’s advice and driven to the nearest store. She felt lucky as she stood in line at Wal-Mart that Wal-Mart was only just down the street. She was drawing attention from other shoppers, but she knew what she was doing was right.

The cashier asked, “How many? I can just scan one, if that’s all you got in your cart.”

“Twenty. I could only fit twenty in the cart.” Elise put hand over her mouth. “What if twenty isn’t enough?”

“Ma’am, I’ve never seen anyone buy more than one at a time.”

Elise nodded and paid with her credit card. She hated credit cards and used it only for absolute emergencies. She couldn’t think of bigger emergency than this one, but she still hated the feeling of the potential interest accruing if she didn’t pay it all off at once.

After loading her car, Elise noticed that the streets were still quiet. She was having a hard time understanding why no one was on the move. Was she just that far a head of everyone else? When she saw her boyfriend again, she would have to thank him. She was sure that he was out doing the same thing right now. She thought of calling him until she realized that as she hurried out of the house she’d left her cell phone on the coffee table in front of the TV. Elise pulled into the first gas station she came across.

The Shell station was empty. Elise didn’t understand what was taking everyone so long, but it was in her favor. First, she filled up her car. Then, she slowly, carefully filled up each of the twenty, four-gallon tanks she’d just bought from Wal-Mart. Filling all twenty went faster than Elise had expected. After replacing the pump, she watched the small gray and black screen. When the screen was finished asking her if she’d like a carwash, coffee, or cheap cigarettes, and she selected “Yes” for a receipt. Her receipt read as she expected it would read: $2.75 per gallon.

After loading her car and pulling out into the street, she stopped at the light. Elise could see down the hill into the valley headlights pulling out from driveways. She thought she could hear angry car horns in the distance. Still waiting for the light to turn, she happened to look in her review mirror. The Shell sign that had just read $2.75 per gallon, now read: “Closed. Gas Reserved. Homeland Security.”

Aaron M. Wilson

"Beyond Peaking" originally appeared in The Hive Mind. Ed. Alexandra Wolfe. Web. 18 June 2010.

This is an excerpt from Mr Wilson's novel-in-progress, Solar Capital

Writers Talk - Aaron M Wilson

2010-09-16T05:00:00.003-06:00

Aaron M. Wilson lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. where he attempts to understand life, others (including his two cats – one good and one bad), himself, and especially his wife – in that order. He earned his M.F.A in Writing from Hamline University located in St.Paul, MN. He writes about books, stories, movies, and his experiences as an adjunct instructor of English, Literature, and Environmental Science on his blog: Soulless Machine.

His fiction has appeared in eFiction Magazine: The Premier Internet Fiction Zine, Pow Fast Flash Fiction, The Hive Mind, and he has forthcoming works in Eclectic Flash (September 2010), Twin Cities: Cifiscape Vol. I (August 2010), and The Last Man Anthology (October 2010 – also featuring stories from Barry N. Malzberg, C.J Cherryh, and Ray Bradbury).

You can get a sense of Mr Wilson's writing by reading an excerpt from his novel in progress (working title: Solar Capital) on the Writers Talk blog.

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I think that I’ve written about this elsewhere, but I’ve always been a liar and a storyteller. I exaggerate when there is no need. Just ask my wife. We play a strange game where I’ll relate some happening from the day, and she’ll stop me and ask, “Did that really happen?” Then I’ll have to admit that it didn’t. I don’t know why I exaggerate. I just do it. I’m just glad that I’ve found a partner who will not only put up with my crazy but enjoys it.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

I’m in love the process that produced my story “Spilling Sunlight” published in August by Evolve Journal. The editor contacted me thought Twitter and asked if I would like to write a story for their August issue. The catch: The story had to be inline with Evolve Journal’s theme – the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The assignment, it was an assignment, had my interest.

I quickly wrote a short story of about five thousand words and shot it off the Evolve Journal’s editors. The editors were interested, but they suggested a few fixes. From that point, the story started to change as we went back and forth a few times. I’m very happy with final product, and I enjoyed their comments and watching my story improve through feedback.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I blog. I Tweet. I’m thinking of getting into Scribd. Right now, I post some of my fiction on my blog and on others around the web. I’m excited about the #TuesdaySerial community where authors post flash-sized segments of a longer story on their own blog or website. On Tuesdays, a link list opens at Inspired By Real Life, and authors link their stories for the community to read and comment on during the week. When I’m finished posting my contribution, Bike Mechanic, I think that I'll publish it via Scribd.

My interest in Scribd started with the publication of three short stories and an author feature in the June issue of eFiction Magazine. Doug Lance, the editor, has been able to create a dynamic and beautiful publication and post it using Scribd. To my surprise, Scribd is being used by a diverse and talented group of writers and artist. I really wish that I had an eReader to make better use the technology.

However, my hope to find my way into the traditional book publishing biz. I’ve managed to get my big toe in the door. I have stories in two upcoming anthologies: Twin Cities: Cifiscape Vol. I, a collection of Twin City authors speculating possible futures for the metro area published by Onyx Neon Press; and The Last Man Anthology published by Sword and Saga Press in celebration of Mary Shelley’s novel, The Last Man.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?
Positive: I’ve met many individuals both in person and online of like mind. Also, my wife, Jessica Fox-Wilson, is a poet and artist, and we practice, inspire, and support each other. I’ve also sought out and put together a writers group to help enforce deadlines.

Negative: The more time I spend writing and working on a story, the more time I want alone to write. I’m constantly pushing people away to find time to write. It is like Nirvana’s song Lithium, “…I'm so happy 'cause today / I've found my friends, there in my head...” It is not that I always prefer characters to “real” people, but the characters in my head demand to be let out on to the page.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I participate in both “real” and “virtual” writing comminutes. My “real” writing community is the most reassuring. They keep me on deadline, and I need deadlines to maintain my writing. We turn writing into each other once a month, and we get together, in person, to workshop stories, poetry, whatever. However, my “virtual” writing comminutes keep me motivated by sending through links to contests and journals excepting submissions. Through Twitter, I’ve found @TuesdaySerial, Pow Fast Flash Fiction, eFiction Magazine, Evolve, and other journals with motivated and charismatic editors that have become important to my writing practice.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I’m always working on novel length ideas that end up truncated in short stories because I burn out on the idea, or I chase the new shinier idea that I just imagined. I really want to complete a full-length novel. To that end, I have started yet another novel length idea. My goal is to complete a novel length work of one hundred thousand words.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Auto-Tune. (Don’t ask.)

Winter's Wake - Kat Mortensen

2010-09-09T05:01:00.018-06:00

Ice spikes drip, at torture pace;

Pine-clumps plunge from upper place.

Minefield yard of scrap and scree;

More flurries on the way I see.

Mounds of snow rock-hard with ice,

Will not be moved, for trying—twice,

Porch is heaped with husks of seed;

Here nature's hungry came to feed.

Rusty vines of leaf entangle;

Redbud's rangy fingers dangle.

Limp limbs droop where once they bore

Flakes, water-logged, that lag no more.

Frozen fringes, silent creep;

Behind the bushes March hares sleep.

The corvine crew morosely caws,

As winter hedges, hems and haws.

Kat Mortensen

Writers Talk - Kat Mortensen

2010-09-09T05:00:00.004-06:00

Many Robert Frost’s Banjo regulars are already familiar with poet-blogger Kat Mortensen. Her various blogging efforts have attracted a wide following, & with good reason. Not only is Kat a fine poet, but she is a most friendly & engaging presence in the blogosphere. I’m very honored that Kat was one of the first followers of Robert Frost’s Banjo, & that she still continues to be among its staunchest supporters. She has also been a booster of my poetry, which I have appreciated greatly.

Kat Mortensen’s blogging efforts include: Poetikat’s Invisible Keepsakes, Kathus, Kigo of the Kat, shadowstalking & Acadianeire's Heritage. In addition, she published her first book of poetry, shadowstalking, earlier this year thru her own Hyggehus Publishing venture & which you can purchase here. You can read a poem from that collection, “Winter’s Wake” on our own Writers Talk blog—Kat discusses the process involved in creating that poem in her interview.

I’m very pleased that Kat Mortensen has agreed to participate in the Writers Talk interview series & I hope you enjoy her interview as much as I have!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

Although I have always loved to write and work with the English language, it is only in recent years that I have felt comfortable with thinking of myself truly as a writer/poet. It still feels a bit strange when people ask me what I do and I say, "I'm a poet." It is so conventional to believe when you are growing up that you need to find employment in some field that will give you not only a feeling of purpose, but will make you money. I went through school assuming that I had to be a teacher and when those efforts turned out not to be aligned with who I am as a person, I found myself floundering for years in unsuitable jobs that did indeed make me money, but left me feeling emotionally and spiritually dead at the end of the day.

Being able to say now, that I am a poet, is liberating - still a bit odd, but very freeing.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

There are generally, two methods by which I create a poem; the first is spontaneous and quite random, where an idea strikes me with no warning and the second is far more methodical and deliberate. Both methods require different amounts of time to foment. In the first case, I usually work through ideas, lines and words in my head (this often happens when I awake in the middle of the night) and I hope to recall what I've thought, but know that even if I don't, what does result will still be what is "meant to be".

In the second case, I will make notes and work things out before I go to my computer, then I will do a first draft and walk away from it for a while. When I go back to it, I often have moments of clarity that bring the piece together. Of course, sometimes it doesn't always go the way I might wish. I never think of anything as "written in stone". I believe since I am the creator, I can change what I want, when I want or even scrap entire verses or the whole thing, if I so choose.

I am keenly motivated by what I see and hear, rather than what I think. I translate what my eye and ear perceives into words that attempt to convey the feeling and the response to the original.

This is not to say that I don't think about things too—I think far too much, if I'm honest, but what I think about has usually been motivated by a visual impression. A poem that comes to mind is "Winter's Wake" which was prompted by the scene outside my kitchen window in late March. My yard was a mess of snow remnants, broken branches, rangy trees and a few creatures. I was compelled to capture that picture in words for posterity.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)?

Blogging has been the best platform for me and in effect, it is blogging that really helped me to develop as a legitimate poet (whatever that means). On the other hand, blogging is a difficult thing to incorporate into one's life on so many levels. There is such a need to commit to the online journal if your goal is to have people commit to reading it. If you're only doing it for yourself, then you won't feel obligated, or impinged upon by what it demands. I find it hard work to keep the blog up to the level of expectation that I create for my readers. I am also continuously drawn to find other worlds in the blog-sphere to keep myself stimulated apart from my own writing. That's just me; I need to have many "irons in the fire".

I'm leaning more and more to keeping my poetry an entity unto itself. I have recently separated all my extraneous interests from Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes in an effort to distinguish the creative art of my work, from the more mainstream day-to-day experiences.

I have self-published my book, but I've talked about that at length already and those comments can be found through the interviews on my shadowstalking blog.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Prior to self-publishing my volume of poetry, shadowstalking, the people in my life had an interesting reaction to learning that my sole occupation is writing. Words like, "cute", "interesting" and questions such as, "Where have you been published?" were commonplace. Since releasing my book, and having it read by these same people, I have had genuine approbation and support that has actually surprised me. Extended family members and friends have all been very encouraging and have said they are proud of me, which certainly feels good.

I must state firmly, that both my husband and my mother have shown nothing but love and support every step of the way.

I have also noticed that people in the blog community seem more interested and loyal even when I can't reciprocate that same commitment to them.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

I feel honoured to be an accepted and acknowledged part of the online community of writers the world over. It is so creatively invigorating to be boosted by others of such great talent and inspiration. It feels like I am part of a global family from North America to the UK and points all over the world. I am moved when someone who has my book in their possession shares a photo with me. I have to pinch myself when I think that my work is in the hands of an appreciative fellow-poet in a far-off place. It's just the ultimate high on top of the actual creation of the work.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

I'm getting the itch to put another book together. I have no idea at this point in which direction I'm going to take my work, but I trust that will evolve naturally. Deep down, I have fears that if I produce one too soon, no one will be interested, but the actual process of constructing a book is so absorbing and fulfilling that when I'm not doing it, I feel like something is missing. I suppose that's a good thing; I don't think I will ever tire of finding the best of me and putting it in book form.

With everything that's going on with me transitionally - moving from one home to another and losing a beloved pet, I really feel like I need a break from the blog world, but we'll see.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

If my writing were a musical instrument, I think it would have to be a fiddle. The beauty of this instrument is that it can be lighthearted and whimsical. So too, it can be mournful and reflective. I feel that my poetry is a bit of everything, like me. I had thought perhaps, the violin, but the fiddle also represents from where I am descended. My work is all the things a fiddle can be and besides, the sound of a fiddle moves me to dance, sing and create.

The Little Mermaid - Jessica Fox-Wilson

2010-08-26T05:01:00.005-06:00

The Mermaid Sees the World

for the first time, when she was thirteen
years old. For years, she waited her turn.
Her older sisters visited first, taught her
everything they knew. They said that men
swam on land, using two long limbs
to balance upon. They built castles

from compressed sand and rock. They wrapped
soft scales around their bodies, in colors
that were brighter than any fish in the sea.
They never sang. Instead, they gurgled
and chattered like dolphins. To the sisters,
they were strange. To the youngest mermaid,

they sounded beautiful, more beautiful
than the coral and seaweed she circled
every day. On her thirteenth birthday,
the mermaid breaks the glass surface
of the sea and finds a gray swath
of sky, the same color as the ocean.

She sees water pour from the sky in columns,
blue light streaking and landing
on a wooden vessel beside her. Orange
tongues lick the structure clean. Men
scream and fall in to the water. They bob
and sink, backs curled like turtles.

She waits for them to move and kick,
dive and rise like she would. They only
float. She finds the nearest man
and swims below him. His mouth
open, eyes closed. She has seen
that look before, on old fish that float

to the surface. She rolls the man
on to his back, hears him sputter
and cough. The mermaid and the man
link eyes as she guides him towards the shore.
She sees in him the whole world
she is missing and yet, she pushes him away.

The Mermaid Loses Her Voice

Yes, was the last word she said. Seconds later,
the witch removed her tongue. This was before

she braved the witch’s dark garden, seaweed
winding around her arms. Still before she defied
her family, abandoned their crowded sandbar.
Before her months of mourning, before
her salt tears poured in to the salt sea.
Before she knew that loss and love were both

as boundless and empty as the black sea. Before
she saved her first love, pushed
his limp body toward the surface, toward the air
he could breathe. Before his ship opened
like a hungry mouth and devoured everyone
aboard. Before she saw his unconscious,
beautiful face. Before she learned
that mermaids had no souls, no hope of eternal life.
Before she knew she was trapped.

Before all this, she was just a girl
with a lovely voice and a limited life.

So, she said, yes, and watched the witch slice
her tongue from her mouth with the silver knife,
watched her tongue, that slippery fish, swim
through clouds of blood and plankton, then plop
in the burbling black potion. Yes, she had said
then mawed the water and tried to find her way home.

The Mermaid Learns to Walk

The sand around her refracts and shines
like glass. She focuses on each glittering

grain, each new salty breath she takes,
so that she doesn’t feel her green

fin split into two milky white props.
She marvels at the way her scales,

flake off to reveal such a smooth
surface. She is naked and awake. Her hair

tangles around her body like seaweed,
binding her to the sandbar. He takes

her hand without asking and she smiles
a tongueless, toothy smile. It is true

that every step pierces the bottoms
of her brand new feet, each grain

grinds into her skin. Yet, she remains
both silent and lovely. She simply smiles

and breathes, wonders at her new world,
leaving a trail of dark red footprints in her wake.

The Mermaid Ascends

Standing above
her lover and his bride,
the mermaid
makes her choice. The knife
is heavy in her palm.

She kisses his forehead, sees
that he does not wake.

The mermaid flings
the knife into the water.
The seas seethe
red, gurgle
like blood. There is only
one thing left for her to do.

She takes one last leap
on her borrowed legs,
one last breath
with her new lungs.

The air tastes salty,
even without her tongue.
She never feels
her impact.
One moment

she is aloft
and the next she is crushed
by walls of blue. Water
floods her nostrils, fills
her mouth, fills
her lungs. She is not scared,

just curious as she feels
every molecule dissolve
into foam. But then,
just as she finally lets go
of her sinking body,

hands encircle her, fish her
out of the waves. She rises
out of her father's kingdom,
above her lover's ship, above
the crowded city. She feels

sun on her permeable skin
as she floats weightless
to her next home.

Jessica Fox-Wilson
© 2010
all rights reserved

Writers Talk - Jessica Fox-Wilson

2010-08-26T05:00:00.004-06:00

Jessica Fox-Wilson is a poet, writer, & educator who lives in Minneapolis with her husband & cats. A graduate of Hamline University's Master of Fine Arts in Writing, her poetry has appeared in several journals, including Poetry Motel, qarrtsiluni, Epicenter & Rive Gauche. Her articles have appeared in print & online publications, most recently online at Read Write Poem. She blogs at everythingfeedprocess.com.

To get some sense of Jessica's writing, please check out the Writers Talk blog, where you’ll be able to read a four poem sequence.

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

I identified myself as a writer once I reached high school. I struggled academically and there were a few key teachers who encouraged my writing. Their early encouragement also inspired my interest in education as a professional career. However, in high school, I participated in all of the artsy activities – I was a theater-art class-lit journal geek.

Once I reached college, I initially hoped to triple major in Theater, Education and Creative Writing. I realized pretty early on that three majors might kill me, so I dropped Theater, since it didn’t allow me enough free time to write. In college, I met some of my best writing/real life friends, including my husband. I’ve labeled myself as a poet educator ever since.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

This winter, I was writing a chapbook manuscript about my recent knee injury and surgery, and I knew I needed a series of poems that rose above my own experience. In my thesis manuscript, I wrote several persona poems from the voice of fairy tale characters or mythological figures to achieve that same goal. (I wrote more about this part of my aesthetic on my blog, in case you’re interested.) My hope was that I could connect what I was experiencing in my healing process to something larger about physicality and female identity.

I started to research fairy tales that dealt with legs, walking, et cetera and found a translation of The Little Mermaid. After re-reading the original story, I wrote a poem called “The Mermaid Loses Her Voice,” which I hoped capture the original’s tone. As the manuscript developed, I wrote the entire arc of the fairy tale as individual poems. The arc of the story served as my structure for the manuscript.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)
If I had answered this question in college or during my MFA, I would have said that my main goal was to publish a book of poetry with a traditional publisher. As I’ve gotten older (and lazier), I’ve found that I don’t have the persistence for the traditional model of publishing.

For me, self-publishing is a much more sustainable model. Right now, I self-publish through my blog and my Twitter account. Beyond my blog, I hope to one day self-publish in actual book form. I’m inspired by (what I’m calling) the Amanda Palmer of self-publishing, which you’ve mentioned on your blog. Artists should take ownership of the dissemination of their work in the world. And they should get paid for it, if there is an audience who will pay for it.

Now, I just have to find the time and the appropriate format for self-publishing. I’m interested in hearing feedback from folks who have self-published through a POD or traditional printer and hearing about their experiences.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

Writing has been the common bond for many of my relationships. My husband is a fellow writer, my best friends from college are fellow writers, and most of my non-writing friends know me as a writer.

I think the challenge of being a writer with relationships is that I feel I have to sacrifice one for the other. There are times when I have to be a bad friend because I need writing time. Luckily, most of my friends give me the space I need. There are other times when I choose to give up a little writing time, so that I can spend time with someone who is important to me. I don’t think I could ever be a recluse-writer because I need those relationships in my life.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

In real life, my most important writing community is my husband. He keeps me honest and focused on my writing, even when I feel discouraged. It’s a blessing to have someone who believes in your art, especially when you live with him. Together, we participate in a monthly writer’s group, with two other writers.

In my online life, I am a blogger, Twitter user, Facebook user, and general community floater. When I first started blogging, I found a wonderful poetry-prompt community called Poetry Thursday, which eventually morphed into Read Write Poem. I made several good poetry friends there, before the site ended earlier this year. Since then, I’m floating a bit. I like Big Tent Poetry quite a lot, which was founded by some truly awesome Poetry Thursday/Read Write Poem folks. I also like We Write Poems, which also started from the Read Write Poem community. Hopefully, I’ll alight on one or both of these lovely sites soon.

Without the online writing communities, I don’t know if I could have remained as committed to my writing as I have been, in the five years since I finished my MFA. There is such a great opportunity for collaboration, connection, and motivation through the internet that isn’t always possible in real life. I can chat with writers in Idaho or India, without ever having to leave Minnesota, and learn from them. It’s pretty amazing.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

Keep writing. In all sincerity, that’s my main goal. At this point in my writing life, the biggest threat to my writing is the accumulated competing claims on my time. Individually, they don’t seem like much. There’s a job, relationships, and other art forms. But in aggregate, they become overwhelming. I’ve seen many writers lose the focus of their writing because everything else takes precedence. I honestly just pray that I can stick with it.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

My writing would be a player piano, with slightly asynchronous timing.

The Sportswoman's Notebook - Eberle Umbach (excerpt)

2010-08-19T05:04:00.001-06:00

THE SPORTSWOMAN’S NOTEBOOK

TREIS AGUAS- THE APPARITION

Given all the time I have lived—enough time for centuries of shades, of specters clanking chains or alighting with voluptuous claws on the nightly body—it is remarkable that the first ghost I should ever encounter would smell of cheap perfume, would be, in fact, a majorette.

It was noon, a Sunday in the rainy season. A few hours before, the air had been filled with the sounds of market-day: melodious shouts and the horns of the trucks; horses snorting; church bells and the smell of butchering up on the hill. It struck me today that I would probably never forget this particular smell, of fresh blood and fear mixing with the thin, high-pitched smell of ripe pineapples spread out in the marketplace on an abundance of newspaper.

Heaps of pineapples, lightly bruised and oozing—a sweetness in the throat as soft as frog-song. We had, in the interior, an obvious abundance of fruit. The newspaper, however, was another story—a mystery that was never to be solved by Emily or me during our stay at Treis Aguas. There were no newspapers for sale in the region, for the fairly obvious reason that almost no one could read. Neither could pens be purchased at the market; Emily and I bought ours at the ocean, a day’s journey away, in the stinking coastal city of Tierra Branca.

Emily, I believe, loved that stink because it meant pens and paper and lovely beer. In Treis Aguas she made do with sugar-cane spirits like everybody else; what bothered her more was the absence of pens. She never completely believed that no one else in our household had even a slight desire for these implements. The night that Florissima and Antoni taught us to play dominoes she nudged me when it came time to keep score. “Now,” she whispered, “they will have to write.” But Florissima went into the next room where the setting hens were sleeping under baskets; when she came back, she spilled a handful of dried corn onto the table to use as counters.

In spite of the fact that no one read newspapers, an enormous supply of them flowed continuously into the interior. Some ended up at the market in Mbicci, for wrapping purchases of goiaba, manioc flour, soap, and hunks of the various animals freshly slaughtered whose blood made a thin wash of red run between the cobblestones outside the meat market.

It was after lunch that the ghost appeared, in the quasi-delirium buzzing with flies that takes hold after the women have cooked the weekly meal of meat and the men have eaten it. A breeze came out of nowhere, stirring the fronds of the coconut palm in the courtyard outside my window and wafting the smell of cowshit and orange blossom across the mud yard that bloomed, each day of the rains, with green shapes like huge algae, monstrously amorphous. She came marching across the courtyard in white boots, twirling a baton in a cloud of glittering dust—which made it immediately clear to me that what I saw was a vision. No boots could stay white in the mud that steamed behind her, and dust was only a distant dream until the dry season.

I smiled to think that death could include intricate tricks with a sparkling baton, and I rested my arms on the window sill, leaned out farther. The sharp little heels of her boots did not sink into the muddy clay of the courtyard, patterned with the marks of chicken and guinea fowl feet, cat and duck feet, that everyone else had to cross on a wobbly mesh of long cut twigs. Twirling and tossing the baton she marched in front of the smoking ashes of the clay-brick stove where a clay pot still rested holding the remains of the midday beans.

The buttons running down her milkless breasts made double rows of bright gold polished nipples and I saw the fighting cock, captive in a woven basket against the wall, twitch his green-gold tail feathers as she passed. She marched on—so ringleted so well-fed and young-- her strong white teeth and strong white thighs part of some terrible machine of destruction that men, with their peculiar masochism, would tend to desire painfully.

Then I became aware of the sound of corn being ground for the evening meal. The grinding of corn is slow painstaking work, performed only by women. It seemed to be an endless task: somewhere, there was always a woman grinding corn. As I formulated that thought, the majorette vanished into the thin steaming air. The sound of grinding became suddenly loud, grating on my nerves as it often did.

The sound of the grinding was worse, for me, than the tiny but mesmerizing sound of cockroaches chewing all night that bothered Emily. They were eating her manuscripts, she pointed out, and she wondered if she would ever be able to write quickly enough to keep ahead of them. Secretly, however, I believe she liked the idea. The cockroaches ate her words and the chickens ate the cockroaches and then we ate the chickens—so in the end, she fed us. That was Emily’s notion of domestic economy.

I craned my neck out the window, but the majorette could no longer be seen. The spell was broken and I flung myself into my hammock, suddenly overtaken by a dark and violent mood. One arm over my eyes blocked out the sun as I listened to the chorus of the damned— flies the incessant sopranos, and irregular locusts deepening the pulse—a slow frenzy never breaking free of itself, always returning.

Of course, I told myself bitterly, it would be a majorette. I thought of the others who were like me, whom I had seen over the years and recognized—the ones with centuries behind their eyes. Though they shared my fate in some ways, none had really resembled me. They were men, for instance, who were reflecting together on the refined ironies of immortality—in Paris! —while I was wandering alone crashing through the stench of rain forests with screaming parrots my only teachers. They were advising the rulers of Egypt while I was chained in the swan-plucking sheds, the endless frozen tundra around me and no traditions, no history I could recognize as my own.

I was certain of one thing about those men: they would never be contacted for any reason by a majorette from the spirit-world. Whatever spirits they encountered would be complex, with the elaborate ways of Medieval demons, with the smell of candle-smoke and burnt offerings clinging to them, not the smell of the majorette’s cheap perfume. And the vision would be meaningful to them; it would not simply disappear, as mine had, without a message, without significance. Apparently I could not escape the taint of the monstrous, even in my hallucinations. The heat of the afternoon pressed on me heavily and I abandoned myself to the contemplation of hopelessness.

Then Emily appeared in my window, as she sometimes did, by climbing out of hers and crossing on the branches of the star-fruit tree that grew at the corner of the house. I hadn’t heard her crossing, and couldn’t help but be delighted, in spite of my troubled thoughts, as she waggled her eyebrows at me with the impertinence of a schoolgirl.

She crouched in the deep pale blue well of the window, framed by dark green shutters fastened open against the inside wall. There was no window glass here, no screens, and we had always been glad of that. She perched for a moment on her delicate haunches, then swung her legs into my room. Behind her, the breeze moved again, rustling the deep green of the leaves and gently swelling the ribs of the star-fruit hanging in the boughs.

Eberle Umbach

Writers Talk - Eberle Umbach

2010-08-19T05:00:00.009-06:00

I’m so happy to see the Writers Talk series beginning & I’m even more happy because we’re starting it off with my dear wife Eberle Umbach. The facts: Eberle has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Oberlin College & an M.A. from Johns Hopkins, also in creative writing. She has had her short fiction published in several literary journals as well as The Whole Earth Catalog (I've always thought that was terrifically cool), & a very generous excerpt from her Weiser River Pillow Book was published in the Impassio Press anthology of fragmentary writing titled In Pieces (you can read the complete Pillow Book right here on Robert Frost’s Banjo.) Eberle also served as Idaho Writer in Residence in 1988 & 1989. In addition, as a musician she has been awarded a number of grants by the Idaho Commission on the Arts, especially for scoring work she did (with some help from yours truly) for the films of silent film director/writer/actress Nell Shipman. In short, Eberle’s creativity, not only in writing & music but in other forms as well, is truly inspiring.

To get some sense of Eberle's writing, please check out the new Writers Talk blog, where you’ll be able to read the first chapter of Eberle’s novel, The Sportswoman’s Notebook. So, without further ado….

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

In grade school and high school I wrote poems that just amazed me by how beautiful they were. In some ways, this has become more complicated over time, and in some ways not.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

I had an unvarying routine for my most recently unpublished novel The Sportswoman’s Notebook - make coffee, sit with my parrot and write in the Pillow Book, then go to my studio and work. I liked having a complete outline written out very neatly, even though I was constantly not following it and rewriting it. As seems to always be the case when I write, one inexplicable image was the start of it and what I kept returning to when I felt lost in it. In this case it was an image that came to me as I was reading Turgenev’s The Sportsman’s Notebook (I’d never read any Turgenev before or since, but I was living in rural Brazil and read ANYTHING in English I could find.) I thought of how the book might be if instead of a narrator who was a hunter moving freely between classes and expressing the dynamics of feudalism, you had a woman narrator/hunter who moved freely through centuries, expressing the dynamics of masculinism. In itself, this was no more than an idly half-irritated thought – but it immediately merged with an image of vampires and other immortal monsters - of Frankenstein, and Mary Shelley encountering in herself the monstrosity of female writing, a doubled narrator - and the image of Elizabeth Bishop who had lived in small-town Brazil with the lover she called her maidservant. The tension between those ideas was what encoded the whole story immediately, in a moment, and I knew all I had to do was unravel it. I think the thrill for me is the experience of being simultaneously the silkworm who spins the cocoon and the woman who unwinds the cocoon into a single thread and weaves it into a dwelling tent. If an image doesn’t make me certain I will feel like that, I know I will get bored long before I find the story in it that is real for me.

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

In the years immediately following graduate school, I had several short stories published in literary magazines and felt quite pleased with myself. But I knew that novels were what I really wanted to write. When my first two novels went unpublished in spite of some interest, I was really abysmally crushed though I tried not to admit this (pride not only goes before a fall but comes after it?) I started playing more music and writing less. When I started working on novels again, it was with no illusions as to their probable future. Which was, in some ways, liberating – after I’d exhausted the other emotions. I’ve been working recently with an agent who’s interested in a somewhat fictionalized non-fiction book about the friendships between 19th century women authors that I’m writing and this has been a different kind of emotional roller-coaster than outright failure – sometimes I feel horrified by the thought that I’m selling out – other times horrified by the thought that I’m not even a good enough writer to succeed at selling out – even more afraid of the fact that I’m actually coming to love this book and it’s not really selling out at all. What I’m trying to do now is just stay open to wherever the encounter of writing this way takes me, knowing that that’s the only thing, ultimately, that has reality.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?
A movie that absolutely possessed me at a strangely young age was The Red Shoes, where the conflict between a woman’s art (as a ballerina) and falling in love leads to her take her greatest dancing role into her own life and commits suicide by dancing herself into a moving train. I also ADORED the ballet in the movie, where a newspaper dances on stage, and an ocean comes right up to the footlights (I was young enough to think these things were real.) But it was the fatal and inevitable horror of the conflict between art and love that consumed me. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I plunged pretty deeply into destructive relationships in the early adult phase of my writing life…and this conflict of identity is still one that gives me vertigo at times. But I’ve learned a lot more about it, and John – you understand this in a way that always brings me back to earth, to you, no matter how far away I’ve gone.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any? This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

My primary writing community has always been virtual (in book form) and intensely energizing to me. From early on in my reading life I strongly preferred women authors to the other kind (is literary sexual orientation perhaps genetic?) and in the thrill of 80s fem crit was delighted that I could justify this preference in such an intelligent-sounding way by espousing (tee hee) and even disseminating (har har) theories about the irreconcilable difference between women writing and men writing. But it wasn’t really a theoretical decision – the sense of an imaginary community of women writers that I read, as women writers before me had read, was just this incredibly powerful thing for me. One of the great historic events of my life in this in this virtual community was when I met Audrey – a graduate student in literature – when we were both waitressing in Charlottesville, and our first conversation in that frat boy bar with sandwiches named after sports heroes we’d never heard of was about 19th century women authors and the remarkable happened – I met someone who felt the same way I did about reading and about our literary ancestresses. So we developed an actual friendship within this virtual community and it has been an extraordinary relationship – for 25 years now. I think our dead sisters-in-writing have enjoyed our relationship too; they occasionally appreciate an up-to-date perspective. Ask me about St. Cecelia if you’re curious.

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

Honestly, my immediate goal is to write a publishable form of this book of 19th century women authors and then find a publisher for the novel I’m writing now, Magdala Red. More honestly and possible even more embarrassingly I’d quote George Eliot (a sister-writer whose unabashed earnestness at times makes me feel somewhat less abashed about my own):

May I reach the highest heaven.
Be to other souls a cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smile that knows no cruelty,
So may I join the choir invisible,
Whose music makes the gladness of the world!

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

I would like to say an Aeolian harp, or the spangled drum of Cybele and Miriam. But more honestly perhaps, a duet between a student-grade Tibetan prayer bowl and a kazoo. A poor thing, but mine own.