12 or 20 (second series) questions with Trisia Eddy Woods

Trisia Eddy Woods is the author of A Road Map for Finding Wild Horses (Turnstone Press, 2024.) A former editor for Red Nettle Press, Trisia’s writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals and chapbooks across North America including Contemporary Verse 2, The Garneau Review, and New American Writing. Her artwork has been exhibited both close to home and internationally, and is held in the special collection of the Herron Art Library. Currently she lives in Edmonton / amiskwaciywâskahikan with her family, which includes an array of four-legged companions. Her photography, including wild horses, can be found online at prairiedarkroom.com or IG: @prairiedarkroom

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first chapbook was a long form poem published with dancing girl press, over ten years ago now. I really loved it, it felt special and the poem still holds a lot of meaning for me. Although the setting is quite different, this current book is similar in the sense that I am exploring different layers of connection. However, I definitely see and feel where I have grown as a writer, and I feel more confident in my voice. This being my first full-length collection, I’m incredibly excited to see it out in the world.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I was encouraged when I was still in junior high school by my English teacher, Mrs. Leppard. I remember her putting together a compilation of pieces written by students, and when one of my poems was chosen I felt incredibly proud. I continued writing poetry throughout university, and after my kids were born. It wasn’t very accomplished or well edited, but poetry was a way for me to write in the brief spells of time I had in between working and mothering. As they have grown I have been able to spend more focused time, be more thoughtful and consistent. I’d definitely like to write essays or fiction; perhaps that is on the horizon.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I am constantly writing things that come to mind, and collect them in notebooks or on my phone if I don’t have a pen and paper. I also often make voice memos to myself, and  transcribe them every couple of months. This particular project was done over several years, so I had a lot of disorganized pieces to go through and make sense of!

Lately as I have been dealing with the effects of long covid I find myself coming across snippets of writing, and I cannot remember when they are from, or the context under which I wrote them. So I am accumulating a collection of verses that are simply phrases I like the sound of, or evoke certain feelings, which is proving to be an interesting way to put together a project.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I think that my ideas grow out of what I happen to be obsessing over at the time. I don’t purposefully create a book, but I do like to deeply explore concepts and get lost in research, so that seems to organically take shape as a larger body of work. Sometimes it feels as though the idea of putting together a collection is intimidating, as I have a few half-formed manuscripts that were supposed to be ‘books.’ In the last several years, though, I have become more comfortable with taking things apart and letting them go, whether it is individual poems or a collection.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Having helped organized readings in the past, I found them really quite inspiring and important in terms of hearing the work of others, as well as sharing my own. Poetry in particular has always seemed to me a kind of art form that enjoys being read aloud. I love hearing writers interpret their work in their own voice, I think you hear things that you might miss just reading from the page. With this book I have had a few opportunities already to read at different events, and it seems to bring a life to the project that is invigorating on a different level.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

That’s a difficult one. I don’t know that I have contemplated much in the way of theoretical concerns, aside from my own emotional processes. In the past I was often mired in wanting to say something ‘important,’ and I struggled with feeling reluctant to share my writing. Now I appreciate the fact that all of us have important experiences and perspectives to share, so perhaps I might say that one current consideration is to be generous with our reading and writing, and to make space for embracing a variety of questions and answers, especially from voices that are not traditionally heard.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I work in a library, so I see first hand the influence of writers in people’s lives. It’s quite amazing, really, how many books circulate, and how attached people get to certain authors. How excited they are when their holds arrive, how disappointed they are when we don’t have something they are looking for on the shelf. How much they love to talk about a book they really enjoyed, with staff and with strangers. I think if writers could see the interactions we have with the public they would feel quite proud of the pivotal role they play in creating community.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

A Road Map for Finding Wild Horses was my first opportunity to work closely with an editor, and it was a transformative experience. I was very fortunate to work with Di Brandt, and she asked a lot of questions that helped me clarify what I was wanting to convey in the manuscript. So in that sense, it was definitely both; difficult because I was confronted with the potential weaknesses in my writing, and at the same time essential, because I was able to dig deep to answer those questions.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

When I was working with Di, at one point she told me ‘you need to trust your writing more,’ and I was really struck by that. I think there are a lot of moments (for myself, at least!) where second-guessing the words on the page becomes a habit, and the idea of giving ourselves permission to believe in what we write can be very liberating.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?

In many ways I see both my visual art practice and my writing practice as a conversation—there are times when I don’t have much to say in writing, and I turn to photography or printmaking to express what I am processing at the moment. Other days writing takes over, and I will spend weeks without picking up my camera. There is a certain amount of comfort in knowing that if the words aren’t at my fingertips, I still have ways of finding a creative outlet. It also means I am looking at the world in a multi-faceted way: sometimes I see or experience a moment and words come to mind, while other times I am struck by the particular way the light is just so, and feel the need to create a photograph.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

It is really only in the past couple of years that I’ve been able to develop any kind of writing routine. In the past I always just found bits of time here and there, late at night when everyone had gone to bed, or perhaps during the odd retreat away from home. Now I am able to sit and focus more consistently, but it is definitely a practice I am still working on.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I had to kind of laugh at this question, because my writing has been a constant sort of journey of starts and stops. I’ve learned to find inspiration in little things, as that is often what life is composed of; unfolding moments that make you pause. Sunsets that take your breath away, music that makes you teary. Really appreciating small accomplishments, or even the ability to have the time to rest and breathe in between the bustle.

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?

A witch, I think? I still have this fabulous witch hat I used to wear on Hallowe’en when I did library story times.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Yes, all of it! Especially since much of what I write about is the interconnectedness of life, how loss of that connection spurs grief, how rediscovery of it can open us up in so many ways. All of these modes of expression are avenues for exploring our relationships with one another and the world around us.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I have always been buoyed by friends who are fellow writers. I think it has been that encouragement and support that kept me on the path, because there were many moments when I felt discouraged or ready to shove ideas in the drawer. Dear friends like Jenna Butler, Shawna Lemay, Marita Dachsel… reading their writing has been sustaining in some dark moments because it feels like having a conversation with them.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Oh gosh, so many things. Before I became ill, I was actually booked on a trip to Sable Island, to photograph the wild horses there. I still plan on doing that. I also dream of photographing Polar bears in the north; that trip definitely requires more planning, but the time I have to actually make it there feels pressing as our climate radically shifts. I also look forward to the day I go to Montreal to see one of my sons perform; he’s studying jazz at university and will be doing his final recital soon. That will be a proud day.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I often think I would have liked to have been a teacher; my husband is a teacher and the stories he brings home have become a part of our family mythology now. I was always struck by what a difference he made in many of his student’s lives. But now my oldest son is also becoming a teacher, so I will live vicariously!

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Writing was something I often turned to as a child. I had no siblings so spent a lot of time alone, immersed in creating other worlds, and writing became a sort of refuge. During the years of raising a family, writing was often the same kind of respite, but in the sense that I had a place to go and decompress, explore my thoughts while caught in the tangle of parenting and working and all the other things life entails.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Most recently I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying Jasmine Odor’s newest novel, The Harvesters. We just watched American Fiction which was based on the novel Erasure, it was really well done.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Lately I have had to focus on health and recovery, which has meant finding new ways to incorporate writing and creative expression, as it is difficult to sustain any kind of activity, mental or physical. I find being in natural spaces is one of the things that is truly healing, so a lot of what I am writing is based on my experience with trying to access those spaces while also being limited in my capacity. I also find myself writing about aging, the mother wound, and climate anxiety, capitalism and the politics of care, how to embrace beauty and love and being flawed.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Katie Naughton

Katie Naughton is the author of the poetry collection The Real Ethereal (Delete Press, 2024), and the chapbooks Study (above/ground press, 2021) and A Second Singing (Dancing Girl Press, 2023), and Debt Ritual (Bunny / Fonograf, forthcoming 2025. Her poetry has been published in Fence, Bennington Review, Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is an editor at Etcetera, a web journal of poetry and poetics (www.etceterapoetry.com) and a doctoral candidate in the Poetics program at SUNY – Buffalo.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I really liked having a chapbook (my first, Study, from above/ground press) because it gave me something to give to other poets when I met them. Incidentally, a lot of the work in my new book, my first full-length collection The Real Ethereal, predates the work in Study, which was both composed and published relatively quickly. The Real Ethereal is poetry, whereas Study is a kind of essay form.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I read a lot more fiction as a young person, and hardly any poetry before college, so it was a bit of an accident to become a poet. I found, though, that my attention was inherently attuned to detail, the momentary, and the sound of language, more than narrative or character.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I tend to draft a poem fairly quickly and in a form close to its final version, but it takes me a long time (a few years) to figure out how to frame a collection. So far. I don't know how my next big project will start and am interested in exploring other methods. I've been inspired recently by reading Mei-mei Berssenbrugge's drafts for Empathy at the Beinecke Library and seeing how the poem emerges from notes, sustained and direct inquiry into them, and iterative drafts.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I'm not necessarily working on a "book" from the very beginning, but I am thinking about the questions or possibilities a collection of short poems operate in and what else I need to write to fill out that line of inquiry.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I am moved by the hushed quiet of a room of people listening. I haven't done too many readings yet, but they feel like a good way to gather with other poets and bring the poems into the mouth.
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I'm interested in perception, the relationship between thought and feeling, the relationship between language and experience, and how any of this can become relevant and present to others.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think writing can help expand the possibilities of perception and change, even if often only slightly, the way we experience the world and our lives. Writing can also be a friend, sometimes a funny one, to keep us company.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I think it's such a generous use of an intelligence to work as an editor. I appreciate that someone is thinking with me about what I've made and that I can use their attention and vision as a tool to refine or strengthen the work.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Read more than you write; risk sentimentality. Both Susan Howe via Sasha Steensen, at least as far as I remember it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
 My thought in poetry is never more strongly animated than when I am reading and writing critically, and my work as a critic is deeply informed by the experience of writing poetry. I do tend to have seasons for different projects, though, only because I like to place priority on one thing at a time to keep from feeling overwhelmed.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I'm not very good at routines, but I prefer the house to be put in order before I sit down to work. I have to clear a space, for better or for worse.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Reading, bodies of water, but also, I just wait.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Unfortunately at the moment, stale cigarette smoke that comes through our apartment walls from some untraceable source. I would prefer my answer to be warm pine wood, lake water, or traditionally milled French lavender soap.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Other human structures, like money and cities. I like how visual artists often think iteratively about material or process and would like to emulate this but don't know if I do.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Bernadette Mayer, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Lisa Robertson, Cass Eddington, Allyson Paty

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Surf (regularly/well)

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Maybe a historian. Which is still a kind of writer. All the other occupations I would have other than writer I do have (teacher, editor, arts administrator, grant writer, publicist . . .).

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It was what I was best at making, and it was thrilling to make something that I liked and that sometimes other people liked too.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I'm currently reading Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, though it has moved away from Hardy-the-poet writing about sheep farming and deeper into the romance plot and I'm becoming less interested. Have been neglecting film recently, accidentally, though there are so many good theaters now that I am here in NYC. Enjoyed some Ernie Gehr shorts at the Met earlier this year, with the filmmaker in attendance, and seeing the parallel world of avant garde film and its audiences, glad to know they've been there all along, too, while I've had my nose buried in poems.

20 - What are you currently working on?
My dissertation -- on opacity as a component of experience, and how this is used in poetry.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Rebecca Hart Olander

Rebecca Hart Olander’s poetry has appeared recently in Jet Fuel Review, The Massachusetts Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere, and her collaborative visual and written work has been published in multiple venues online and in They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence Press, 2018). Her books include a chapbook, Dressing the Wounds (dancing girl press, 2019), and her debut full-length collection, Uncertain Acrobats (CavanKerry Press, 2021). Rebecca teaches writing at Westfield State University and Amherst College, and works with poets in the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University. She is the editor/director of Perugia Press. Find her online at rebeccahartolander.com or @rholanderpoet.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Publishing my first full-length collection Uncertain Acrobats in November, 2021 has led to some great opportunities for me, such as being interviewed by you, for one, and getting to read with some folks I really admire at places at which I’ve been honored to read. For example, last year, the month the book came out, I was lucky enough to read with poets Doug Anderson, Tina Cane, and Rachel Eliza Griffiths at McNally Jackson Seaport Bookstore in NYC. Without a book, that would never have happened.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I’ve been told in the past that I should try writing fiction, but I’m entirely not interested in writing fiction, even though I love to read fiction. I wrote my first poem at seven, so I feel more like I’ve always been doing it than I “came to it.” My stepmother is the poet Christopher Jane Corkery, and so poetry was around me from a young age in a way that unquestionably influenced me.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

It really varies. There are those odd duck poems that arrive fully-fledged and almost ready to fly, but that’s only happened to me a handful of times. But my work also doesn’t come out of copious notes. I’ll either write when inspiration hits me over the head and forces the issue, or I’ll generate a draft through a prompt.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I don’t generally have “projects” that would lead to a book from conception to birth. My first book was actually a project book, but it happened by osmosis vs. setting out to accomplish said project. I sort of pine for projects because I think they are cool, but for me I tend to write individual poems over a long period of time and then try to locate their confluences and relationships and work the project shape out of the material at hand vs. starting with a project concept.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love public readings! It’s such a gift to have people come out to receive words I’ve written, and it’s really affirming to be able to interact with readers and also to listen to other writers read their work (so, I’d have to say my favorite readings are group readings). I love the surprise of an open mic, too, when you don’t know who’s going to read or what they’ll offer on a given night. Surprise is so important to good writing, and open mics kind of introduce that element to readings, I think.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

One of my main concerns is the passage of time and what that does to legacy, and memory, and even to living in the present moment. An awareness of transience is important to me, as is a desire to memorialize people and places and moments that have been important to me and that I think will have, or do have, some resonance for readers as well. So, I’m concerned with the tension between things passing and wanting to hold on to them. Hmm – for the last bit, do you mean what are the questions of the day, or what are MY current questions? I guess, either way, I believe in trying to be kind to others and affirming and inclusive when writing. So, good questions to ask ourselves when writing/publishing/performing would be who is being heard and who is being silenced? Who is being celebrated and what is being revered? What is being diminished or seen only partially or misunderstood? Generally I like playing with rhetorical questions when I write, and I do employ a lot of questions in my poems, but these are not rhetorical questions. These seem more necessary to ask and to answer when striving to be an ethical writer.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Writers can ask those hard questions, and others, and model doing so through how they share their work. Writers can encourage empathy, by expressing stories that widen perspective and understanding. Writers can bring joy by reminding us to feel joy and gratitude, or by distracting us from the mundane. Writers help inspire imagination and creativity. They can foster community by inviting dialogue and voicing what is necessary and hard to say in other ways/spaces.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Essential, absolutely. Sometimes I have to sit with edits before embracing them, and sometimes I don’t take editorial advice, but for the most part I only feel deep appreciation when someone reads my work on a cellular level and wants to help me make it the strongest manifestation it can be.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Persist! Uncertain Acrobats was submitted something like 60 times before it was accepted. If I’d let rejection get to me, I wouldn’t have published this book, which is all the stronger for having been revised and reshaped over the course of those many rejections, and many years.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short stories to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

I really love the idea of hybrid texts, so I think experimenting with writing different genres helps breed that eventual hybridized result. I no longer write book reviews because I don’t have the time—and I would write them with a LOT of care and time—BUT, writing them and getting inside the books of others in that critical way helped my own poetry writing without a doubt. When I have moved between creative genres, it has been less traditional genres. For example, I like to create collages with visuals and text, and I like writing in epistolary form and exchanging that writing. If I ever do shift genres, it feels fun and fruitful all at once. And I love collaboration as a method of creating. The appeal of that is the emphasis on play, community, and surprise, and it’s an avenue to openness.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t have a daily routine. My routine is more dictated by the seasons. Since I teach, I tend to have more time between semesters and in the summer. That’s when I make a point of creating routines so that I can milk every moment out of the possible time I have available to me.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Reading poets I admire is one steadfast answer. I also love traveling to new places, even local places I haven’t seen. Something about seeing new things tends to inspire me. Prompts also really work for me – I don’t tend to get stalled as a stop to my writing as much as I can’t find the time because I am otherwise over-committed. But when I have the time and want to write, I make it happen by going out in nature, reading, or responding to a generative prompt.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

My original home is Gloucester, a small coastal city north of Boston, MA. So, when I smell salt water, especially the ocean, it always reminds me of home and also relaxes me and brings me joy, two feelings that, if we are lucky enough, are associated closely with home.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Yes, this brings me back to my other answer about inspiration. I also love going to museums and writing ekphrastically, and sometimes science inspires me if I hear an interesting radio piece and learn something that blows my mind and makes me think about the world in a different way.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Even though I don’t write fiction, I think I get the most pleasure out of reading fiction vs. any other genre. I love the feeling of getting lost in a great novel and never wanting it to end and being totally absorbed in it. I can’t really read that way during the academic year while I am both teaching and running a small press, so those moments are saved for summertime and January. The writers that are most important to me are the ones I share writing communities with – the Perugia poets I publish, and the poets I am blessed to share writing groups and friendships with. It’s the sharing of work, but also the sharing of the writing life, that sustains me.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

My first thought is travel to places I'd like to see that I haven’t: Greece, Turkey, British Columbia, and some of the states and places I haven’t seen here in the US, like Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico. I’d love to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain/France/Portugal. It would be cool to snorkel, and ride on a glass-bottomed boat. I’d like to be a grandparent. I’d like to publish another book.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I have two jobs besides being a writer now – being an editor and a teacher. I don’t usually think of writing as my occupation, but I also don’t think of it as a hobby. It’s my life, the way I breathe. I’ve always loved libraries and bookstores, and I dig organizing things, so maybe owning a bookstore or directing a library. Or something to do with travel.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

There’s not an option – it’s how I navigate the world.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

The last great book was Anthony Doerr’s latest: Cloud Cuckoo Land. I loved it in a deep, abiding way and it felt necessary, enjoyable, enriching, surprising, and sustaining all at once. I watched some pretty great films online in the “virtual cinema” hosted by my local movie theater during the pandemic. I really enjoyed Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, Beans, and Hive. Based on those picks, I guess I prefer protagonists who are women and girls, stories that are based on true events, and films that teach me something new.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’ve just launched the annual contest for Perugia Press, which invites submissions of first and second full-length manuscripts from women-identified poets. We’re also about to release this year’s book, American Sycamore by Lisbeth White, so that’s exciting! I’m prepping my fall courses as I’ll be back teaching in a couple of weeks. For my own poetic work, I’m looking forward to going back at revising my second full-length collection, which I hope to submit for publication this fall.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Sheila Squillante

Sheila Squillante is the author of the poetry collection, Beautiful Nerve, and three chapbooks of poetry: In This Dream of My Father, Women Who Pawn Their Jewelry and A Woman Traces the Shoreline. Her second collection, Mostly Human, won the 2020 Wicked Woman Book Prize from BrickHouse Books and was published in October, 2020. She is also co-author, along with Sandra L. Faulkner, of the writing craft book, Writing the Personal: Getting Your Stories Onto the Page. Recent work has appeared or will appear in places like Copper Nickel, Crab Orchard Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Indiana Review, Waxwing, and River Teeth. She directs the MFA program in creative writing at Chatham University, where she edits The Fourth River, a journal of nature and place-based writing. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with her family.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first chapbook, A Woman Traces the Shoreline, came out in 2011 with dancing girl press. It was thrilling in so many ways, not the least of which was that the text had come out of a kind of freewriting I did when I was pregnant with my first child and terrified I would never write again. Then, to have it picked up by a feminist press that I admired was all the validation I could have hoped for. In terms of style, it’s very different from my forthcoming collection, Mostly Human, which is much more narrative, though both collections are expressly and proudly feminist.

 

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I’ve been writing poetry since I was six, so I think it came to me! Nonfiction didn’t enter my writing identity until graduate school when I took a memoir workshop with a visiting professor. That workshop changed my life.

 

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I do work in drafts—almost nothing arrives fully formed—but I don’t typically work from notes to get there. Often, I’m following prompts I give to my students and then later I end up shaping it into something. Writing is not fast for me. My current book took two years to write and two more to publish, while moving through various stages of revision.

 

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Poems often start in observation of my immediate surroundings and then jump associatively to other things, stories, sounds, images. I trust the associative process in writing and find it leads me to places I would never get to otherwise. That said, Mostly Human was a book from the very beginning and it began as a seed from my life—a jangle of memories and images from when I was very young. I didn’t know at first that I was writing more than a short series of poems, but soon it became clear it needed to be a full-length collection.

 

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I really enjoy doing readings. I pay scrupulous attention to sound in my poems and I love being able to perform them to highlight that fact. I also love audiences and their reactions. I’ve done a bunch of Zoom readings since the quarantine began and those have been fun, too.

 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I write feminist poems because I am a feminist. I am interested in the domestic space, especially, and in the balance or imbalance within relationships. I think I’m always trying to answer questions about power (Who has it? How do you get it?) and agency.

 

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I do think writers have a responsibility to observe and record culture. I have great admiration for poets who take up current events in their work. I don’t mean that poems need to be explicitly political (though we could argue what that word means), but that they are making space for ambiguity and complexity of human experience on the page. I have edited a nature journal (www.thefourthriver.com) for the last seven years, and we are always discussing how to refresh notions of what a “nature poem” can or should be. Our nature is not the nature of Wordsworth or Thoreau or even Marianne Moore and our art needs to reflect that.

 

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Love me a good editor!

 

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“Learn the lessons of boredom.” –my husband, Paul, to our kids.

 

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I am lousy at routine. I teach and direct a graduate writing program. I have two teenagers and two dogs. I am easily distracted. I write when I can.

 

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I turn either to objects and the energy and stories they hold or to language play. One of my favorite tools for composing is the Lazarus Text Mixing Deck, which is a cut-up generator. Oh, the fun of it! The surprise!

 

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Uh, vaguely damp dog?

 

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Definitely visual art—collage in particular. This influence doesn’t show up in my most recent book but certainly in my first collection, Beautiful Nerve. And sure, music. I wish I could say that Fiona Apple’s brilliant Fetch the Bolt Cutters inspired Mostly Human, but I didn’t actually hear it until after it was written. Still, I’d like to claim it.

 

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I could list a bunch of books here, but instead I’m going to list writers I know and who have literally gotten me though quarantine via a group chat that we check into many (many) times a day. I love them AND I love their work, which everyone should check out!  Joy Katz (All You Do is Perceive, poems), Brittany Hailer (Animal You’ll Surely Become, essays), Sarah Shotland (Junkette, novel) and Sherrie Flick (Thank Your Lucky Stars, short fiction). The final two members of our tribe—we call ourselves “Scrappy Motherfuckers”—are not writers but connected to the writing world in important ways: Hattie Fletcher, who is Managing Editor of Creative Nonfiction Magazine, and Danielle Chiotti, literary agent at Upstart Crow Agency.

 

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Publish a book of nonfiction—memoir or essays.

 

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

If I couldn’t be a writer, I might go back and get a degree in food studies and representation. I’d like to feed people and work to combat food insecurity in urban communities in Pittsburgh where I live.

 

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Luck.

 

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 

I recently finished Carolyn Forche’s memoir What You Have Heard is True, which tells the full story of her time as a young poet in El Salvador. It was riveting. With my teenage son, I recently watched Hotel Rwanda for the first time. It was also riveting, for many of the same reasons the Forche book was. Human barbarism and human beauty & resilience inextricably twined.

 

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’ve just finished a first draft of a memoir that tells the story of my coming to feminism sort of late, and not through anything academic but through the lived experience of my life. It’s set against the backdrop of my first marriage and is, I hope, somewhat darkly funny.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;