How to Be a Writer When You Aren’t Writing

_{Photo by William Fortunato on Pexels.com}

Early this morning I was stretching before going for a walk (yes I’m that old) and my wife Lilian was viewing an online presentation from a noted export on Behavioral Science. During the pandemic, we have all be going down rabbit holes and she has read twenty or so books on the topic. The speaker, mostly in the framework of business productivity, discussed how people were motivated to follow a particular course of action because of:

• Accuracy – If you can frame yourself as an expert, people are likely to listen to you
• Connection – If you can show how people like themselves take a course of action, they will likely follow suit
• Ego – If you can make people feel better about themselves or buoy their perceptions of themselves, then you can motivate them

One example of ego motivation, my wife tells me, is how my affinity for Apple products affirms my belief that I am creative when all I do is run Microsoft Word on it and it would work better on a PC.

Whenever I come across new ideas, my thoughts often wander to how they relate to writing. In the context of Behavioral Science, you could think of readers as those who you are trying to motivate, ask yourself if these principles are applicable in the development process, or use this framework to try to better understand the motivation of your characters. A con artist character, for example, might put these principles into action. You may even keep Behavioral Science in mind when facing the daunting process of creating an agent pitch letter. The lesson here, with a broader lens, is that there are things you learn or come across in your daily life that you could be using as grist for your writing.

Can Your COVID-19 Obsessions Help Your Writing?

Like my wife and much of the country, I have gone down a few rabbit holes during COVID-19. In the past year, I have:

• Started a new job as a technical project manager
• Spent hours of time learning Portuguese
• Viewing videos of people walking the streets of Lisbon (research for a possible move)
• Scoured political news and theater
• Played a strategy game on a phone app with people (now friends) from many other countries
• Followed the drama of a regime change on the Pride of Detroit (Detroit Lions) blog
• Reorganized my playlists that disappeared when I sent my music to the cloud
• Participated in multiple, ongoing Zooms to connect with people in my life.

Nearly all of these activities or passions can make their way on the page: inspiration for a poem, a story, a character trait. My current novel-in-progress Lifelong is partially based on experiences from a job I had for six years. Real-life experiences and interests help a writer to expand beyond the trope of novels about writers (there are too many examples to site).

The Writer’s Dream Involves Dreaming

Another activity important for writers is to unplug enough to get into a dream state, an environment or state of mind that allows you to just imagine. For example, noted filmmaker and David Lynch uses meditation, workspace and routines to flesh out broad creative concepts, many of which never go anywhere. The ironic thing is the need to plan or make time in your schedule to get into this creative place. In Sigmund Freud’s essay “Creative Writers and Daydreaming,” he espouses the theory that daydreaming is important to return to that childlike place where creativity flourishes without the pressures of real life. You can make startling connections and creative leaps when you make time for unstructured time and let your mind wander.

Engage with Stories to Strengthen Your Storytelling

Do you ever feel guilty for ignoring your writing and binging on books, movies, or TV shows? Don’t worry, it’s all good. Last night in my Novel Writer’s Group, we discussed the latest Netflix top 10 pick I Care a Lot, a story with a hot-button premise of legal guardianship abuse that could have gone in a number of directions. We discussed possible pitfalls such as:

• Characters being unlikeable and two-dimensional
• The main character Marla not having a moral code that would help you relate to her more
• Whether the concept would have been better realized as a slow-burning grift-based TV Show like Breaking Bad

You should, as you consume content, relate it back to your own creative processes and works-in-progress. The guilty pleasures in life don’t always necessarily need to be guilty. There are many opportunities for you, each day, to make progress on your dream of being a writer even when you aren’t actually writing.

Coronavirus Outbreak Cliff Notes – Stay Safe Out There

Guest post by Joe Pan

(Leave it to a writer to be able to summarize so eloquently)

CORONAVIRUS KNOWNS

Friends, to stave off the misinformation being spread on social media regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) I spent yesterday researching it for verifiable facts. Included are a bunch of links for further reading and fact-checking.

Here is what we know, as of March 11, 2020:

• Sneezing and runny noses aren’t typical symptoms of COVID-19. Only 5% of those with the virus exhibited these symptoms. According to WHO, muscle pain (15%), sore throat (14%), headache (14%), chills (11%), vomiting (5%), and diarrhea (4%) were also relatively poor indicators of specific COVID-19 infection. (bit.ly/3cODtko)
• The main symptoms of COVID-19 are fever (88%), dry cough (70%), fatigue (38%), sputum production (33%), and shortness of breath (19%). (bit.ly/3cODtko) The CDC listed the main symptoms to watch out for as fever, cough, and shortness of breath. (bit.ly/2IAEui5)
• These symptoms usually appear 2-14 days after exposure. Mean incubation period of virus is estimated at 5 days; those who develop symptoms do so within 11.5 days. Less than 1% may develop symptoms outside of the typical 14 day period. (bit.ly/33ckTym)
• There are currently no antiviral drugs recommended by the FDA for treatment of COVID-19. There is no timeline yet available for when there could be. (bit.ly/2Q15NGo)
• Current risk assessment to being exposed in the US, according to the CDC, is “thought to be low.” Risk increases according to location and job (for example, healthcare workers are at an elevated risk, as are those in major travel hubs, and those traveling to/from Italy, Japan, China, Iran, South Korea, and Hong Kong). (bit.ly/3cO0Nik)
• 80% of those afflicted with COVID-19 show mild symptoms or appear asymptomatic; 14% suffer severe symptoms (labored breathing, rapid breathing); 6% suffer critically (organ failure, respiratory failure). (bit.ly/3cODtko)
• Most people recover within 2 weeks. More severe cases can take 3-6 weeks. (bit.ly/2IywAG5)
• Mortality rate sits between 3-4% by best standards of measure. This can rate up or down depending on the populations infected in specific areas (eg, older residents in a nursing home). It is cautiously hypothesized by scientists that the actual mortality rate may be lower (possibly as low as 1%) due to large percentages of those afflicted showing mild symptoms, aren’t being tested, or live in a place with testing lags, diagnostic delays, and kit scarcity, such as the US. (bit.ly/38HTzJj)(politi.co/2TVapiv)
• High-risk populations for mortality include these over 50 and those with pre-existing medical conditions, including cardiovascular issues, diabetes, respiratory diseases, hypertension, cancer, and immunocompromised systems. Prognosis is also dependent on access to treatment. (bit.ly/3cODtko)
• Children seem to be less likely to experience severe reactions compared with other coronaviruses and the flu. (bit.ly/3cODtko)
  -Rates of infection seem to be stabilizing in China, due largely to their mass lockdown efforts. (on.wsj.com/39GFtch)
• Rates of infection are falling in South Korea without mass lockdown efforts, attributed instead to mass testing, improved communication with the public, and implementation of technology (bit.ly/3cOQQ44)
  -It is currently unknown if those who recover from COVID-19 can be infected again. (bit.ly/2Q15NGo)

CORONAVIRUS MYTHS

Some common myths debunked by easily Googlable references like the World Health Organization, reputable news outlets, and scientific magazine sites. You can start here: bit.ly/2Izvnht.

If anything changes, or if you hear of other prominent myths being busted, please reply to this blog post and I’ll update this:

• There is no evidence (zero cases) showing that you can contract COVID-19 though eating food, prepared or otherwise. Experience with SARS and MERS suggest people are not infected through food. COVID-19 needs a host (animal or human) to grow in. (bit.ly/2wHzBB7) (bit.ly/2vXjqPZ) (bit.ly/3cPNcqI)
• Drinking more water doesn’t help wash away or kill COVID-19 with stomach acids.
• Keeping your mouth more wet or more dry doesn’t affect infection rates of COVID-19.
• Gargling with salt doesn’t kill COVID-19.
• Neti pots do not help kill COVID-19 or prevent infection.
• Neither sesame oil nor oregano oil kills COVID-19.
• Gargling chlorine doesn’t kill COVID-19.
• Spicy foods do not cause nor kill COVID-19.
• Being able to hold your breath for long periods of time does not mean you are safe from COVID-19 or that one hasn’t yet contracted it.
• Drinking any amount of bleach is not good for you, and doesn’t kill COVID-19. Drinking large amounts of bleach does kill the COVID-19 because it kills its host—you.
• Taking a hot bath will not prevent infection from COVID-19.
• COVID-19 is much more serious than the flu.
• Disposable face masks are unlikely to protect against COVID-19.
• Hand dryers do not kill COVID-19.
• Any length of time spent with an infected person can lead to infection, from seconds to days.
• Antibiotics do not kill COVID-19.
• Garlic does not kill COVID-19.
• No vitamin, from Vitamin A to Vitamin C to Vitamin Whatever, kills or protects against COVID-19.
• Silver colloid does not kill COVID-19.
• Ice cream does not kill COVID-19.
• Non-medical immune boosters do not protect against COVID-19.
• UV lamps are not a reliable method of staving off COVID-19.
• Scientists do not yet know if COVID-19 will wane in the spring and summer months.
• Neither flu nor pneumonia vaccines protect against COVID-19.
• COVID-19 is not a biological weapon released by China or Russia.
• Packages from China do not put you at risk for contracting COVID-19.
• Kids can absolutely be infected by COVID-19.
• No evidence suggests mosquitos transmit COVID-19.
• You are definitely being racist if you avoid your otherwise healthy Asian friends and family because of COVID-19.

CORONAVIRUS – HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

If you are not sick:
(bit.ly/2Q2gPve)

• Avoid close contact with people who are sick (6 feet or less is considered close contact)
• Avoid all direct contact with people. (Don’t shake hands.)
• Avoid large crowds.
• Wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds throughout the day.
• In addition to washing hands, use hand sanitizer with over 60% alcohol.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, mouth, and face.
• Avoid sharing personal items like dishware, towels, or bedding.
• Clean personal surfaces like doorknobs, countertops, toilets, phones, faucets, and keyboards.

If you are sick at all:

• Stay home. Do not go into public. Cancel plans.
• Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw tissue in trash.
• Frequently clean and disinfect all surfaces and objects you touch.
• Wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds throughout the day.
• In addition to washing hands, use hand sanitizer with over 60% alcohol.
• Do not share personal items.
• Avoid sharing personal items like dishware, towels, or bedding.
• Clean personal surfaces like doorknobs, countertops, toilets, phones, faucets, and keyboards.
• Wash clothes before venturing outside after illness passes. Do not rewear clothes worn before but not washed.

If you are sick with a cough, fever, and shortness of breath:
(bit.ly/2IBjnft)

• Stay home. Do not go into public. Cancel plans. Self-quarantine.
• Do not come into contact with anyone else.
• Call your doctor—do not go visit your doctor. If you do not have a primary doctor, call your local public health department (Google your city or state and “health department”). If neither of these are available, call your local hospital.
• A doctor or health care professional will walk you through the tasks necessary to come in and be tested.
• Stay hydrated.
• Stay rested.
• Frequently clean and disinfect all surfaces and objects you touch.
• Wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds throughout the day.
• Disinfect areas that come into contact with bodily fluids.
• Clean personal surfaces like doorknobs, countertops, toilets, phones, faucets, and keyboards.
• Wash clothes.

Nine Simple Truths About Poetry Manuscript Contests

Guest Blog Post by Sonia Greenfield 

1. The award money, when you are done with the process and have won a contest, will probably not cover the overall cost of repeatedly submitting the manuscript. Some folks are geniuses right out of the box. Most of us have to edit our way in the direction of perfection.

2. For each contest cycle, you will think that the manuscript is done, and you will submit it with an outlay of anywhere from $100 to $300. If you do not win, you may figure out that what you thought was finished has still more room for improvement. That your editorial process was not finished. And this may go on for several seasons, because knowing the fitness of your own poems can be as difficult as assessing one’s own face or body in the mirror.

3. If you keep at it— this process of remaking and investment, your book will win a contest and/or be published, but you have to be down with the evolution and expense. But YOU. CAN. WIN.

4. Some big name publishers like more experimental poetry, some more narrative. Don’t waste your $25 dollars submitting your manuscript to a publishing house just because they’re well known if there’s no way your poetic vision aligns with their catalogue of titles. Better to shoot for a smaller house, because chances are…

5. You’re going to be responsible for most of the PR, touring, marketing, etc. anyway. Get comfortable with the idea that the writing you’ve created, the gift of it, may reach a smaller audience than you had hoped for.

6. But it’s okay if your gift reaches a more intimate audience. Friends, family, poets you admire, etc. These are the people you’re most in conversation with anyway.

7. Because if you were hoping that the publication of a first or second manuscript is going to get you a creative writing teaching job at a small liberal arts school in a charming town on The Hudson— it might, but you have to be fully invested in The Hustle, which means, probably, working the conferences, social media, etc. like you were born to be a Slytherin (not inherently bad; just ambitious).

8. If that sounds exhausting and not invigorating, then remember that your life and career do not have to drive toward that one, narrow goal. That sometimes you can be happy divorcing poetry from professional ambition.

9. Still, it is such that you can put out a beautiful book— a fucking masterpiece that should be seen by the world— but it will be modestly purchased and distributed. And it can feel disheartening. Buy yourself lots of copies and continue to read from them as you travel the world. With poetry, it will never be about the quantitative, but the qualitative, and your writing can continue to affect individuals deeply. Can cut them to the quick ten years down the line, but one or two people at a time. Think of them when you’re fretting over the art that you have made.

This little meditation is dedicated to Pauline Uchmanowicz, my wonderful editor with Codhill Press, who so carefully tended to my first book of poems. I found out yesterday that she passed away suddenly in a tragic accident in her home.

Ultimately, what matters is that you continue chasing down your own poems one at a time and that you keep putting them in the world. Don’t stop creating.

About the Author:

Sonia Greenfield was born and raised in Peekskill, New York, and her book, Boy with a Halo at the Farmer’s Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of places, including in the 2018 and 2010 Best American Poetry, Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, and Willow Springs. Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press/Coal Hill Review prize and her collection of prose poems, Letdown, is forthcoming in 2020 with White Pine Press as part of the Marie Alexander Series. She lives with her husband and son in Hollywood where she edits the Rise Up Review and co-directs the Southern California Poetry Festival.

Writeliving Interview: Matthew Olzmann

Photo by Evans Tasiopoulos 

I’m thrilled to get a chance to interview one of my favorite poets and fellow Michigander Matthew Olzmann. Yes, I can still call myself that after so many years in California. Matthew’s work is imaginative, rich, accessible, playful, and memorable. Consider getting his newest book Contradictions in the Design, from Alice James Books, for the holidays.

– Martin Ott

Who has been a major influence on your writing?

Too many to really list, but Wisława Szymborska, Robert Hayden and Larry Levis are writers whose work I’ve returned to with great frequency. My teacher Stephen Dobyns. My wife Vievee Francis—my discussions with her are always a part of my writing.

Can you give us insight into your creative process?

I’m always working on several things at once. Maybe five or six poems plus a story or essay. I tend to shuffle between them as I revise. I work on something and take it as far as I can go with it then, when I get stuck, I shift to something else and eventually circle back.

What is the best advice you can give to a writer finding her/his voice and subject matter?

Instead of finding your “voice” find a bunch of “voices.” Try on a lot of new things, new approaches, new ideas, etcetera. See what fits, what you might grow into and what’s challenging. Make mistakes. Your voice will be somewhere between all these things.

How has teaching impacted your own writing?

It makes you more aware of the choices you make and the things you value in writing. Having to articulate what might seem to be intuitive or intangible causes me to be more conscious of how I approach a piece of writing. Discussing a poem—whether it’s a poem I know and love by a writer I admire, or a new poem by a student that I’m reading for the first time—requires a careful attention to how a poem is put together. You notice what effects the poem produces, and then you try to describe how those effects are produced. It’s a discipline, a type of study, that deepens your relationship to the craft.

What are you currently working on?

I’m working a on new manuscript of (mostly) epistolary poems, and some scattered poems which are unrelated to that project. Also some short prose—flash fiction and lyric essays.

How has growing up and living in Michigan affected your writing?

It’s provided the landscape that’s become the backdrop for many of my poems. It’s introduced me to some of my closest friends in the writing world. It provided the first communities of writers that I was a part of, communities that probably continue to impact my writing and worldview in both pronounced and subtle manners.

Have you read anything recently that really got you excited?

House of Water by Matthew Nienow. Look by Solmaz Sharif. Also really looking forward to reading Overpour by Jane Wong, Vanessa Hua’s collection of stories Deceit and Other Possibilities, and Mike Scalise’s memoir The Brand New Catastrophe.

Can you share an example of overcoming adversity to keep your writing dream alive?

Not really. The “dream” of writing, I think, is kept alive solely by your love for it. You have to find time to write and to do that you might have to sacrifice something else. Those sacrifices might be significant, but you do that because you love writing. Writers write because they love books or stories or poems. And any obstacles I’ve faced aren’t incredibly unique to me. I went to four colleges before finishing my undergraduate degree. It took 12 years with a lot of time off in between. I tried to learn to write on my own for awhile. A lot of rejections. There’s the realization that the gap between the poems you want to write and the poems you’re capable of writing might be vast. And you go back to work. I hesitate to call any of this “adversity” because I’m doing something I love.

What is something about you that writers and readers may not know?

I wrestled in high school. I played trumpet for three years and hated it. I’ve had jobs as a theater usher, a grocery store cashier and as a medical courier.

About the Author:

Matthew Olzmann is the author of two poetry collections: Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design (both from Alice James Books). His writing has appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Brevity, Gulf Coast and elsewhere. He teaches at Dartmouth College and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top 10 Abandoned Social Media Sites

#10 Cat Tails – The photo blog of twitching fur saving the universe from frowns

#9 Ukulele Daily – Video uploads of mad jams and fab ukulele bands

#8 You Know the Drill – The quest for self-dentistry and self-knowledge

#7 Diarrhea Diaries – One man’s helpful public bathroom commute suggestions from Hoboken to Stamford

#6 Missing Slinks – Photo sharing site of historical figures made from Slinkies and imagination

#5 …! – An obsession with ellipses in public signs gathered from around the world

#4 Adventures of the Human Skull – This charismatic skull really gets around in popular vacation spots

#3 Bathtub Bandit – Self pics of our favorite bandit bathing in birthday suit + ski mask while burgling

#2 Dusting with the Stars – Dust bunnies dance to contestants blowing them in arranged choreography

#1 More than Fish – The daily posts of what Jesus ate ending the night of the Last Supper

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You have fortitude. The above work is an awful list poem. The sites in it were supposed to be bad, but the exercise ended up as bad poetry.

In some ways it may be closest to a failed David Letterman top ten list. I pulled this from my poetry bin while looking for possible gems for a new manuscript.

– Martin Ott

10 Pieces of Writing Advice on a Milestone Birthday

Big thanks to David Ebenbach, who asked me to send him writing advice to post on his FB wall for my birthday today. The result is below.

– Martin Ott

1. We all are neurotic – even accomplished writers
2. We all feel envy – even the kindest writers
3. We all need to be humble – even incredible writers
4. We all need confidence – even successful writers
5. We all aim to connect – even experimental writers
6. We all fail to connect – even concise writers
7. We all play with words – even serious writers
8. We all want to make it sting – even comedic writers
9. We all need support – even famous writers
10. We all need to support others on the path – even beginning writers

Jason Sanford’s Terrific 12 List of Best Sci-Fi Magazines

I was recently searching online for a list of top sci-fi magazines and couldn’t find one I liked. However, noted sci-fi author Jason Sanford just tweeted the list below and I thought I’d post it as a resource. I’ve appeared in one so far (Asimov’s) and I’m setting my sights on the others.

– Martin Ott

• Analog Science Fiction and Fact
• Asimov’s Science Fiction
• Apex Magazine
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Clarkesworld Magazine
• Fantasy and Science Fiction
• Intergalactic Medicine Show
• Interzone
• Lightspeed Magazine
• Strange Horizons
• Tor.com
• Uncanny Magazine

We’re All Neurotic at AWP

My first AWP was in Chicago four years ago and it helped inspire me to launch this blog, among other things. My desire was to connect with a larger writing community, but I found myself in a world that felt overwhelming. There were too many writers, magazines, and presses. There were institutional relationships that someone outside academia, like myself, didn’t have. There were more established writers, more confident writers, writers with posses.

Even though my first two books had come out the year before I found myself, at times, feeling like I didn’t belong. People often complain about the dynamics of AWP that remind them of high school popularity, the constant act of people looking at name tags and looking for more important people to talk to, the dynamics of the in-crowd at every table, panel, and off-site event.

As I ready myself to go to my third AWP in my home town of Los Angeles, I am struggling with my own neuroses. Two of my best friends I’d looked forward to hanging out with are absent. My community is often long distance, and fostered on social media. I’ve spent too many years as a recluse. The one thing I find solace in, however, is that almost all of the other writers here feel similar emotions, regardless of their reputations or publication history.

This AWP I have decided to just have fun and feed my creative need. I have loaded events, panels, and book signings into my phone that I am excited to attend. I have told myself that if I can reboot my creative energy to last the year, to propel myself to write and read more diligently, that the event will be worth it. I have decided to consciously not network, but to try to fill be my most vulnerable creative self. I have taken three days off work, and will start the process tomorrow to prepare for a reading later in the week and go to my first event where I may not know anyone.

All writers are neurotic. It’s part of our DNA. Do yourself a favor – don’t compare yourself to anyone else this week. Don’t worry about being a nobody, a geek, or a fan. Every person at this event has moments of doubt. We are here to support each other and our craft. Hope to see some of you in LA.

– Martin Ott

 

Writeliving Interview – Ellen Bass

Ellen Bass is a writer I admire and continued proof that California yields some of our best poets (yes, I’m West Coast biased). Ellen is able to write about her life in a way that transcends confessional poetry and draws on themes of family and community. Her work is compassionate and passionate, and spiced with humor and insight into what makes us tick. Please enjoy this window into her creative process.

– Martin Ott

Who has been a major influence on your writing?

My first major influence was Florence Howe, my teacher at Goucher College, with whom I later co-edited No More Masks!, the first major anthology of poetry by women, published by Doubleday in 1973. Florence’s generous mentorship opened the doors of poetry to me and changed my life forever.

I was immensely fortunate to study with Anne Sexton when she taught in Boston University’s MA in Creative Writing Program. Without her encouragement I don’t think I would have had the confidence to try to make a life of poetry.

My third mentor, the brilliant poet Dorianne Laux, taught me just about everything I know about the craft. I owe her an immense debt of gratitude that I can never repay, but can only hope to pass on.

Can you give us insight into your creative process?

I wish I had a creative process that I could describe, but every poem seems to have its own process and what worked for one poem rarely works for the next. I try anything and everything! Sometimes I think about a subject for a long time before I see a way to nudge my thoughts or feelings toward a poem. Sometimes I write many not-so-good poems grappling with the same theme before one succeeds. Sometimes I imitate a poem I admire. Sometimes I just start writing without any idea where it might lead. Sometimes I hear a writing suggestion that piques my interest and I decide to try it. Sometimes a poem seems almost to just offer itself up whole. Usually I’m grappling with an experience, an event, a feeling, a thought that I want to explore. Often I make lists of words that I find in some way interesting or that catch my eye and I try to include them in a poem. I think all poets fall somewhere on a bell curve from logical thinking to wild thinking. I think I fall toward the logical thinking and so I’m always trying to do things that will loosen up that rational impulse and allow more strangeness into my poems.

What is the best advice you can give to a writer finding her/his voice and subject matter?

Paradoxically, I think that often the best way to find your own voice and subject matter is to study the poems you most admire. Examine them, take them apart, see what makes them tick, imitate them. That will help to train your ear, your eye, and your sensibility. It will teach you how broad the range of voice and subject and approach can be and then when you write you’ll have widened the scope of what’s possible. Beyond that, each of us has our own unique life experience within which copious matter is packed. Sometimes it’s a question of opening ourselves to the subjects that we didn’t recognize as worthy of poems. And then I’d add, Be brave.

How has teaching impacted your own writing?

I love teaching. Besides the obvious privilege of diving into poetry with people who are also excited about it, teaching also gives me a place to feel competent, something I never feel writing poems. I never sit down to write a poem thinking, I can do this! But although there’s always more to learn about teaching, I feel basically capable in that arena. It’s a wonderful respite from doubt and the many failures that writing poetry consists of.

What are you currently working on?

I never have a “poetry project.” I just pray for the next poem—and do my part by sitting down and trying.

How has writing both non-fiction and poetry books influenced each genre?

Well, writing non-fiction has taken me away from poetry. I simply am not capable of doing both at the same time. After spending six or eight hours writing non-fiction, the last thing my brain wants to do is arrange more words. So I’ve given up non-fiction—at least non-fiction books. Not only was non-fiction not good for my poetry, but I think my poetry was also not helpful for the non-fiction I wrote. Had I been a creative non-fiction writer, it would have been different, but my non-fiction books are what I think of as “functional non-fiction.” They’re not there to please aesthetically, but to give people information that they may need—in some situations desperately need. So it was important not to have writing that called any attention to itself. I had to strip down my overly “literary” style. We wanted the writing to be invisible so it didn’t get in the way of its usefulness.

Have you read anything recently that really got you excited?

Yes! So much gets me excited. I’ve been reading Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Patricia Smith, Kwame Dawes, Mark Doty, Tony Hoagland—I could go on and on! I also just finished the “Edith Trilogy” by the Australian writer Frank Moorehouse which is the story of one woman’s life braided with the story of The League of Nations. Each book is the size of the Bible and I was so sad when they came to an end.

Can you share an example of overcoming adversity to keep your writing dream alive?

I’m not sure I’ve encountered anything I would call true adversity. I’ve always just tried to do what I wanted to do—in life as well as in writing. Sometimes that hasn’t been the wisest path, but it seems to be the one I’ve chosen. It’s hard to know what the best choices will be so I believe one’s deepest desires and passions are as good a compass as any. I’m a ridiculously optimistic person and although I also am a worrier, the hope that it would work out tended to trump the worries so I kept plodding forward. I’m also a very practical person so I knew from the beginning I’d have to put food on the table along with writing and I accepted that.

Actually, as I think about it, it’s the other way around. It’s writing that has helped me overcome adversity!

What is something about you that writers and readers may not know?

Hmmm. So many of my quirks have been included in my poetry. But I don’t think I’ve revealed one of my special talents—I’m quite good at finding lost things—which also requires some of the same qualities that are necessary for poetry—perseverance, strategy, patience, intuition, perfectionism, a willingness to not overlook the obvious—and of course luck.

About the Author:

Ellen Bass’s poetry includes Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), and Mules of Love (BOA, 2002). She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday, 1973. Her non-fiction books include The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins, 1988, 2008), which has been translated into twelve languages, and Free Your Mind: The Book for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth (HarperCollins, 1996). Her work has frequently been published in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review and many other journals. Among her awards for poetry are two Pushcart Prizes, Lambda Literary Award, Elliston Book Award, Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod/Hardman, Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, New Letters Prize, and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University. www.ellenbass.com

Informal Poll – Writers Share Their Journal Wish-List

On November 2, Eduardo C. Corral asked writers on Facebook to “name a journal that’s never taken your work.” The thread quickly turned into a publishing wish list. More than eighty writers responded (from 1 – 5) times and more than 50 magazines were listed (below). Poetry was mentioned the most times (8) and I was inspired to submit to one of these magazines for the first time. What’s your “white whale” journal?

– Martin Ott

Journal	Times Mentioned
Agni	6
Alaska Quarterly Review	1
Bateau	1
The Believer	2
Beloit Poetry Journal	3
Black Warrior Review	4
Brevity	1
Copper Nickel	1
Crazyhorse	4
Denver Quarterly	1
Diagram	6
Diode	1
Fence	6
Field	2
Five Points	1
Guernica	2
Guf Coast	1
Harvard Review	1
Huizache	1
Image	1
Indiana Review	4
The Journal	1
jubitat	6
The Lancet	1
Los Angeles Review	1
Malahat Review	1
McSweeny’s	1
Meridian	1
Michigan Quarterly Review	1
Mid-American Review	2
Missouri Review	5
New England Review	1
The New Republic	1
The New Yorker	3
Ninth Letter	1
Octopus	1
Paris Review	3
Plume	1
Poetry	8
Ploughshares	5
Prairie Schooner	1
A Public Space	1
Rattle	2
Rhino	1
Sixth Finch	3
Smartish Pace	1
Southern Review	1
Threepenny Review	1
Tin House	4
Typo Magazine	1
Virginia Quarterly Review	1
West Branch	4