Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Jessica Piazza

taken by photographer: Rich Prugh

Jessica Piazza is the author of two full-length poetry collections with Red Hen Press: Interrobang (winner of the AROHO 2011 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize and the 2013 Balcones Poetry Prize) and Obliterations (with Heather Aimee O'Neill, forthcoming) as well as a chapbook This is not a sky (Black Lawrence Press.) She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. She co-founded Bat City Review and Gold Line Press and is a contributing editor for The Offending Adam and a screener for the National Poetry Series. She teaches for the Writing Program at USC and the online MFA program at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. Put us there. And that other place you like. 

Jessica Piazza: I think I can write anywhere, but I've probably done my best work out in the world; in coffee shops and that sort of thing. I like the white noise. I like remembering I’m not alone in the world, and that these words will eventually belong to people who aren’t me. I like the expectation that I am somewhere for the sole purpose of doing work and I will not go home until I’ve done some.

Of course, like for so many of us, the Internet kicks my ass and distracts me. But there’s a coffee shop called Conservatory for Coffee, Tea & Cocoa in Culver City where there’s no WIFI during busy hours, and that’s really helpful as a buffer against procrastination. (Though I wasn’t able to write my dissertation chapters there! The Internet is key for research in my world.) But anyway, it’s a tiny place with these burlap sacks and barrels with amazing coffee beans and such, and it smells good in there. Also, the chairs and café tables and cramped space are actually a little uncomfortable and – is it just me? – I feel like being slightly uncomfortable in a work space actually helps me be productive. I don’t get too placated or drowsy because of the environment, which makes me remember why I’m there and what I’m supposed to be doing.

LD: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it? 

JP: There was a fun one I did a while back that went pretty quickly, despite a multi-layered creation process. It was a piece for The Book of Scented Things, an anthology project from The Literary House Press. Contributors were sent a tiny vial of a perfume and asked to use it as an inspiration for a poem. The perfume they sent me was called Ophelia, which couldn’t be more perfect for several reasons. The obvious one is, well, Shakespeare! But the other is that I was working on a chapbook at the time, a series of ekphrastic poems based on famous visual artworks, and I love Millias’ painting “Ophelia”. I thought it would be an interesting crossover to write a poem that would work for both the anthology and the chapbook, so I researched the perfume online to discover what the notes were, and tries to incorporate some of that information into the poem about the painting. It was especially fun to try to find a place for the scent notes I loved in the perfume like orange, musk and lily. (And I ended up wearing that perfume at my wedding a few months later, which is pretty cool.) It was fun to use so many bits of inspiration (the art, the perfume, Hamlet) and synthesize them into one piece, especially by turning the different sensory images on their heads, as when I used the orange scent from the perfume to describe the light in the painting. Anyway the painting is resplendent with flora and so getting some of that scent/image synesthesia going was pretty easy.

The anthology will be out really soon, and the chapbook – This is not a sky – is now available for pre-order from Black Lawrence Press.

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why? 

The implement I try to wield the most often is bravery. I’m not kidding. Sure, it’s not physical, but it’s the single tool that most helps me write. 

If you want to get literal, though, I can only write on a computer. I know that sounds super uncreative and not artsy at all. In fact, I have fantastic daydreams of scribbling in a beautiful journal in fantastic and serene settings. But the truth is I have the worst handwriting on earth, and when I try to write stuff by hand I can’t even read it back most of the time. Also, because I so often write in form, moving stuff around is kind of key to my process. I am not a huge reviser of my poetry after the fact; my process is a very intricate and time-consuming process of revision as I write. Once I have a fully crafted piece it generally doesn’t undergo too much change, especially not when it’s a metrical or formal poem, but that’s because by then I will have spent a lot of creative energy getting it right in the first place. And without the computer this process is a mess. On paper I basically end up with pages of scribbles and arrows and a hot mess I can’t make anything of. 

So, I guess you can say that much like the rules of formal poetry itself, the organization that the computer offers me allows my craziness to find a proper shape. 

LD: How long have you been writing? What’s the first thing you remember feeling good about having written? 

JP: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I won a poetry contest in fourth grade. It was a holocaust poetry contest, in fact, and my poem went like this (from what I can recall): 

The bad ones come bringing destruction and death 
and freely the black spiders roam 

For love is gone in this dreary place 
concentration camp is now your home. 

Jewish people, anyone different, 
Why are you killed needlessly? 

Because of one man, one’s man’s evil, 
You are never the same, you shall see. 

But there is one small glimmer of hope 
that can’t be seen easily. 

If all prejudiced people would learn to love 
then everyone would be free. 

Deep, right? Who knew that a fourth grader had all the answers to solving the tragedy of genocide? HA! But I remember being really proud of the black spiders image for the swastika, which I though looked like a spider. I think that was seriously my first time being excited about imagery. 

LD: Beverage of choice? In life or writing? 

JP: Okay, well, obviously coffee. Can’t duck the cliché. And wine, to keep it going. A tart and crisp white or a not-sweet red. And lately also a cocktail of St. Germaine with cucumber, mint and club soda; it’s lovely. But ultimately, water. If I’m not hydrated I can’t do anything. My husband makes fun of me for this; he thinks I believe water cures all things…kind of like the father in “my Big Fat Greek Wedding” who sprays Windex on everything. On a side note, the actor who plays that father is the actual father of my fellow Red Hen Press poet Brendan Constantine. And so the word comes full circle.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Sharon Suzuki-Martinez

poet Sharon Suzuki-Martinez

Sharon Suzuki-Martinez is the author of The Way of All Flux (New Rivers Press, 2012). She grew up in Hawaii and now lives in Tempe, Arizona where she created/curates The Poet’s Playlist. She also blogs about weird animals and the poet’s life at Sharon Planet.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. 

Sharon Suzuki-Martinez: To write, I have to be able to look out a window or be outside. The random flitting of wildlife facilitates my poetic flights of fancy. To do this, I have a portable writing studio: a TV tray table and a folding chair. My little office camps out amidst my cluttered kitchen most of the time, but wanders all over the house and outside.

LD: How do you begin writing? Do you just dive in? 

SS: Most often, I’ll hear an interesting line in my head or I’ll misread a sign or a headline on the Internet, so I scribble it down or type it into my cellphone along with notes for directions I’d like the poem to move in. I tend to write and revise in short bursts, but spend long periods of time thinking about the development of a poem.

Sharon's portable writing studio outside

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why? 

SS: For the last half a year, I’ve only used Pentel EnerGel pens, 0.7 mm black ink. It’s so perfectly designed, all other pens annoy and distract me from what I am trying to write. Before then, for all the poems in my book, I only wrote with husky, colorful Pilot Dr. Grip pens.

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a poem? 

SS: Each poem starts out as a seed that has floated into my hands from parts unknown. I take this seed of a haunting phrase, feeling, or experience and cultivate/revise it to sprout, leaf, bud, flower, and fruit. In other words, I know the poem is done when it feels like it has grown into something able to delight and nourish the reader. A finished poem must also be a transformation almost unrecognizable from the initial seed of inspiration.

Sharon's writing studio inside

LD: Let’s talk about your writing soundscape. Do you listen to music? Cafe rumblings? White noise? Utter silence? 

SS: Sometimes I can’t stop listening to or hearing a particular song in my head and this song won’t go away until I write it a poem. I think that songs, like all obsessions, possess us and then release us as new creative expression, as art. I invite poets to explore this and other ideas about poetry and music on my The Poet’s Playlist website. Otherwise, when I write I prefer silence or white noise. My favorite writing white noises are the Rainy Café and Hypnotoad.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Karen Paul Holmes

poet Karen Paul Holmes

Karen Paul Holmes is the author of the poetry collection Untying the Knot (Kelsay Books, 2014). Credits include Poetry East, Atlanta Review, POEM, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and the Southern Poetry Anthology Vol 5: Georgia (Texas Review Press). In 2012, she received an Elizabeth George Foundation grant.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. Put us there. And that other place you like. Or just send a real picture.

Karen Holmes: I write the best at my cottage on Lake Chatuge on the border of Georgia and North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The place practically hangs over the lake, so the almost-floor-to-ceiling windows make me feel a bit like I’m on a cruise ship (but without the mojitos and Macarena). Just lake and sky and mountains forever.

LD: What is your favorite exercise that gets the words flowing? 

KH: I like it when a workshop leader provides a bank of words that must be used in a poem (such as “son, ripple, candle, wound, stitch, peach”). For me, one or more of the words almost always sets up a whole series of images and memories, and the poem begins to flow. I’ve written some of my best poems this way. I often delete many of the “required” words in the editing process, but they were important in inspiring the poem.

LD: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it?

KH: Lately, lightning strikes but I haven’t been jotting down the ideas, so they leave me as quickly as they came, unfortunately. The last time I tried to write new poems, I was at the beach for a writing retreat, which normally inspires me. Knowing I had to break my inertia, I went to my old idea file and started eeking out a few poems I’d been meaning to write for a while. I’d describe that process as trying to wring water out of a slightly damp washcloth. But (thank goodness there’s a but), the very last poem I wrote did pour put of me like a fireman’s hose. My sister had called to tell me she had breast cancer, and that night I wrote a short, intense prose poem about it. When I took the poem to my critique group, they loved it and had few editing suggestions. I wish I had not had that particular reason to be inspired, but I am happy with the poem and think it will speak to others. I really do believe the creative spark comes from somewhere other than ourselves. I’ve often looked at old notes I've written (usually lines for a poem or metaphor ideas) and do not even remember writing them.

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why?

view from Karen's cottage at Lake Chatuge

KH: Computer! (Laptop, specifically). Although sometimes, like when sitting on the dock, I write with pen in a notebook. But as soon as possible, I dash to the keyboard to start moving things around and experimenting with line breaks, alternate word choices, order, etc. Also, the Internet helps with research to add detail to poems. For example, I learned a lot about knots (there’s one called a “monkey’s fist!”) to help with my book’s titular poem, “Untying the Knot.”

I’m basically a lazy person. Without a computer as a tool, my poems would probably languish unfinished. I also just have to see my poems printed out, pretty early in the composition process—to really read them more carefully and see what they look like on the page. When a poem seems complete, I often use the laptop’s recording feature to record myself reading it, because that also helps me edit.

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a story, essay, or poem?

KH: Finished? Is that a word that applies to a poem? I do consider some poems finished, but never are they exempt from tweaking a word or comma or line break if I haven’t looked at them in a while and something suddenly jumps out at me. When a poem doesn't feel finished and I’m stuck, I do one of a few things: 1. Bring it to my critique group, 2. Put it in a folder called “needs work” and forget about it for a while, 3. Go back to the stanza or line that’s bothering me and work on it until I have that “ah, that’s the solution” feeling. It’s a sort of feeling more than an intellectual thing. I recently pulled one out that seemed hopelessly sucky and had been sitting unlooked at for a year. But I liked the topic (an anonymous young couple had paid my 86-year-old mother’s check at a restaurant), so I edited the heck out of it and took it to critique. They loved the idea but suggested a reordering of stanzas. I did that, submitted it, and got it accepted into an anthology on aging (while many of my favorite “finished” poems continue to get rejected!). Time and fresh eyes can revitalize a stuck poem.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Writer Bernadette Geyer

Writer, Bernadette Geyer

Bernadette Geyer is a freelance writer and editor in Berlin, Germany. Her poetry collection, The Scabbard of Her Throat, was published by The Word Works in 2013. Geyer’s poems have appeared in Oxford American, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Her non-fiction has been published in Border Crossing, Freelance Writer's Report, and Go World Travel.

Laura Davis: How often do you write and for how long? What time of day?

Bernadette Geyer: I try to write every day, Monday through Friday. Primarily, this is because I am now working as a full-time freelancer and if I don’t write, I don’t make any money. As for “what” I write every day, that fluctuates wildly: one day I may be working on a non-fiction article I want to pitch to a travel magazine, while another day I may be writing translations of poems. I have a novel idea that I am also working on when there is no one else in the house – which is rare, because both my husband and I are self-employed and share a home office. Because we have an 8-year-old, I work primarily while she is at school – between 8:00am and about 3:30pm. That gives me a pretty decent chunk of time to work on my writing every day, be it fiction, non-fiction, poetry, translations, or blog posts. Of course, about 1/3 of the time is also spent doing the administrative-type stuff that all writers have to deal with – finding markets for the writing, tracking submissions, updating the web site, etc.

LD: How long have you been writing?

BG: I loved to write in middle school, where I started by writing Nancy Drew-type stories. I still have those. I would bring a pencil and lined paper out to recess with me, find a place to sit, and work on my stories. Sometimes, I remember classmates passing around the pages as soon as I finished them. Once, a neighbor gave me 50 cents for letting her read one of my stories. I wish I could remember which neighbor that was because, that probably gave me my first taste of connecting with a reader. In high school, I started writing poetry, and even had a poem published in a little regional publication for high school students. One of my English teachers – Mr. S. – really encouraged my writing. I tried everything in high school – short stories, plays, poetry, essays. I remember loving it all. When I went to college, I continued writing poetry – both for English classes as well as for personal enjoyment – but it wasn’t until after I’d graduated and started down a career path in the “business world,” that I really started to look at my creative writing as a genuine craft that I could continue. While I do not have an MFA, I have taken many workshops and attended writing retreats as a way to further my own creative writing.

LD: How do you motivate yourself to write?

BG: Trying to make money is a great motivation for most of the writing (and editing) that I am doing at this point in time. I am also the toughest boss I’ve ever had, so there’s not really any trouble with motivating myself to write. Seriously, if I wasn’t me, I wouldn’t want me as a boss.

My ongoing to-do list includes a page full of the ideas I’ve thought of for articles or essays. Each morning, I sit down and look through the whole to-do list and pick out 2-3 items I will accomplish that day. At least one of those items will involve some type of writing. Once I have my day’s goals written down, I start working. Butt in chair, writing. That’s what it takes.

LD: Do you believe in “writer’s block”?

BG: I do believe that writers can get “stuck” during the course of a project. I think that is why, for me, it is good that I have many potential projects to work on at any given time. When I feel like I’ve gotten “blocked” from progressing on a particular project, I just switch to something different for a while. That usually gives me time and space to re-set and to let my brain relax so that it can open itself up to new ways of thinking that can get me through a blockage point. It’s like if you are driving down a road and you have your eyes firmly set on the ground directly in front of your car, but suddenly there’s a fallen tree across the road. You have to stop, take your eyes off the road directly in front of you, and look around for another way of getting where you are going. Or, maybe you realize that that’s not really where you needed to go anyway.

LD: Beverage of choice?

BG: Coffee in the morning. Once lunchtime hits, water for the rest of the afternoon. I am a no-frills creature of habit when I am working at my desk, but sometimes (if I’m feeling impetuous) I will add a slice of lemon or lime to my water.

When I occasionally go out by myself somewhere to read and write in the evening, I will always go for red wine. I have a favorite wine bar just down the block – old wooden tables, dark painted walls, candles flickering on every table, small bowls of olives and cheese for sale, and great windows to gaze through.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Natalie Giarratano

Natalie Giarratano’s first collection of poems, Leaving Clean, won the 2013 Liam Rector First Book Prize (Briery Creek Press, 2013). Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, Isthmus Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and TYPO, among others. She co-edits Pilot Light and teaches writing at American University.

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Laura Davis: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it?

Natalie Giarratano: When it comes to writing, I’m a hunter/gatherer. I will hang onto random bits of conversation, quotes from literature, films or TV shows, random thoughts/images that pop into my brain, news stories, songs, research on topics in which I’m interested, which range from Leadbelly to serial killers, and so on. I will hang on until I have to let them go on the page. Usually that is in the summer when I have more time to focus on my writing, as I’m not teaching then. All this is to say that I write sporadically on the page, but I’m always thinking and collecting towards a poem or poems with these scraps. And sometimes the scraps end up being unnecessary, a means to an end, or are altered so much as to become unrecognizable. This I love. My most recently published poem, “Big Thicket Blues,” took about a year to write, from scraps of ideas to a long poem that felt complete in its eight sections.

LD: What is your favorite exercise that gets the words flowing?

NG: To get the words flowing, I find that taking on a persona or trying to address a specific person helps. I tend to write a lot of social/political poetry, so I might address Saddam Hussein or Dick Cheney or Gilgamesh or my great grandmothers. I don’t always stick with that perspective/address, but it narrows the field so I can focus more—which has been important in writing a poem a day when fresh, fruitful ideas might be more difficult to come by. But before I get to any of that, here’s what I have to complete: breakfast, coffee, feed play with, and walk the dog, catch up on news, clean the house if it needs it, read poetry or fiction or essays or news stories. Then I can get to the writing process. Then I can settle my mind enough with the outside world (or rile it up enough, depending on the occasion) to move inward.

LD: How long have you been writing? What’s the first thing you remember feeling good about having written?

I specifically asked for a journal in which to write poems when I was eleven. Not even sure what prompted that. I didn’t read much, if any, poetry; though I was a voracious reader of fiction; I loved me some Beverly Cleary. However, it was Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which is so full of detailed description—some, I know, would argue that it’s tedious or overwrought—that made me think, wow. This is what I want to do. I want to create worlds for others to be lost in. I don’t know if I’ve accomplished that with my poetry, but it wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I felt confident in the poems I was writing. The poem that I think was the turning point for me is titled “Forms of Forgetfulness”—I had been trying to write about my falling away from Catholicism and violence always humming under the surface in my immediate family for a long time; in this poem, subject and form work in subtle ways and mood is captured well without seeming like a rant—those I’m really good at!

LD: How do you motivate yourself to write? Chocolates? Self-flagellation? Coffee on an IV drip? 

NG: I motivate myself to write by having other people hold me accountable. I guess that’s not really “self-motivation.” I am able to have that when I call upon it, but I’m a person who works well under a deadline. For the past couple of summers I’ve participated in a poem-a-day throughout the month of June with poet friends; we exchange poems and self-deprecation every day. I think this process makes me realize I could write routinely if I truly wanted; I could find the time while hunting/gathering. Also, after I’ve written my poem for the day, I have been known to reward myself with episodes of my favorite TV show (currently Game of Thrones).

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a story, essay, or poem? 

NG: This is probably corny to say, but the poem tells me when it’s finished. I don’t really decide anything but to listen to it (or ignore it, which only works for a while). Music in a poem is really important to me, so I do work a long time on getting the words and lines to sound “right” (more listening). But form is fickle. For example, I recently worked for months on a series of poems about the life and music of Leadbelly. I was obsessed with him, with researching and writing about him (even though others have already done so and much better than I, especially Tyehimba Jess in leadbelly: poems, which I highly recommend). I ended up with seven fairly biographical poems written mostly in fragments—something I had done previously with “Big Thicket Blues.” However, I somehow got the idea that the sonnet form would better complement the subject matter; so then I spent a few more months turning these seven fragmented poems into a crown of sonnets (loose sonnets—I’m not a big fan of end rhyme). Just when I thought I was finished with them, I realized that the poems did not want to be about Leadbelly, at least not only about Leadbelly. I broke them back up into fragments. This time, though, I created 25 plus fragments that I arranged in brackets throughout my second manuscript, not just seven fragmented poems. Phew. But I had to write the sonnets to get back to the fragments again, which were much richer and more about the artist than Leadbelly alone. Though I do feel guilty for abandoning him.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Diane Lockward

Diane Lockward is the author of The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop (Wind Publications, 2013) and three poetry books, most recently Temptation by Water. Her poems have been included in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture.

Diane Lockward: My usual writing place is the kitchen table. Best time is morning when it’s quiet and my brain is most alert and creative. While my table serves as a place to eat, it also serves as the repository of stacks of books, journals, and yellow legal pads, all of which I really mean to straighten out but never quite do. From my spot at the table, I look out through a sliding glass door onto my backyard which is nice and woodsy. I have pretty flowerpots on the patio, a rock garden, birdbaths, and birdfeeders. In summer I get all kinds of birds—my favorites are the goldfinches who occasionally fly into a poem. This is a peaceful, quiet spot, conducive to daydreaming which sometimes is conducive to a poem.

LD: How do you begin writing? Do you just dive in? Warm-up exercise? Daydreaming?

DL: If I’m fired up with an idea, if that’s what leads me to the table, I just begin writing. But if, as is more often the case, I have to go in search of an idea, I often begin with some reading from either a poetry collection or a journal. I read until a line, image, or word evokes some kind of response from me. Once I’ve got that response, I begin writing. If that method doesn’t work, I might use the “palimpsest” method, that is, I take a poem and add a new poem on top of it, going line by line following the structure of the original. This method is instructive and often leads to a real poem—one which usually bears no resemblance at all to the original. The resemblance disappears with multiple revisions. I also enjoy prompts and find them stimulating, so I sometimes pull out a book of them and choose one to get me going.

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why?

DL: I like a Paper Mate ballpoint pen, black ink, medium point. I like the way it rolls on the paper, very smoothly, unlike a pencil which sort of grates against the paper and makes a little shuffling noise. I always begin a poem on a yellow legal pad. Something official about that. I never compose on the computer. I go to the computer only after several handwritten drafts have been done. I do a lot of revision on those early drafts which, by the way, is done with a red pen. When I feel like the poem is getting close to a real poem, that it just might be a keeper, I want to see what it looks like when typed up. Once the poem is on the computer, I begin to think about line lengths, line breaks, and stanza breaks. I print out a hard copy and spend days and weeks doing more revisions. Each new revision gets paper clipped onto the top of the growing pile of drafts. But it all begins with a pen and a piece of yellow lined paper.

LD How do you decide that you are finished working on a poem?

DL: After I’ve done several drafts, I record myself reading the poem. This is part of my revision process. I can hear rhythm, sagging syllables, unnecessary repetitions. If my mind starts to wander while I’m recording or playing back, I know I need to enliven things at the spot where that began to happen. When I’m satisfied with the way the poem looks on the page, when I like what the poem says and how it says it, I again record myself reading the poem. Do I like its music? Have I chosen the best possible words? Does the poem, even after dozens of revisions, still hold my interest? If the answer to each of these questions is Yes, then I’m probably done. Probably. I put the poem aside for at least a week, let myself forget about it. Then I take it out again. Record and listen again. Do I still like it? Did I this time spot something I’d missed before, something that needs to be fixed? If so, I make the repair. I again put the poem aside and repeat the process. Once I can record and listen and feel compelled by the poem and not hear or see anything that needs fixing, I’m done. As you can tell, I’m big on revisions. For me, that’s where the real writing takes place. But sometimes I go too far. When I begin to suck the life out of the poem, when I rob it of its surprises, I need to go back a draft or two and resuscitate the poem, find its heart again, get it beating again.

LD: Do you believe in writer’s block? 

No. I believe in laziness. I believe in dry days. I believe in sometimes just not feeling like showing up at the desk (or in my case, the kitchen table). And often I don’t show up. I can go days, even weeks without writing new work. I’d rather be working on new stuff every day, but I know myself well enough by now to acknowledge that I’m just not a daily kind of  poet. I do something related to poetry every single day, but sometimes it’s reading, typing up drafts, making submissions, going to a reading, listening to poetry recordings by other poets, working on my monthly Poetry Newsletter, writing a blog post for Blogalicious, or responding to interview questions. I like to think of the fallow days as days of hunting and gathering.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Writer Rachel Dacus

photo credit: Jim MacKinnon

Rachel Dacus is the author of Gods of Water and Air, a collection of poetry, prose, and drama. Her poetry collections are Earth Lessons and Femme au Chapeau. Her writing has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals and anthologies.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. Put us there. And that other place you like. Or just send a real picture. 

Rachel Dacus: I’m in a field, a plum tree has just started dropping its fruit on the grass, some edible, some smashed by careless feet or paws. The birds have pecked many, but I pick up an unblemished one and bite into it, the juice running down my hand. I look up at mare’s tail clouds and a feeling strikes me blowing by and riffling. Another plum falls. I think about ripeness and ruin. I go and sit in the swing and dictate into my phone. Like that on the luckiest days. On others, with coffee, in bed, not quite awake, noodling around with word sounds and wispy sense. Clouds in the brain.

LD: How do you begin writing? Do you just dive in? Warm-up exercise? Daydreaming? Any rituals that involve smelling a drawer of fruit? 

RD: Apparently, from my previous answer, fruit can be involved. But not necessarily. I just daydream, having set aside time for writing – usually in the morning, when the boundary between the dream state and the intellectual one is shifty and broad, allowing for incursions from either army.

LD: How often do you write and for how long? What time of day?

RD: I write every day, most often in the morning, middle of the day, and at night. Really. I like to start my business day with poetry, and after a few hours of working at my day job stuff, dive back into whatever I was working on. I’m also writing a novel, so it depends what I most need to work on, and that’s what I might work on after dinner. Breaks help me do a lot of work in any given day. Most days I don’t have this much time, but on the best, I do and make the most of it.

LD: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it? 

RD: I started writing poems in response to reading Emily Dickinson. I know that seems like a rash idea, treading in such overworked territory, but I couldn't help feeling a little like Emily’s BFF. Like only she and I understand each other’s secrets. Arrogance, I know, but that’s what happened. So recently, I read another ED poem (I dip into the book cautiously because a line can hit me like a bullet), and this line leaped on me and wrestled me to the ground.

LD: How long have you been writing? What’s the first thing you remember feeling good about having written? 

RD: I've been writing since I could hold a pencil. The first piece I was proud of was a Halloween short story written in third grade. I was asked to read it out to my class and got huge laughter. Getting laughs hooked me on writing. Just think – a thing I made out of my imagination made people laugh! What could be better. Of course, the next story fell entirely flat. I was inducted into the writing profession at age eight, skinning my knees on the reality of my first workshop critique, but the blood couldn't detract from the high, so I was hooked by early success.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Kait Burrier

Poet Kait Burrier

Kait Burrier writes poetry, drama, journalism, and to-do lists. Her work has been thrown from balconies, spat from rooftops, hidden in mesas, performed in the U.S. and abroad, and published online and in print, most recently in SwanDive Publishing Company’s Everyday Escape Poems. See what she’s up to at kaitburrier.com.

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Laura Davis: Beverage of choice? 

Kait Burrier: a.m.: black coffee; p.m.: bourbon, rocks.

LD: Let’s talk about your writing soundscape. Do you listen to music? Cafe rumblings? White noise? Utter silence? 

KB: I hopped a bus to New York City the day after completing my MFA, and I love the soundscape here! I find sound and physicality to be symbiotic in poetry, and it’s easy to translate the buzz of my surroundings into the rhythm of my work, especially somewhere public, like a café, a bar, a park bench, or the train. My revision process demands less chaos and more focus. Most of my creative projects have corresponding playlists that I listen to at home. I've also taken to recording myself on Garage Band while developing a cadence. It’s a good exercise for exploring a new voice, too; I’ll record myself reading a single text while listening to different songs through headphones and the delivery always varies. Occasionally, though, I do like to work at the twilight hours of morning, when even the Internet and the alley cats are still.

LD: What is your favorite exercise that gets the words flowing? 

KB: Unearthing a fresh narrative in an existing text through erasure, found word, and cut up poetry stimulates me into generating new work. Sometimes, I’ll explore a topic that has a lot of room for investigation, like astrophysics or the arctic, and allow my imagination to fill in the blanks with free association. I’m also partial to Dadaist and Surrealist games, and have been known to begin rounds of Exquisite Corpse on bar napkins.

LD: What’s the strangest object you've ever used to write a poem with and/or upon? 

KB: Oh, I’m sure it’s gotten weird before. I’ll use napkins, apps, legal pads, note cards, sidewalk chalk, whatever. Let’s see. Memorably, I was assigned to write out a map poem in a workshop during Naropa’s Summer Writing Program. I went to campus early to buy a Moleskine at the bookstore only to find there wasn't a campus bookstore. There was, however, plenty of sycamore bark shed on the sidewalks. I found a sturdy, clean piece and, using colored sharpies, inscribed a short, cartographic love poem. It survived a week in Colorado and a drive to Wyoming, but I don’t know what happened to it. I like to imagine it as a little poetry boat floating the Platte, or riding a breeze back to the Flatirons.

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a poem? 

I could revise forever and ever. My poems are basically complete once they've been accepted for publication. That’s not to say that I only find my poetry valid upon publication, but that I tend to step away from, revisit, and edit my work endlessly until someone else insists it’s finished. Time lends perspective. Old poems have served me well as a prompt, as a sort of creative artifact that I either want to explore for inspiration or to polish up—cut this stanza, change that line break. Sometimes, I wonder if I’ll ever truly finish a

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Writer Sivan Butler-Rotholz

Sivan Butler-Rotholz is the founder of Reviving Herstory, the Contributing Editor of the Saturday Poetry Series on As It Ought To Be, and a columnist for the iPinion Syndicate. She holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and is a professor, writer, editor, comic artist, and attorney emerita.

Laura Davis: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it?

Sivan Butler-Rotholz: I have been working on my first novel since November 1, 2013. The idea had been percolating in my mind for quite some time, and a creative writing student of mine challenged me to participate in National Novel Writing Month, so I rolled up my sleeves and dove in. During that dedicated month the words flew from my fingertips like wildfire. Some days took more effort than others, but I wrote every day and met the 50,000-word goal by month’s end.

There is something very freeing about a challenge such as NaNoWriMo. I believe that, as writers, we wear two hats: our creating hat and our editing hat. Because I had a goal based on word count alone, I did not allow myself to put on my editing hat whatsoever during the month of November. The goal was to write, write, write. I knew that, after the month ended, I would have years to edit and rewrite as needed. So I gave myself the freedom to write whatever came to me—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Every good writer revises; I think aiming for perfection from the outset can have a crippling effect on writers. Such an approach may be the beast known as “writer’s block.”

After November ended, I gave myself some time away from writing the book. Because my novel is historical fiction, I am working on the novel even when I am only researching. So after November I read a lot—history books about the period in which my novel takes place (the era of King David), and also some great books on process. I’m a poet by training, so I had to give myself a crash course in what makes good fiction writing. In April I signed up for another NaNoWriMo challenge—Camp NaNoWriMo—which is a less-structured version of National Novel Writing Month. I did not meet my goal in April, but I had a major breakthrough with the book that was invaluable. Currently I’m in it again, doing Camp NaNoWriMo for the month of July.

Writing a novel, I am discovering, is a long and involved process. It is like a long-term relationship, whereas writing a poem can be more like a cherished fling. I hope to finish the novel in the next year or two, and hope that what I am learning now will translate into my ability to complete a novel every couple of years.

The work of writing a novel is ongoing and variable. Sometimes I write as if struck by divine inspiration or as if taking dictation for Martians. Other times I write not a single word, and instead let the lives of the characters and the landscape of the novel unfold in my mind. Whenever anyone asks me how the novel is going I tell them it’s coming along great. Whether I am writing daily or haven’t put my fingers to the keyboard in months, I always feel that the novel and I are moving forward. When people tell me they can’t wait to read it, I respond, “Me too!”

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a story, essay, or poem?

SBR: Ahhh, this is such an interesting question! For me, it is a gut feeling. After I have read, edited, read, revised, read, tweaked, and repeated these steps ad nausea, there comes a moment when I give it a read through and find that I don’t have any more changes to make. Then I may put it aside, come back, and apply the process again. Eventually it just feels done. It is, absolutely, a gut reaction.

I am a perfectionist, so anything I write has seen a lot of personal scrutiny before my instincts tell me it’s finished. For me it’s done done when I send it out into the world—when I submit an opinion editorial piece to the iPinion Syndicate, when I hit the “schedule” button on an entry in the Saturday Poetry Series that I edit for As It Ought To Be, when I finish a blog post for Reviving Herstory, when I submit poems for publication, etc. Even then, sometimes I revise after submission or posting. Most infuriating is when I notice a typo in an already published piece. Nothing drives me more bananas than that.

All that being said, the thing I always think of when I consider the question of whether piece of writing is “finished” is this: I heard a story about Yusef Komunyakaa. That his personal copy of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book is marked up with his newest edits. That when he gives readings from this book, he is reading newer, revised versions of poems that already won the Pulitzer Prize. I tell this story to my creative writing students when they ask how they know if a poem or story is finished. If Yusef Komunyakaa is still editing his Pulitzer Prize-winning poems, I’m not sure our work is ever finished.

LD: How long have you been writing? What’s the first thing you remember feeling good about having written?

SBR: I started reciting original poems before I learned to read and write. My mother used to take dictation of the oral poems I composed. I believe that being a poet is something older than this body, this lifetime. It is something more akin to a soul or to the energy that comprises us; something that existed before we did in this earthly body, and something that will continue to go on after we are returned to dust.

I am really blessed in that I have always been encouraged in my writing. First by my family, then in school. I remember little books and poems I wrote in third and fourth grade being chosen as competition winners. My family, teachers, schools, and locales all encouraged me. So I grew up feeling good about my writing. Of course I’ve become more critical of my own work with age and experience, but I’ve always felt really good about being a writer, and I think the expectations I have for myself now only serve to make me a better writer. Now I have my sights set on becoming a New York Times bestselling novelist, and I think it’s a combination of the encouragement I have received throughout my life and my belief that I can do anything I set my mind to that is going to get me there.

LD: How do you motivate yourself to write? 

SBR: I do much better with a deadline and some accountability. My most productive writing periods were while working toward my BA and MFA in creative writing, while taking continuing education courses in creative writing, while participating in residencies, and the like. National Novel Writing Month motivates me because I set a goal based on due date and word count; even if I’m only accountable to myself, I work better with even a self-imposed goal and deadline. Most recently a friend and I have started a writing group that meets once a month. Having to submit even a few pages of work to other people once a month ensures that I actually write those few pages. So the answer, for me, is that goal-setting and accountability are my greatest motivating factors.

LD: Let’s talk about your writing soundscape. Do you listen to music? Cafe rumblings? White noise? 

SBR: Essentially, as a lyricist, I prefer to listen to music with words than without. But I find that music with lyrics inevitably distracts me from my writing. I tried classical music for a while, but it was too calming for me. I need a little pick-me-up when I write. So I listened to Tiger Rag for a long time, but found that I can only listen to music without lyrics for so long. Most recently I discovered that the best writing music for me is Edith Piaf in French. It turns out that lyrics in another language give me the voice and the words that I crave, yet don’t distract me from my writing. This is probably the only time I will ever be thankful to be ignorant of foreign languages.

Aside from music, which I listen to when writing at home, I love to work in cafes. I love the way the hustle and bustle of café life becomes like white noise to me. It is often easier for me to write in a café than at home alone. At home there are too many distractions.

Most important for me, when working from home, is that I be alone. I share my relatively small, open floor plan apartment with my wonderful husband. He is a big fan of my attention. Even if we are both working side-by-side, he is compelled to perpetually interrupt me to show me whatever thing he is excited about at that moment. Needless to say, I get very little work done when my husband is home with me. Lots of love, very little work. So my at-home writing process comes back to Virginia Woolf, and the importance of having a room of one’s own.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Lindsay Lusby

Poet Lindsay Lusby

Lindsay Lusby’s poetry has been published most recently in The Feminist Wire, Fairy Tale Review, and The Wolf Skin. Her first chapbook, Imago, was published by dancing girl press in 2014. She is the Assistant Director of the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.

Laura Davis: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it?

Lindsay Lusby: I've always been slow writer (and reader). But since I've embarked on the poem series to which I've most recently committed myself, my word faucet has become particularly slow-dripping. It frustrates me but, at the same time, I'm excited about the poems that have come out of it. This series I'm writing requires a very intricate interweaving of themes, that in turn requires super precise word-choice to maintain the balance I want, and this all leads to essentially revising while I'm writing. If it sounds stilted, that's because it really is. But it seems to be working, so I'll keep on in this vein for as long as it continues to be fruitful.

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why?

LL: I use a combination of three different writing implements for different stages of the process. For composing, I prefer using a manual typewriter. Somehow, the typewriter leaves me feeling less inhibited by my own insecurities while writing. I'm more able to let myself write down what is developing in my head as it happens and explore the different possibilities for where this new poem might lead. I make lists of words, phrases, and bits of the two or more source materials I'm hoping to combine. When I've got a working draft (or at least a fragment that I want to keep), I move to the word processor for revising and finishing the poem. Then, when I feel I have a fairly polished piece, I write it by hand in my notebook that travels around with me. I realize that's probably the reverse order for lots of folks, but this is what (most often) works for me. I also have a habit carrying around my brand-new poems with me like a kind of security blanket.

LD: What color is your writing process. Do explain.

LL: Green. Definitely green. A poem I wrote a few months ago called "Interlude" ends with the line, "in those quiet degrees of shade." That is my mental writing space. Although I'm typically an indoor cat (doing most of my writing in my bedroom), my mental space is usually a green garden sheltered by an overcast sky. It smells like rain-soaked ivy and basil. A comforting green gloom.

LD: Let's talk about your writing soundscape. Do you listen to music? Cafe rumblings? White noise? Utter silence?

LL: I am one of those people who just cannot concentrate on a solitary activity in public spaces. I'm just hyper-aware of everything else going on around me. I think close to utter silence would be the best for me, although sometimes I will venture into purely instrumental music for some background sound. I tend to get distracted by song lyrics though. I must also admit that I am not always faithful to this prescription, but deviation usually leads to lots of frustration with myself and no new writing being accomplished.

LD: Beverage of choice?

LL: I'm a passionate lover of tea—hot or iced, depending on the temperature of the room. Although I do love a classic black tea, when I want to treat myself I go for a cup of ginger peach black tea or spice chai latte. Mmmmmm.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Stacy Nigliazzo

Poet Stacy R. Nigliazzo

Stacy R. Nigliazzo is an ER nurse. Her debut poetry collection, Scissored Moon, was released by Press 53 last fall, and has been named a finalist for the 2013 Julie Suk Prize (Jacar Press) and the 2014 Texas Institute of Letters First Book Award.

Laura Davis: How do you begin writing? Do you just dive in? Warm-up exercise? Daydreaming? Any rituals that involve smelling a drawer of fruit?

Stacy R. Nigliazzo: I generally need some spark of inspiration, otherwise I just sit and stare at a blank page for hours. That spark can originate from anywhere, really. I’ll have a dream, hear an unexpected word (like yaw or polystyrene, for example), or see something intriguing. Then I’ll grab my journal, tie my hair back, and scribble my thoughts. After I've polished my ideas I move to my MacBook. I anguish over every little word until I’m satisfied with the finished product. If I get stuck I generally read Charles Simic—no shortage of inspiration there. Sometimes I burn candles that smell of toasted coconut and hazelnut. The best thing about that is the ribbon of smoke that appears when you blow them out. Very poetic.

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why?

SN: I always start with a mechanical pencil so I can erase when I need to and don’t have to stop for sharpening. My favorite is the Zebra #2 (because it looks like a real pencil).

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a story, essay, or poem?

SN: I memorize all of my poems while I’m writing them, then mull them over and over in my mind after composition. If I still like the poem after a few days I generally stick with it. Sometimes I’ll agonizingly get stuck on a line, or even on a single word. In that case, I’ll try to put the poem aside for a while to tackle again later. Sometimes it takes forever to find the right fit.

For example, in the poem "Purgatory," it took me two weeks to come up with stranded soul. I think it was complicated by the fact that I had a deadline, and it was my first big publishing opportunity with the American Journal of Nursing. It finally came to me after much sleeplessness and gnashing of teeth while I was desperately scouring my old high school thesaurus, which is silly, as the metaphor seems so intuitive now. I completed the poem with a week to spare, but went ahead and sent it in anyway. I knew I was finished.

LD: Let’s talk about your writing soundscape. Do you listen to music? Cafe rumblings? White noise? Utter silence?

SN: Yo Yo Ma’s music is a staple when I’m writing (especially his unaccompanied Bach Cello Suites). I also love Emanuel Ax’s piano quartets (Mozart). Whatever I listen to has to be instrumental—no words other than mine allowed. If I’m particularly focused, or at the point where I’m breaking out the old high school thesaurus again, I’ll go for dead silence.

LD: What do you like to read before you write? Or after? Or during?

SN: Charles Simic, of course, and also Neruda’s prose poems. Most recently, Elana Bell’s Eyes, Stones and Carl Adamshick’s Curses and Wishes (both past recipients of the Walt Whitman Award). And, of course, there’s my big stack of back issues of the Bellevue Literary Review. There is absolute perfection in those pages! 

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Robert Walicki

Robert Walicki 's debut chapbook is A Room Full Of Trees (Redbird Press). His work has appeared in Stone Highway Review, Grasslimb, and others Most recently, he was second runner up in Finishing Line Press' Open Chapbook Competition in 2013, and was awarded finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Competition (2013).

Laura Davis: How do you begin writing? Do you just dive in? Warm-up exercise? Daydreaming? Any strange rituals involving smelling a drawer of fruit? 

Robert Walicki: It begins almost unconsciously, a sort of energy builds up inside my imaginative self and I feel at that point, i'm ready to write a poem. The best ones I still feel come together rather quickly although the longer I write,I feel that this can vary. When the juices begin to flow so to speak, I often don't even know what I'm writing about,but most times I have some idea or goal, although the end result is rarely what I had originally set out to accomplish,which is ok. I've learned to trust the muse.

LD: How often do you write and for how long? What time of day? 

RW: Mostly at night or early morning,when I feel I can control extraneous noises. As far as frequency is concerned,I try to write something every day. This might not be a finished poem, but editing drafts of poems, free-writes, or working on manuscripts, I think qualifies. This is one of,if not the most important rule that poets should abide by. I push myself personally in my writing, trying to find ways to make the poem better,but I think it's also important to give yourself permission to write the occasional unnecessary or even "bad" poem.Some of my personal favorite poems began as a joke or as a trivial exercise.I think for me, when I write from the unconscious self, the poem has more emotional truth in it.

LD: Describe the process of making a recent poem or story. Lightning? Slow-dripping faucet? How long did you work on it? 

RW: I generally write fairly quickly,usually within an hour or at worst a couple days. However long it takes,when I am in my process, I am wrapped up in the world of the poem, usually staying there until the poem's first draft is written. A recent poem of mine called "Pick Up" came from driving past a few teenagers playing basketball at a nearby field. Normally, if I'm writing about a particular place, I rely on memory to fill in the sensory details.For this poem, I felt the need to go back to this field, touch the rusty chained link fence, smell the wet dust of the pitcher's mound. Most of the descriptive detail didn't end up in the poem,but the atmosphere helped authenticate the place for me as I wrote about it,adding personal memories to make it my own.

LD: What’s the strangest object you've ever used to write a poem or a story with and/or upon? 

RW: I don't know if this is an answer to your question,but once, a few lines came to me and I didn't have a pen or anyway to write them down,so I used a twig and scrawled the words into dirt and came back to transcribe them onto paper. After this, I thought it would be an interesting idea to write poems this way, on natural or man made objects as found poems and take pictures of them. Perhaps I will someday.

LD: What do you like to read before you write? Or after? Or during? 

RW: I have a litany of favorite poets that I read from, whose work I feel spiritually close to: Dorianne Laux, Marie Howe, Jason Shinder, Matthew Dickman, Kim Addonizio and Sharon Olds. When I feel blocked creatively, all I need to do sometimes is to read from one of these poets and I'm filled back up again.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Kelly McQuain

Poet Kelly McQuain

Kelly McQuain is the author of the newly released VELVET RODEO, selected by poet C. Dale Young for the Bloom Chapbook Prize. His prose has been published in numerous periodicals, and his most recent poems appear in such places as Painted Bride Quarterly, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Assaracus, Redivider, Kestrel, The Pinch and such anthologies as Between: New Gay Poetry, The Queer South and Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books. Learn more about Velvet Rodeo on his website. Read one of his poems at BLOOM Literary Journal.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. 

Kelly McQuain: My home office is often too cluttered, so I write in coffee shops, on the couch, and on the bed in our TV room. Every time I think of cleaning out the office I think I could be writing instead, and so I write. I have books stacked in all those places, leaning towers of books with papers and old drafts wedged between them. I nest myself in the chaos and I do my best to create. Sometimes I write into the wee hours of the night, and I find words and lines still going through my head as I try to fall asleep. I sometimes get up and write those down. When I’m full-speed on a project, I’ll get up and dive into it when I come downstairs in the morning, sitting with a strong cup of black tea from Taiwan (a neighbor’s gift) or a cup of Earl Gray. Writing is going well if I get to the middle of the afternoon and realize I forgot to eat. For motivation, I remind myself that time is finite—a subject of much of my work. And occasionally a little wine or scotch can grease the wheel. Hemingway reputedly said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” You can't exactly follow that advice and be healthy. I like to temper Hemingway's notion with an idea from Oscar Wilde: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

LD: What is your favorite exercise that gets the words flowing? 

KM: For poetry, I keep files called Word Soup on the Notes app on my iPad. Phrases, ideas for lines, interesting messages people write me, things I read in books, fortune cookies--all that. Basically it's my version of a word bank. These phrases and notes get scrambled together. When I begin to work on a project, I may have an initial idea, but I like to snowball that idea with whatever randomness gets attracted to it. I print out some word soup and grab a legal pad and free-write. It’s a process of magnetism, as well as teasing out the loose thread of narrative I see in random associations. My home office is often too cluttered, so I write in coffee shops, on the couch, and on the guest bed. I have books stacked in all those places, leaning towers of books with papers and old drafts wedged between them. I nest myself in the chaos and do my best to create.

LD: What color is your writing process? 

KM: It’s kaleidoscopic. With poetry, I play with space and form on the typed page, viewing the poem the way I might a painting. How does this phrase look next to that one? How is the rhythm working to both the eye and the ear?  I like to play with the way white space can create both a mental and vocal caesura. Unfortunately, with a lot of online magazines using templates like WordPress, they sometimes can only print poems where each line begins at a flush left margin. Does that mean poems that have a lot of spacing peculiarities are going to be an endangered species? I think the technology will eventually get better, but for now I sometimes feel straitjacketed in terms of where I can send certain poems. I’m a believer, however, in the idea that a poem dictates its own form. When I write in traditional forms, I like to play with the rules and push them. Form sometimes fractures, becoming a kaleidoscope leading to something new.

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a story, essay, or poem? 

KM: Sometimes I just know when a poem is finished. Not that it's tied up in a neat bow or anything. Rather, it's a sense I have pushed it as far as possible and I'm now finding myself engaged in a new project. For poems that seem riskier, I have a rotating group of readers I can show a draft to. I'll get one or two opinions of people I really respect. Not people who tell me what I want to hear, but people who will tell me what I need to hear. To be honest, I think trying to please a large workshop can deplete a work of its impulse or make a writer feel pulled in too many directions. Who wants to be drawn and quartered? Once in a while I will participate in a workshop at a conference, but that’s largely for the esprit du corps and to get new ideas for forms and techniques. When it comes to polishing a work myself, I read the piece aloud again and again to see if the phrasing, the beats, the line breaks and the pauses all feel right, since I believe sound goes hand in hand with image.  I do the same thing with writing prose.

LD: How long have you been writing? What’s the first thing you remember feeling good about having written?

KM: I remember writing Battlestar Galactica stories in 7th grade study hall with my friend Susan, and writing and drawing my own comics with other friends even before that. A poem in Velvet Rodeo called “Creation Myth” talks about reading my earliest poems in the state capital when I was a kid—twelve, maybe? Thirteen? I had won a state contest and it was a long, cold drive through the West Virginia mountains, where we lived. My whole family went. Those poems are long forgotten, but the fact that my family had faith in me is still remembered.

Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Writer Kelly Kittel

Kelly Kittel has spent most of her working life as a fish biologist who writes, but is becoming a writer who was formerly a fish biologist. She and her family divide their time between their yurts in Oregon and their house in Rhode Island. She has been published in a number of anthologies and magazines. Her first book, Breathe, is forthcoming in May. She loves to travel and recently watched the film, Gravity, on JetBlue instead of reading a book. As a result, this interview is probably the closest she will ever get to outer space.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. Put us there. And that other place you like. Or just send a real picture. 

Kelly Kittel: My favorite writing space is in our yurts on the coast of Oregon, where my bedroom is also our kitchen, living room, and dining room. In the mornings I wake up to the welcome sound of my preset coffee pot gurgling on the counter across the room. When I’m sure it’s ready, and not a moment before, I slip into my Uggs and shuffle over to pour myself a cup. Having lived in both Jamaica and Costa Rica, one of the sweetest moments of my day is that first hot taste of the tropics. On the coldest of days, I light a fire in the wood stove and wear my colorful alpaca glittens to type until the yurt warms up with the rising sun. My writing window faces east and is actually two layers—clear vinyl and an attached, fine-meshed screen. On warm days, I go out on the deck and literally rip the vinyl from its Velcro frame and all of nature floods through the screen into the yurt. It feels like writing outdoors. From my writing window, I can see the remnant stand of old-growth Douglas fir trees growing on the hillside across the creek that wraps around our pastures. These ancient trees are part of the Siuslaw National Forest that surrounds our property and often I can also watch the resident herd of elk grazing in the rising morning mist. The fir trees range in age from one to four hundred years old and have survived countless wildfires, windstorms, and at least one gigantic earthquake. They, and the slow-moving ungulates, are both excellent reminders to me in my writing career to be patient. To everything there is a season . . .

LD: Let’s talk about your writing soundscape. Do you listen to music? Cafe rumblings? White noise? Utter silence?

KK: A yurt has thin, acrylic-coated polyester walls, think high-tech tent. When you’re in a yurt, nature provides a peaceful soundtrack for writing that is truly the only one I need. My head is busy enough that I prefer to work in complete silence and relish the lack of noise. But, as I said, since my writing space is also the living room, when my kids come home from school I am subjected to endless episodes of Good Luck, Charlie, which I am equally capable of tuning out. For the most part, when I’m engrossed in my writing, the world falls away from me.

LD: Beverage of choice? 

KK: In the mornings I relish my coffee and, indeed, one of the invaluable supporters I acknowledged and thanked in my forthcoming memoir, Breathe, were the many coffee beans sacrificed on my behalf. I can write for hours with a lukewarm cup of coffee at hand and sometimes have to force myself to get out of my chair and eat in the afternoons before I become dizzy from hypoglycemia. I recently told someone that I live on words and liquids, as I move from coffee, to water, to wine. (no, not every day) And some days that’s truly all I really need.

LD: How often do you write and for how long? What time of day? 

KK: Right now I have the luxury of writing all day, which I typically take advantage of during the week as the weekends are never mine for writing. For decades, with five children to raise, I didn’t have the luxury of uninterrupted time and I only began to write in earnest when my last child, Bella, napped in the afternoons. It has only been three years since Bella started going to school all day, during which I’ve changed my morning routine from working out at the gym to working at writing. I get my best work done in the morning when I’m fresh and free from distraction. (And, yes, my ass is distinctly more chair than gym-shaped as a result.) Once I turn on my laptop and get started, I am off in my own little world and often feel myself inching closer and closer to climbing into the screen and disappearing. I’m usually surprised when my kids walk in the door from school in the afternoon to find me, still hunched over my laptop in my pajamas. Then we’re off and running for the rest of the day, late for everything and wondering what we’ll have for dinner.

LD: What do you like to read before you write? Or after? Or during? 

KK: I was born with a book clutched in my fat little fist and books have always been some of my best friends. Reading is my first true love, even before writing and my husband, and I am never without a current book to read and a pile of them in waiting on my bedside table. I rarely have the luxury of reading during the day, but I read myself to sleep every night of my life. My mother likes to tell how, as a toddler, I would sit in my playpen with a pile of books and read for hours and hours, not wanting anyone to bother me. And that hasn’t changed much, except my playpen is much larger now. I believe in banning televisions from bedrooms, which is why my husband can often be found snoring on the couch. And any bed I sleep in must have some form of reading light and a box of Kleenex. I love to travel and often read a book per flight. I imagine that if I’m ever in a plane that’s crashing, while panic and mayhem erupt all around me, I will simply sit there and keep reading my book as we descend, mostly annoyed that I won’t get to The End.