Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Anna B. Sutton

Poet Anna B. Sutton

Anna B. Sutton is a poet and publisher from Nashville, TN. Her work has won the Pocataligo Poetry Prize, a James Merrill fellowship from Vermont Studio Center, and has appeared in or is forthcoming from Third Coast, Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, Pinch, Superstition Review, Weave, and other journals.

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. 

Anna B. Sutton: Where I write has been a source of a lot of strife—not for any other reason than that I am out of shape and pushing 30. For years, especially during graduate school, I chose to write on my laptop in bed, either leaning back one of those pillows with arms—boyfriend pillows?—or sitting up cross-legged. Turns out this is the exact wrong thing to do for your back. Let this be a lesson to all you writers out there. After years of hunching over my laptop on a soft surface, I developed sciatica, which I had previously only associated with the elderly folk that my mother and I delivered Meals on Wheels to when I was growing up. But there I was, 26, unable to lift my laundry basket or really even my head. The plus side of developing sciatica is that they give you a bunch of the best kinds of drugs—heavy duty painkillers, muscle relaxers. The down side is the fact that you have to face your own weakness and mortality on a very immediate and visceral level. For those of you who don’t know, sciatica is when, over time, you train your lower back muscles to clench around the bundle of nerves at the base of your spine. It takes many months of drugs and hot and cold therapy and downward facing dog to work it out. So after that, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on an office chair, sold my laptop so that I wouldn't be further tempted to hunker down in the sultry embrace of my bed, and now I write on a desktop at a desk pushed up against a huge wall of windows. And that’s working out pretty well, but what I wouldn't give for an eight hour marathon day of writing in bed. (see photo below)

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

AS: My process is always two-fold. Generally, I get a line or image stuck in my head and the first draft of the poem—if I’m able to get to writing quickly enough—just sort of tumbles out. I can write a first draft in a matter of minutes. The second part of the process is where all the hemming and hawing and circling around a phrase comes in. Once I begin to revise that first draft, I can stare at the page for days, weeks, sometimes returning to a poem for years—change a word, change it back; add a line that sometimes accidentally opens up an entirely new meaning that has to be explored; erase and rewrite stanzas; format, reformat… When I was in my MFA program, workshop would get me really fired up for revisions and I could knock them out within a week. These days, left to my own devices, I’d say it takes me about four months on average to feel like a poem is “ready.” Of course, there are always those moments of pure magic, like when I wrote a recent poem called “Conservation.” I wrote it quickly at Vermont Studio Center, after having read some really heartbreaking articles about whooping cranes. I wrote it quickly, it felt finished, and I tagged it onto a few submissions I sent out, just to see what might happen. Almost immediately, Pinch picked it up for publication and I am so thrilled about that. I love their journal and it’s very rare that we get to give birth to a complete idea.

LD: What writing implement do you wield and why?

AS: I’m a computer girl, all the way. As much as I hate staring at a screen, I really love the deftness of a word processor. My initial process is so quick and fluid, and I’m a fast typer—Mavis Beacon taught me well. I've tried to hand-write because a lot of my writer friends say it allows them to connect more to the words, but to me it just feels clunky. My hand can’t keep up with my head. And when it comes to revisions—copy, paste, undo, redo—these commands are all essential to me. Plus, using a computer to write has allowed me to save terrible drafts that I revisit and reshape years later; drafts that would have no doubt been buried had I written them by hand in a notebook.

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

AS: I envy people who can listen to music while they write, or write in a coffee shop. I would love to feed from that energy. Unfortunately, I go into a sort of Tommy trance (See me, feel me, touch me, heal me, not fat guy in a little coat) and need absolute silence. I also really need to be alone, which means no fun writing parties and also causes some problems now that I’m living with my boyfriend. We've devised a “curtain system” to block off the sun room where I write, but even so, just knowing someone is somewhere nearby can often prevent me from opening up entirely. Plus, I tend to read aloud as I write, and if anyone is around, I become pretty self-conscious about mumbling to myself. I think all of this points to the fact that I need to feel safe enough  when I write to open up parts of me that I keep pretty tightly sealed otherwise.

LD: Beverage of choice?

AS: All beverages, great and small. In my life outside of writing, I’m the kind of person who can end up with four different glasses at brunch: water, coffee, juice, cocktail. But it’s not the case when I’m at work on a poem. This is another instance where I wish I could do what many writers I love do—write poetry while drinking a big glass of red wine or a few fingers of bourbon—but I just get distracted. Similarly, too much coffee and I get buzzy and anxious and start writing terrible poems about how NO ONE UNDERSTANDS MY PAIN. Now, I try to stick with tea. Right this moment, I’m sipping on some iced red chai—naturally decaf, y’all! Oh god, drinking decaf tea alone with sciatica. Maybe I am elderly after all.

Photo below: Here is my very expensive chair and very cheap computer, then, from the lower left and moving clockwise: 1.) A few lit mags I've received in the mail lately, including the new Tar River Poetry, which I am just thrilled to have a poem in. 2.) A Hallmark bag filled with actual spells from Sarah Messer, a former professor/current boss at One Pause/cheesemaker/life mentor. We haven’t found the right place for all of them, yet. Plus, unlike most houses in Wilmington, where I lived for three years and met Sarah, our current home in Winston-Salem is decidedly not haunted. 3.) A picture of a few of my favorite fellow writers, taken at Chicago AWP, likely while very hungover. We all look pretty cute, though. 4.) Fried and True, which I’m about to review for my blog in an effort to actually have a blog/because my boyfriend loves nothing more than fried chicken—not even me, not by far. 5.) Two monkey candle holders from my grandmother than are super weird and possibly my favorite things in the world. They’re wearing Victorian era powder blue tails and tawny top hats, because why not? 6.) old lady tea.

This Is Not Unfinished Draft Fifteen

Every word is a struggle when you don't want to write. The white rectangle in which you type, the blinking vertical line, they seem to say, "And? Now what? That all you got?" with every word, every hesitation.

Number of unfinished blog post drafts: 14

You write word lists while listening to audiobooks or watch television. First, you flip to a new pair of lined pages in your Moleskin, and write the alphabet down the left-hand side. As words pop up in the story, you press the pen against the page and remind yourself how it feels to put letters together to form sounds. Certain letters fill up quickly: S, D and R. Others like J or Q take longer. When you watch The West Wing, the J words come more quickly: jurisprudence, judges, justice, jeopardy.

Number of poems written this year: 32
Breakdown by month: January: 13, February: 5, March: 0, April: 2, May: 9, June: 1.

That's all I got. I don't want this to be draft number 14.

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.

Big Poetry Giveaway Winners!

Margo Roby wins Sever the Braid

Deborah Hammond wins Braiding the Storm

Michelle Murrish wins Hemming the Water

Lissa Clouser wins Weave Issue 10

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.

Big Poetry Giveaway 2014: Three Books & One Lit Mag

I have been looking for an excuse to post for a while, so Kelli Russell Agodon's Big Poetry Giveaway 2014 was the perfect thing to bring me back to the ranks of blogger. Giving someone else a book they might never have otherwise picked up is a real thrill. If you'd like to participate this year, check out this post on Kelli's blog for more info. Comment with your email on this post if you'd like to be in the drawing for any of these books. If you already have one of these books, write the titles in your comment so I won't include you in those drawings.

Sever the Braid by Jessica Server (Finishing Line Press)

What folks are saying about this amazing chapbook:

Though it's Server's first chapbook, it's not out of place on my bookshelf among poets like Jennifer Maier, Terrance Hayes, and Jim Daniels. Her poems are deliberate, tight, and brilliant in the sense that not only is her voice perfected, but she captures moments from the past, makes them visceral, as if I can reach out and hold them. —Alison Taverna

...Jessica Server shifts between rich depictions girlhood and womanhood through various lyrical narratives and portraits. We meet an uprooted child, a world traveler, a novice baker, a Jewish faith seeker, among others, weaving a non-linear tale of a woman with a wild and thoughtful heart that overflows with a sensual song. —Laura E. Davis

Braiding the Storm by Laura E. Davis (Finishing Line Press)

Braiding the Storm by Laura Davis is an afternoon with a best friend who knows all of our secrets, and makes us consider the world—even the everyday tangle of bed sheets, bitten fingernails, and dishes in the sink—as completely new, and brilliant.
—Mary Biddinger

A tender, tough poet's heart, sweet with moments chosen and delivered, here, creates a nourishing gift from the grit of life. Ms. Davis invites us to "Slice the day." This is a world where "The Centipede" takes / the shape / of a leach / a black salamander / a small oil spill / opalescent. I look forward to her next collection, wondering where she might turn her thirty-something poet's being. —Karen Lewis

Hemming the Water by Yona Harvey (Four Way Books)

This amazing debut collection won the the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. I recently purchased a copy and I can't put it down.

How to make a form when there is no form? Nothing you can count on? Hers is not an easy art—nor is it harmless. She sets out to accomplish an impossible task, Hemming the Water. Music is the only thing she can turn to, and poetry is the exquisite stitch that turns the forces against us to our advantage. Read this book again (there is not one predictable line!) to appreciate even more its fierce elegance, and the joy of its triumph. —Toi Derricotte

This poetry remembers the Devil is make-believe until he knocks at your loved one’s door. This poetry watches a baby’s heartbeat turn into a bomb with the gentlest nudge of alphabet. This poetry insists on sewing thimbles and mountains into the same tight pocket. Take this poetry. And read .—Douglas Kaerney

Weave Magazine Issue 10!

This is Weave's biggest yet! Within its pages, you'll experience everything from high school sororities to life as a caveman. Moving poetry, fluid prose, and enthralling nonfiction will have you hooked from page one. We're honored to have had the chance to publish so much extraordinary writing and artwork. This issue features work by Kelli Russell Agodon, Michael W Cox, James Pouilliard, Valerie Loveland, Eunice E. Tiptree, M.E. Silverman, Laura Madeline Wiseman, and more. See the full contributor list here.

Be sure to comment at the bottom with a way to contact you if you're a winner. If you already have any of these books, simply let me know in the comments and I won't include you in those drawings.