contributor

Christopher Woods–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

Taking photographs takes me to many places for inspiration. Inspiration can be an instant thing as I come across images literally everywhere. Later, sometimes much later, I look at the photography bounty. Well, it’s not always bounty. As with writing, not everything is ready for prime time. At my desk, I often make changes in an image. Cropping is quite common. And given the vast array of editing tools available, I often make even radical changes to an original image. For example, a color image might actually be better if presented as BxW. Editing is an endless project, but at some point one must move on, to the next image, that is.

How long have you been making art? When did you start making art?

I began taking photographs nine years ago. I had always been a writer. I always enjoyed looking at photographs. Any visual art, really. But I always felt that, as a writer, I didn’t need an additional creative vice. Then my life took a turn when I was diagnosed with cancer and I began that journey. My wife, an equestrian photographer, gave me one of her old cameras. So, while in chemotherapy, I began taking pictures. That is how it began for me. We all have a reason for our creative impulses, and this was mine. I have never stopped taking pictures. They vary from pastoral to portraits to abstracts. “The Fire That Night,” which will appear in the Magnolia Review (Issue 7), is from the latter category. I also make picture poems, with text superimposed on an image. I like picture poems as they bring together my love for both images and words.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you make art for?

Hopefully for anyone who might appreciate it.

What other things do you do besides art? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?

I teach creative writing and have for many years. I find it inspiring to watch writers find their voices. I am also involved in pet therapy with my Great Pyrenees dog. We visit many places and people. This experience gives me valuable perspective on my own life.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Perhaps the initial concept, though this is not always the case. I know one thing for certain. When an idea comes, be sure to make a note of it or it might be gone. Many ideas come to us, and sometimes we must pick and choose. The criteria? What pleases us. What challenges us.

What is your advice to aspiring artists?

Press on. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be truthful to yourself. No matter the creative form of expression, these things matter most.

Check out Christopher’s art in Volume 4, Issue 1.

Brian K. Kerley–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

I have two places for writing. My favorite is my recliner, which sports a view out the window of the surrounding spruce forest. We keep seeds on the window shelf for the birds and our resident squirrel, which the cat finds entertaining. The second and perhaps my best writing place is a small windowless wooden box I built in our basement. It is a great distraction-free office.

What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?

I had a motocross accident when I was a teenager and shattered my dominant wrist. As a consequence, I have endured a few surgeries and then later in life, a titanium bone replacement. Handwriting and long-term typing is painful so I use voice for rough drafts and larger revisions but I edit with the keyboard. I use Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional for voice typing and do most of my work in Word, but I’ve started using Scrivener for larger works, which is a great organizational tool once you get past the learning curve.

What is your routine for writing?

I get up early in a quiet house, have a small breakfast and then dive butt first into my recliner with coffee and laptop. I write until distractions arise and then escape to my office and write some more. In the winter, I write for about six hours a day and sometimes go ten hours. Barb brings me hot tea and tells callers that I’m indisposed until I emerge. She is the best wife a writer could have.

How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?

I started writing when I was about twelve but at sixteen my wrist injury squashed it. I was welding ships on the Dutch Harbor crab, cod, and pollock fleets when I discovered the computer and word processor. That was the mid-nineties. My boss wanted detailed work, logs so I got creative and he got entertained. Every job had stories to go with it. I began with nonfiction, which grew when I went back to college in ‘02 to become a pilot but I didn’t get serious about my writing until 2009 when I went under the knife to have my distal ulna replaced with a titanium ball. I had to be off work for five months so I wrote my first novel with voice and one-handed typing. There was no stopping. I could no longer not-write. I gave up my full-time position and took a seasonal position flying during the busy hunting season. I wish I would have had the courage to do it sooner. When you love something like writing, you have to make time for it.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?

I write for myself first and then figure out who the audience is after. Once I get started and see the shape of my story, I then guide it where I hope it needs to go. One time I started writing in an early morning and caffeine deficient state, clueless to what it would be, and three hours later realized the story was YA. Most of my work is historical fiction but I like to dabble with fantasy, science fiction, YA, and dystopian. Sometimes I blend genres. One of these days I’d like to take a crack at a crime thriller seasoned with horror.

What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?

I love a beautiful landscape but I think random conversations inspire most of my ideas. I have yet to experience writer’s block. I just write. I’ll keep or delete it but something always comes along. I thank my dad for my gift of gab because I always have something to say and therefore, something to write, which is good since I’m better off keeping my mouth shut and my keyboard busy.

What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?

Barb and I used to dance a lot but that was before we homesteaded and moved to the frontier. I’m fond of outdoor activities like hunting and fishing, and I love my seasonal work as a bush pilot—flying along the peaks of the Wrangell Mountains will inspire anyone to poetry. I like audiobooks when doing anything solo except scuba diving, and I enjoy watching movies with Barb and working with her in our garden.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

I love the rush of a good roll. When the words come faster than voice or fingers can keep up and the pages fill before my very eyes—it is to that which I am happily addicted.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Have fun. Read what you like and write what you want. If you do a lot of both, you’ll get guidance and practice, and that’s what it takes to get good at it.

Check out Brian’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.

 

Adam Levon Brown–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

I work at home, though sometimes I draw creative sources from public places.

I use a keyboard to type out my poems, My Logitetch G11 is my trusty sidekick.

I usually just sit at my keyboard and spill poems out one after the other, though lately I’ve been challenging myself with different magazine’s themes.

I write for the broken, the lost, the wandering and wondering. I write for people trying to find a place in this world, and of course, myself, writing is great catharsis.

I write mainly for catharsis, but I also write because I love to share parts of myself which go unnoticed outside of writing.

I like walking and hiking.

My favorite part of the creative process is the conception of the poem. Once I have an idea in my head for a poem or book, I let loose. You could say I’m a bit obsessive about it.

Keep at it, read other’s poems, and more than anything, channel your own voice. There is only one you, and the uniqueness of your writing is far more valuable than anything else, about poetry, you’ll ever read.

Check out Adam’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.

 

Barbara Daniels–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

I write at home on our second floor, my feet up on the computer table. I face windows that look out onto the neighbors’ cars and nuthatches and chickadees in Virginia pines.

What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?

Most of my writing is done at the computer, but I often start by writing in pencil in a notebook. I have notebooks in several rooms so I can write lines down as they come to me. I use orange Sharpwriter mechanical pencils.

What is your routine for writing? 

I’m usually at the computer each day for an hour or two. I stick with it until I’ve made revisions in ten of my poems. Little changes count. My goal is to keep at it.

How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?

I started writing poetry seriously in the eighties when a friend, Charles Holcombe, died of AIDS. This death helped me see that our time here is short. My husband and I both had gotten full-time jobs, so we didn’t need to do as much freelance educational writing and could turn to more soul-satisfying (though far less well-paid) writing.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for? 

My husband, David I. Daniels, is my first and best reader for each new poem. I’ve been in the same writing group, 34th Street Poets, since the early ‘90s, and I meet with other groups—Leap Street, Peter Murphy’s workshops, and a three-person group with Jerry Wild and Shari Berkowitz. I’m grateful to the friends I’ve made through poetry and rely on their help with my poems. On the other hand, as I’m writing, I don’t think about these people but try to follow the direction a poem seems to be heading in.

What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?

When I want to look away from something, that’s when I need to look more carefully. If I’m not writing anything new for awhile, I stick with my revisions of older work, and I keep reading poetry until I feel like writing again. Over the last few months I’ve been reading a book a day, mostly slim volumes of poetry. This helps.

What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.? 

My husband and I enjoy cooking together, and we’re serious birders, traveling around the U.S. looking for birds. I also enjoy watching baseball and attending concerts performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. I try to get out and walk regularly. These activities—and in fact almost everything I do—find their way into my poems.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

It’s a great feeling to be able to start a new poem, but I’ve learned to enjoy revising almost as much.

What is your advice to aspiring writers? 

I suggest reading a poem a day, an idea the poet Gail Mazur gave a class I took in 2005 and that I’ve been aiming to do ever since. Writing down goals for creative work is also helpful.

Check out Barbara’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.

Anthony J. Mohr–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Creative Space:  I work at home, rarely in public spaces.

 

Material I use:   I type into a computer and edit by computer.  The keyboard is my favorite utensil. But somewhere before a draft becomes final, I print it out and do an edit by hand.

 

Routine for writing:  Saturday or Sunday morning into the early afternoon.  Week nights whenever I can fit in fifteen to thirty minutes.

 

How long I’ve been writing:  Since high school, but that was journalism. I’ve been writing personal essays for about 15 years. I first tried my hand in fiction about 12 years ago.

 

Who do I write for:  I haven’t totally figured that out yet.  Essays have been for a

baby boomer audience. Fiction is for anyone who’ll read it.

 

What Inspires me to write; What about writer’s block:  I had writers block for years, and then around 2007, the dam broke. Now almost anything inspires me, including fires. Sometimes a good novel will inspire me to write something.

 

Other hobbies:  hiking, horseback riding, the gym

 

Favorite part of creative process:  revising and editing

 

Advice to aspiring writers:  Just start writing, even if it’s nonsense.  Let your characters run around on the page. Something good will emerge. Don’t be discouraged if the first twenty pages are miserable. And don’t be afraid to kill your darlings.

 

Check out Anthony’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.

Congratulations, Gary Beck!

by Suzanna Anderson Creates
The Magnolia Review is happy to announce that Gary Beck‘s CLOWN SHOW, will be playing in New York City, Friday, June 15, and Saturday, June 16. Details below.
Clown Show
A Play
 

Written and Directed by
 

Gary Beck


For Immediate Release
‘Clown Show’ is a play about the struggle of two clowns to bring joy. Koko and Pipi test the patience of the theatre manager as they prepare to do their show for adults and kiddies. They worry that in the age of smartphones and texting the children won’t be as responsive to live performance as they used to be. But they are determined to use their talents and skills to bring delight to the audience.

 
Clown Show Photo.jpg
Featuring
:
Koko………….Angela Madden
                                                          Mr. Barker……Dan Snow
                                                          Pipi……………Nancy Beck


An evening of one acts at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre
17 W. 45th St., NYC
 
Friday June 15th, 6:30 P.M.
Saturday June 16th, 6:30 P.M.
 
Tickets $20
 
Information: manhattanrep@yahoo.com


Bios:
 
Angela Madden
has performed in nearly eighty plays over the past thirty years.  She has worked mostly in Repertory Ensemble theater companies, beginning in Houston, TX with Stages Theater, and moved to NYC where she first began as a theater artist member of the American Shakespeare Repertory and went on to become a member of the Jean Cocteau Repertory.   Favorite shows she performed in include “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “Night & Day”, “Fat Men In Skirts”, “Medea”, “Angels In America,” and many others.  Angela is also Co-Founder of the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble where she wrote, directed and performed her one woman show “CEO & Cinderella.”
 
 
Nancy Beck
has spent most of her adult life as an actor, performing the classics and new plays Off-Broadway. She is also a teaching artist for children and adults. Her writing was published in the chapbook “Last Tree Standing” and in the NY Writers Coalition publications “The Hidden Chorus” and “The Moving Pen.” When not creating episodes for her weblog novel, and exploring new directions in multi-media participatory art, Nancy is creating internet applications in New York City.
 
 
Dan Snow
has appeared in productions of Sidewalks Theater, La MAMA, Soho Rep, Jean Cocteau, Brooklyn Stage Company, Phoenix Rep, American Players Theater, The Public Theater and Lincoln Center. On scree he created the villainous ‘Cigar Face’ in all four Toxic Avenger films. He is the author of a full-length screen play ‘Fruit Jars’, which received honorable mention in various competitions around the country. His original one man show ‘W.E.B. Dubois: Prophet in Limbo’ is on permanent display in the Lincoln Center Library of Theater and Film on Tape.

Playwriter/Director Gary Beck
has had a long career as a director of the classics and his own plays. He directed cycles of Aristophanes, Sophocles, Moliere, Restoration comedy and works from other periods for 20 years as Artistic Director of Sidewalks Theatre. His plays and translations have been produced Off-Broadway and widely published. He has more than 25 books of poetry and fiction published.

Tim Philippart–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

I usually work in my office but cameo appearances are made from the recliner using my IPad, the public library and Shuler’s bookstore.

What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?

My hand writing is so poor, I must type.  However, the my typing is so bad I need to print. I am very conflicted.

What is your routine for writing?  

I think therefore I write—no routine.

How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?

I have been writing a little over two years although, an argument could be made that I have not yet started.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?  

I like to write for people with short attention spans, who look, first, for humor and then are shocked when they discover I have written something serious for a change.

What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?

There is always something to write about and, occasionally, I write about something when I should have realized I was blocked.

What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?  

I like to snap pictures, read and figure out how to keep the White House from calling me.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

I love arriving at an unexpected destination, with characters I hadn’t imagined, doing things that completely surprise me.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?  

I consider myself an aspiring writer.  Don’t worry about whether you can write. Don’t worry if the piece you just finished is any good.  Whatever you decide, there is always someone who will tell you that you have come to the wrong conclusion.

Check out Tim’s work in Volume 3, Issue 2.

Vivi Davis–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

I prefer to work in large, modern, public spaces when there’s no one else around.  There’s something about social emptiness in a place that’s supposed to be filled with people that helps me open up.  I also don’t have any nice furniture in my apartment.

What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?

I’ve always been typing.  Being able to immortalize words at the speed that they enter my head allows me to bring larger amounts of creative freedom from my headspace into writing.

What is your routine for writing?

I’d probably be a technically better writer if I had a routine.

How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?

I started writing four years ago in my senior year of high school, where of course, something happened.  Now my writing has broadened and deepened to other topics, but the underlying theme in all my work started growing right at that moment, and for better, or for worse (or for nothing at all), it’s never stopped.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?

I think the best part of communication (artistic and otherwise) is that I can make something completely personal for a specific person, and somehow it can still affect others, sometimes in ways I didn’t intend.  While I’m aware that my actual audience is larger than my intended audience, that never factors into the way that I write.  I write my best when I’m speaking to that person.

What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?

A lot of the silly, little things that are easy to take for granted: grocery stores, small patches of sunshine, or the paint that peels off the walls of a community tennis court.  To me, it’s very easy to find love, hate, and their variations in these small things.  Also, Ariana Grande and Hilary Hahn are wonderful musicians that can help spark my process.

Ever since I started writing, I don’t remember ever feeling blocked.  I have someone that gives me endless inspiration, so even if I’m not writing about them directly, thinking about them gives me the emotional charge to produce words and send them out of my fingertips.  It’s hard to get blocked up when you’re holding back an ocean at the very end of spring.

Writing is never effortless for me, but it helps that I always aim to say what I want to say, even if I have to mask it.

What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?

I’m a scientist first, a musician second, and a writer third.  However, second really is the best.  I play viola, which has been a large part of my life.  Classical music lets me keep close people who are important to me.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Choosing the right title.  The title is the story in its most concise form, and discovering a great abbreviation is really satisfying.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

That all writers are aspiring writers.

Check out Vivi’s work in Volume 3, Issue 2.

Thomas Maurstad–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?

I work at home. The proposition of writing as theater, or performance art, or even some spontaneous public practice is nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. I guess I’m old-school, or just plain old.

What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?

I’ve always written on a keyboard. I sometimes jot notes and fragments on whatever is handy, but that’s not writing, that’s me leaving a trail of breadcrumbs I can later follow (or not).

What is your routine for writing?

I am a creature of routine. My ideal state as a writer would be to have the same day, every day. I sit down at my laptop in the morning, go through email and peruse the usual sites for 30-40 minutes and then I am sitting and staring and, eventually, turning words into sentences into paragraphs.

How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?

My sophomore year of college I wandered into the arts and entertainment office of the college newspaper. There were Roger Corman and French New Wave movie posters everywhere, The Jam was blasting out of a graffiti-covered boombox and a bunch of strange people were laughing and screaming at each other. I was hooked. I worked as a critic and writer for newspapers for the next 25 years. I was released back into the wild in 2011, and have since endeavored to make the jump from fake news to real fiction.

Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?

Anybody who believes thinking and feeling are the highest kind of fun.

What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?

I write because I need to and want to. If I’m blocked, I just keep sitting and staring. I know if I do, the words will come.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Whether writing or reading, there is nothing better than being solidly into a book, a story, a character or a situation that has you hooked.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Your inner-critic isn’t the part of you that helps you write. It’s the part of you that keeps you from writing.

Check out Thomas’s work in Volume 3, Issue 2.