Volume 4 Issue 1

Jamie Houghton–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

I write on my couch with my laptop, assisted by three large dogs and a baby.

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

I write by hand in a journal every day, but I write most of my poetry on my refurbished Mac laptop.

What is your routine for writing?

I write every morning for as long as I can.

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

I have been writing since I was a kid and a local poet did a class at our elementary school. Her name is Verandah Porche, and she is still writing.

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

I write for everyone.

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

I am inspired by people’s stories. If I feel blocked, I forget about writing for a couple days or longer and concentrate on life.

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

I play the bass and ukelele, bake, Mt. bike, and enjoy the beauty of where I live, on the edge of the Deschutes National Forest, in Oregon.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

The first draft, when anything is possible.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Be willing to be rejected over and over again. The important thing is that you are always working on something new.

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

Hilary Sideris–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

I write by hand on blank printer paper. I don’t like to write in a nice-looking notebook or with a special pen. I prefer a stubby pencil or ballpoint pen with some bank’s name on it, something that lets me be as messy as I want and lowers my expectations of the product. Even if I think the poem’s not going well, I usually type it up and then try to leave it alone for a few days, so I’ll be able to re-see it.

A desk at a window is good, a random poetry journal to flip through, maybe music in the background if the songs aren’t in English. I can’t do it every day, but I produce about a poem a week, many of which aren’t keepers but contain the seeds of future poems. A walk, preferably in the park, helps me think through the problems I’m having with a poem. Walking allows my mind to untie the knots.

I started writing poems when I was very young. As a teenager, I thought my poems were songs that should be set to music. (I didn’t know about contemporary poetry.). But I failed to find anyone willing to set my songs to music, mostly because they were terrible.

My audience is anyone who enjoys poetry – a small but high-quality audience. I don’t write for myself, but I love being in the trance-like state of composing. Opening an acceptance email is always euphoric. The hardest thing for any writer, I think, is the ongoing rejection. You have to decide at some point if you’ll be more miserable if you give it up or if you keep at it, knowing the rejection letters will never stop arriving, but that your best work will reach some readers and move them.

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

D.G. Geis–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

I work primarily from my home in Lakehills, Texas. I have a small “study” converted from a bedroom. On the road, it’s a hotel room. And in my Galveston “studio/loft,” a closet with enough space for a mini-desk. I like working in tight spaces. It makes me feel like things are being squeezed out of me.

I generally type first drafts but always begin fleshing things out in longhand with an old-fashioned fountain pen. I have a thing for blue fountain pen ink. I think it’s the fluidity that turns me on. When you work with a fountain pen, there’s no time for regret. Most of my pieces begin life in a small pocket sized Moleskine notebook.

I work every day, but don’t really have a set time for writing. It’s generally in the morning and/or early afternoon. I live alone so I don’t obsess too much about routine. I just trust the work will get done—and usually, it does.

I’m a late bloomer. I did not begin writing poetry until I was in my early 60s.  However, I have been writing most of my life. My poetry really began as an extension of my passion for philosophy. I have kept notebooks since my early teens and wrestled conceptually with the same ideas and questions that play out in my poetry.

I don’t really write for anyone in particular. My audience is me. If I’m not surprised (or even shocked) by what I’ve written, then the reader won’t be. Because I am a lover (and huge consumer) of popular culture—i.e. tabloids, billboards, television, etc.—these invariably work their way into my writing. I think this helps make me accessible and hopefully fresh. I have two graduate degrees in philosophy, but have always considered myself a “ground thumper.” If you really pay attention to what’s around you, even tabloids at the checkout stand can sing.

What inspires me to write is the realization that the world we live in is such a magical and terrifying place. If I’m blocked, I typically wait it out, work on submissions, or try to resurrect a failed poem. Alternatively, I turn on the TV or read.

When I’m not writing poetry, I’m probably hiking or zipping around trails on a four-wheeler. I live in an isolated rural area in the Hill Country of Central Texas. I’m a former rancher and love being outdoors and am blessed to have the space to stretch out in.

My favorite part of the creative process is discovery. I love to be surprised. I also love the fact that imagination makes me “smaller.” And I love to laugh. Humor is an integral party of my creative (and personal) life.

My advice to aspiring writers is to keep notebooks and begin developing an open or more fluid mindset. Try to look at things as many different ways as you can. And develop friendships and relationships with people whose points of view, politically and aesthetically, are different from your own. It’s the only way to develop empathy.

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

David Anthony Sam–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

Normally, I do my rewriting, revising, and submitting in our home office at a standup desk and on a PC. I have done first drafts and revisions on our porch, in hotel rooms, in restaurants, and outdoors. Years ago, when I owned a small music store, I learned how to rewrite (at a typewriter back then) through interruptions of customers−teaching me some discipline so that I could pick up where I left off.

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

Most of the time, I write first drafts with a Livescribe pen in a journaling notebook at night just before sleep. I like pen and ink and the Livescribe also captures the notebook in a PDF for backup. However, I have written first drafts on an iPad, a computer, on the back of scrap paper, and by speaking into a voice recorder, especially when driving.

For rewriting and revising, I began with a typewriter and now use a PC. I like the “cold type” to give me a certain distance from the wrong kind of ownership of first drafts.

What is your routine for writing?

First drafts are normally done in my nightly notebook with the Livescribe pen, though as I said above I have written them in multiple ways. I prefer to let the first drafts “marinate” for at least a couple months before I go back to them for revision and rewriting. Sometimes a poem wants me to work on the revisions right away. However, I have fallen very far behind rewriting−I am working on 2010 journals now. I use text-to-speech on my computer (and sometimes iPad) with both male and female, US and UK voices to help me hear them better and improve my redrafts.

I then send rewrites off by email to one or two friends who are good readers and critics and use their responses to help improve the drafts. My wife, who is not “into” poetry, often serves as a representative reader when I want my audience to be more general.

My poems are never done−and some have gone through decades of rewriting and double-digit numbers of drafts. But I do reach a point where some seem ready for submission. Happily, very occasionally, a first draft is blessed by the Muse and is done when written.

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

I wrote my first poem in fifth grade and my first story when I was 10 or so. In high school, I began more seriously writing fiction and some poetry. I was definitely no prodigy. In college at the age of 18 (February 1968) I committed to being a serious poet, to writing and rewriting every day, and I managed to keep that up until the middle 1990s when I ran out of gas or time or faith. There was a 10-year hiatus when I worked on a doctorate, a marriage, and a career that paid. In 2004, I recommitted to the daily routine and have largely kept to it since.

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

I have two audiences in mind: (1) A very small one of those who love reading poetry enough to spend time with it and have the patience to read my more “difficult” verse. And (2) a general audience of those who might respond to my more “accessible” poems from time to time. I do agree with Whitman that good poets need good audiences, but poetry should not merely be for the select few.

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

I am seldom inspired to write but I am almost never blocked either. I force myself to the pen and PC. Often, I have been surprised by a poem that seemed initially a failure after I slogged through it. Working the craft and self-discipline (even when I have to drag myself kicking and screaming to the task) have gotten me through apparent “blocks” and felt exhaustion.

But I suppose you could say that walks in nature, reading other’s poetry, reading science and history, and mulling my own biography offer doorways that I find useful.

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

I chose to live a career of service in higher education administration and part-time teaching that ended in 2017 with my retirement. I still will occasionally teach. Visits to creative writing classrooms as a guest author invigorate me. I enjoy nature walking and walking in general, cooking, travelling, reading, photography, and a good glass of wine with my wife and with friends.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

The surprise when I read one of my writings and ask “Where did that come from? It’s too good.”

The joy when someone reads a poem and responds in ways I could only hope for. Once I texted a wrong number out of state and stumbled on a person at the other end who actually knew I was a poet and had read and liked my work. That was amazingly serendipitous. And a few times a reader or listener at one of my readings told me how much an individual poem had mattered to them. In one case a young man told me that a particular poem had helped him through a rough time. How humbling and gratifying.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Read a lot of poetry and prose, not just in styles and forms you like. Be like an art student: copy those styles and forms and learn from them. Write, write, and rewrite twice as much. Don’t be discouraged by the naysayers, but also realize that your words are not gospel from the Fount and most times will need to be revised. Get to know some other writers who are generous−not all are−and share drafts with them. Submit when drafts seem ready−understanding that most will be rejected with little or useless feedback. Try not to take it too personally. Decide what is most important: getting published or writing what you must write. Keep submitting and learn what you can from acceptances and rejections. Realize that it is OK to want to be the next Shakespeare, Dickinson, etc. and strive for that−while knowing most of us will have poems and our names writ on water. Know that you will never feel that you have made it, that you are good enough. Keep writing anyway.

 

Check out David’s work in Volume 2, Issue 1, Volume 4, Issue 1, and upcoming in Volume 4, Issue 2.

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.

Mark Hudson–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

What is your creative space? Where do you write?

Sometimes observations of things in real
life inspire me, I might write a poem about something
I saw. So I usually have paper to jot notes down, so
I never lose an idea. The only problem, my handwriting
is so poor, that I can’t even read my own handwriting!
(One time, I was writing a poem on the train, and
some man said,  “What’s that? Sanskrit?”)

What kind of materials do you use?

I think it was Ray Bradbury who said,
“If you want to be a good writer, read more than you
write! Even read bad stuff, so your stuff won’t be like
that!” I read books everyday, but I can’t get by without
my laptop, either!

How long have you been writing?

Since the seventies! I was born in 1970,
and I have early childhood photos, those “square”
size photos they used to have, of me constantly
in front of the typewriter! In third grade, I went to
a young writers conference at school, and most of
the kids had a ten page short story, and I had a 140
page book! Then I wrote a book called, “The spy
in space,” a long epic, and my uncle borrowed it
to read it, and he lost it! But I’ve lost other pieces,
bodies of artwork, computers crashing, you
hopefully learn to protect your ideas better!

Who is your intended audience?

Humans! I guess if you’re trying
to get people to listen to your work and appreciate
it, you never know who will like it and who won’t!
I was asked to read a poem of mine two hours
away from me in an art gallery in the middle of
nowhere! The people loved it, and I got several
compliments on my work! But I don’t drive,
so if I didn’t get a ride, I couldn’t get there!

What do you do if you get writer’s block?

Rome was not built in one day?
I just started reading a book about Ernest
Hemingway, and on one of his super-famous
novels, he had five different endings he wanted
to use, but none of them fit. When I was in
writing school, they talked about the need to
rewrite, and it’s true. I’ve written whole novellas,
and realized they were terrible and was grateful
they weren’t published. But anyone could say that.

What else do you besides writing?

I’m also an artist, so with all my
interests, I’m never really bored. When I was in
my twenties, I’d tell my peers, “I’m never bored.”
But the truth is, I was always bored.  If you want
to be a writer, you sometimes have to be alone
a lot. And if you were married, or you had kids,
they would have to understand that when you’re
writing, you’re working. There are writers and
artists who make money, sometimes a lot,
and they’re not starving, nor are their families.
But I’ve been given a chance in the circumstance
I’m in to have the free-time to pursue writing.
I’m 46 years old, and I could look at it as I’ve
wasted time along the way. But who doesn’t
say, “If I knew then what I knew now?”

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Giving praise back to the creator
of the universe, who made “everything,” for
making me realize I can be “me” and still
be a child of God. And I love to be in the
company of other creative people, of whom
I know many. I belong to many writers
associations, and one is Rockford Writers
Guild in Illinois. They have a “Good news”
section of their newsletter, where you can
report publications, and I reported the
good news of publishing “balloons”
to Magnolia Review to Wilda Morris,
who is in charge of that, and she e-mailed
back and said, “I had a balloon poem
accepted as well!

Getting “Balloons” accepted made
me very happy, because I wrote it around
the time of my 46th birthday. It is a very
upbeat poem, and I was feeling very
happy at the time. My 46th year as it
has panned out has had some challenges,
family health issues, and so I could
choose to be sad. But I have writing
and art, and it is the greatest therapy
known to man! (and woman!)

(If this interview is published on the blog,
I want to thank Suzanna for accepting my
poem, and putting this interview on the blog,
if it goes on. And if anybody reads this
and hopes to be a writer, I hope that
something I said inspires you. Remember,
not everything has been done yet, and
each individual is a new voice. Every
life is worth a lot to the ultimate creator!)

Check out Mark Hudson’s work in Volume 3, Issue 2 and Volume 4, Issue 1.