write

John Tustin–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

I usually write at home, in front of my computer. If I am at work or out I will write on scrap paper—sometimes I can only write a few lines and when I get home I try to complete it.

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

I like Microsoft Word. It’s quick and easy to add or edit lines.

What is your routine for writing?

I sit at the computer and listen to music. I will also read poetry and/or argue with people on Facebook debate pages. When I am off from work the next day I will sometimes drink 12-20 beers as I read, listen to music and try to write.

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

I began writing poetry when I was fourteen, before I had any interest in reading it. I have a short attention span and tend to see things in glimpses, like snapshots. That led to poetry being the only writing medium I could handle.

When I got married nearly twenty years ago I stopped writing. I started again nine years ago (and filed for divorce a few years later.)

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

I almost always picture a single person reading what I have written. Most often, it is the woman I love. Sometimes it is someone else I know but when often it is a faceless stranger. My mass intended audience is probably someone who does not think poetry is interesting.

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

My real life and the poetry of others inspires me. Also music, my surroundings.

When I am blocked I drink copiously and just sit in front of the computer, reading poetry and waiting for something to happen. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

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

I have little spare time. Reading and listening to music is my primary respite outside of writing.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

I love actually writing. The feeling of an idea becoming something outside of my own head that others can read. I can be writing a poem for ten minutes or two hours and it feels like no time has passed. Watching the page (actually computer screen) fill up with my words is exciting.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Listen to criticism—weigh it and think about whether you should implement it or discard it. Never let the criticism change what makes your unique and don’t write for other writers. It’s best to impress yourself.

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

Jack D. Harvey–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

I work at home.

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

I write by hand with a pen and when the poem gets close to its final form, I type it on Word on my computer.

What is your routine for writing?

I don’t have a set routine and write at all times of the day or night.

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

I have been writing some sixty-odd years, from the time I was about sixteen.

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

I don’t have any intended or ideal audience. Basically I write because I feel compelled to write.

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

Not sure what inspires me; the Greeks and the Romans had the idea that the muse breathes in (cf. the English word inspire- through the Greek- pneo, Latin spiro, “breathe in”) to you; in other words, there is some outside influence at work when you create something. I am not really sure whether this is true or not, but sometimes, while writing, words or thoughts come to me. From where, who knows? If I am blocked, I stop writing and come back to the piece later.

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

I study Chinese, go to the gym daily and walk daily with my wife.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Writing the piece and the usually laborious process of getting it to a final form.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Write as often as possible and read as much as you can; try to read the old masters—they are rarely wrong and you can learn a lot from them.

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

Jesse Minkert–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

I have an office which was supposed to be a second bedroom, so it has long, shallow closets along one wall. The left one has a filing cabinet, two guitar cases, scraps of Foamcore, and a low rolling cabinet on which rests a Braille embosser. That’s a printer for Braille that creates bumps on heavy paper. The right closet is where my clothes and shoes are piled up. One or two folding card tables on the floor. My desk is by the door to the hall. A bookcase holds racks of Blues CDs and reference works. Under the windows are short shelves crammed with books, journals, and a boom box.

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

I work at home on most of my tasks. I submit a lot, so that happens on the computer. I’m revising a novel, near the end, which means probably no more than one more year. That also happens on the computer. I started out as a visual artist, so I find myself still drawn to the flow of ink onto paper. I transcribe my notes once a month, create files of stages of editing, and with some luck, eventually, arrive at some poetry that doesn’t embarrass me.

I’ve been experimenting with different sizes of pen recently. Arthritis has made my thumbs almost useless. I’ve tried several ways to hold them so that thumbs are not necessary.

What is your routine for writing?

I’m terrible at maintaining routines. I start the mornings with submissions. I bounce back and forth between poems and the novel. Usually, more often than not, I think of something that interrupts the regular pattern, so I have to look into that immediately. I read too much news. After lunch, or at lunch, I go out with my spiral notebook and read and write in burger joints and Starbucks along Broadway on Capitol Hill in Seattle. With the release of Rookland, I’ve stepped up my attendance at open mics around town. I hustle spots as a featured reader. Performing before audiences is crucial to me. I write for the mood. I revise for the sound.

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

That story is too long for this questionnaire. Short version: as I mentioned, I was a visual artist. I got an M.A. as a sculptor in 1981. I moved to Seattle and my eyes started bleeding inside. Diabetic Retinopathy is a primary cause of blindness. Treatment was a matter of laser beams being shot at my retinae, over 1800 per eye. I came away with most of my vision, and with a resolve to find art to do that didn’t depend on vision. I started to write, for radio, stage plays, short stories, and poems. Figure I started about 1985. That’s 32 years.

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

Always a tricky question. My novel audience may not resemble my poetry audience at all. Ideal audiences don’t exist. Real audiences exist, so I like them the best. Poetry on the page is one way to look at poetry, but poetry coming from a human mouth and into human ears is more exciting, more seductive, more terrifying. I work on page form, I take the look of a poem seriously, but I can’t imagine getting my blood to surge because of the shape of a poem on a page. I live for the microphone. Actually, I don’t need a microphone. Just listeners.

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

I’m inspired to write from the fact that I have an expiration date. I need to get as much done as I can before I turn sour and undrinkable. Some days I walk away with a blank page. Some days I fill a page with useless crap. I have my box of tricks, some I learned in design classes in art school. It all comes down to three actions: transform, reshape, and rephrase.

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

I operate a nonprofit corporation called Arts and Visually Impaired Audiences. I create access projects to the arts for blind and visually impaired people. I’ve slowed down in recent years, but I still work with an organization called the Jack Straw Cultural Center on workshops for very young students, blind and sighted, to create projects related to installations in the Jack Straw New Media Gallery, and to train the staff and gallery artists on how to effectively interact with blind and visually impaired people. In the summers for the past 21 years, I’ve worked with kids 9-18 in audio production workshops. I lead the radio theater, or audio storytelling, section. It involves writing, teaching kids about what goes into stories, performance, production, and how to work with coaches and engineers.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

In prose, I like the moment when I realize the sentence I’ve worked an hour to rebuild can now be reasonably spoken. In poetry, it’s that rush after the reading is done. Sure, sometimes people say nice things, good job, I loved that thing you read, etc., and I can’t say I don’t like that, but before that is the spinning head and the thumping heart. Okay, Minkert, they say, you really set yourself on fire this time.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Go over every phrase you have written down. If you believe you might have stumbled across it anywhere other than out of your head, cut it. Make up some phrase that nobody has ever heard before, and put that in its place. When reading to an audience, embrace the fear. If you find yourself reading with total confidence, you are screwing up. Fear keeps you honest. Fear means you are taking the risks you need to take. Submit a lot.

Check out Jesse’s work in Volume 3 Issue 2, and check out his book ROOKLAND here.

Ingrid Jendrzejewski–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

I work anywhere I get a chance to work.  I’m most comfortable at my desk or curled up somewhere cosy with my laptop, but if I need to get away from noise or distraction, libraries are my next favourite places, followed by coffee shops.  I used to feel I needed a quiet house and a particular desk to work, but I didn’t get nearly as much writing done in those days!

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

I usually write on a computer because I like to feel free to edit, cut, rearrange and otherwise dramatically alter text, safe in the knowledge that I can always revert to an earlier draft.  When out and about, however, I always keep a notebook and pen on hand, just in case.  I often use one of those retractable pens with four different colours of ink, so that I can edit, scribble and make notes on my manuscripts.

What is your routine for writing?

I set aside as much time as I can for writing and editing.  If I’ve set aside time, I make myself sit down and try to work, whether or not I feel inspired.  (The words almost always come eventually, even if it feels impossible at the beginning of a session.)  I carry around a list of small things I want to accomplish—a scene, an outline, an edit, a writing exercise—so that I can make full use of small, unexpected fragments of time that may appear during the day.

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

Apparently, I wrote my first book at around five years old: it was a how-to manual for avoiding bedtime.  I’ve been writing in some form or other most of my life and studied creative writing at university (before switching tracks entirely), but I didn’t start sending work out until three years ago, after my daughter was born.  At that point, I decided to pull up my socks and treat writing as a vocation rather than a hobby, and I’ve been writing and submitting diligently ever since.

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

I tend to write what I want to write, edit until I’m happy, and only worry about matching the finished piece to a potential audience when I’m trying to find a place to submit it.  As such, I’ve ended up writing everything from traditional genre pieces to some rather crazy experiments.  If a piece is well written and carefully edited, I figure there will almost certainly be a home for it somewhere, sometime.  Occasionally, I’ve written a piece in response to a journal’s prompt, but almost always, the resulting piece ends up somewhere else.

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

I am inspired by lack of time.  I have so many things I want to write, that if I have the time, I’m driven to try to get some of the stuff in my head down on paper.  If I don’t have the time, I try to make it.  I rarely feel completely blocked, but if I’m not in the mood or writing is slow on one project, I either work on something else or simply force myself to write through the slowness.  For me, if I sit at my computer and type for long enough, I almost always end up with at least the seeds of something that can be developed.

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

I like programming, the game of go, cryptic crosswords, designing puzzles and going on adventures with my daughter.  I’ve also started strength training and can now deadlift 100kg—and counting.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Once in a great while, words flow and a piece springs onto the page nearly fully formed.  When this happens, it’s absolutely exhilarating…there’s nothing like it.  However, most of the time, I spend a lot of time writing my way into a piece, out of problems, and around what it is I later discover that I’m trying to write about.  Once I have a mess of words on the page, I can start editing, and this is often a fun, creative, playful process.  That first edit—when a story or poem starts clawing its way out of a jumble of words—is probably my favourite part of my creative process when I’m not in that rare magic writing zone.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Read a lot.  Write a lot.  Edit a lot.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Don’t wait until the time is right to do these things; life is always busy and messy, and there will probably never be a better time to write than now.  Sit down, do it, and don’t give up when it’s hard; sometimes you need to push a lot of text onto the page in order to make the magic to happen.  Just keep writing.  The dishes can wait.

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

Check out Ingrid’s work in Volume

Hailey Hudson–Interview

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

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

I work at home at my desk. Occasionally I’ll go to my local library or coffee shop, but I’ve found that I can’t get any quality writing done in public—I’m too busy people-watching. So I stick to my bedroom!

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

I use a MacBook Pro for almost everything I write. There is a special kind of magic that comes with writing by hand, though, so I’ll occasionally use a spiral-bound notebook and a Bic mechanical pencil. I’m not sure why the pencil has to be Bic, but I can’t stand any other kind.

What is your routine for writing?

My daily routine for writing is more or less as follows: in the morning, I spend a few hours working with the fitness websites that I freelance for. Then I’ll work on my novel—I’m currently in the editing stages of a YA dystopian novel. By then it’s typically lunchtime, and I don’t do any writing in the afternoon; I go to work (I work for a local nonprofit), run errands, or spend time with friends. Late at night, I come back to my laptop, browse Pinterest, and play around with ideas for flash fiction pieces.

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

I wrote my first “story” when I was five, but I didn’t get serious about writing until I was in middle school. During my senior year of high school, I became even more focused and began applying for freelance jobs and submitting my fiction to various publications.

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

With my freelance jobs, I write to a very specific niche of people who own CrossFit gyms. However, my true love is fiction. I write a lot of YA, so my ideal audience is teens, but I like to think that all ages would enjoy my stories!

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

Visiting new places, whether it’s an ethnic restaurant in my hometown or the mountains of South America (where I love to hike!), always floods my mind with ideas. If I’m running on fumes, I step away from my laptop in favor of a change of scenery, which normally fills me right up.

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

I play softball at a competitive level. I also work with a nonprofit that tutors underprivileged kids, and I’m obsessed with theater.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

My favorite part of the creative process is either the very beginning, or close to the end. I love coming up with new ideas, starting from square one, and plotting how to make them happen, but I also love that moment near the end when all the puzzle pieces are beginning to fit together and I can see what I’ve created.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Don’t sit back and wait to be discovered. It’s completely possible for you to be published, but you have to be proactive and get your name out there. Submit to as many places as possible—and before you do so, edit again and again!

Check out Hailey’s work in Volume 3 Issue 2, and check out her blog here.

 

Volume 4, Issue 1

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Phoenix Rising 12 X 12 Clayboard jpeg

Volume 4 Issue 1 sample is available here as a PDF: TMR 4.1 Sample. To purchase a physical copy, click here.

Contributors: Charles Joseph Albert, Meredith Bailey, Susan P. Blevins, Doug Bolling, Adam Levon Brown, Sally Bunch, Antonia Clark, Mara Cohen, Ann Colcord, Tony Concannon, Sandy Coomer, Barbara Daniels, Maureen Daniels, Chris Dungey, Robert Ford, Cynthia Gallaher, D.G. Geis, Jessica Gigot, Ben Groner III, Mary Hanrahan, K.B. Holzman, Jamie Houghton, Mark Hudson, Steven Jakobi, Brian K. Kerley, Lauren Klocinski, Laurie Kolp, Paul Lamb, Sean J. Mahoney, Bridget Malley, Todd Mercer, Anthony J. Mohr, Wilda Morris, Leah Mueller, Don Noel, Toti O’Brien, Richard King Perkins II, Scarlett Peterson, Greg Rappleye, Ruben Rodriguez, John Rodzvilla, Valerie Ruberto, David Anthony Sam, Hilary Sideris, Roger Sippl, Steve Slavin, Spencer Smith, and Christopher Woods

Reviews: Magic for Unlucky Girls by A.A. Balaskovits, Twenty-One by D. Victoria BonAnno, Wet Radio and other poems by Goirick Brahmachari, Two Towns Over by Darren C. Demaree, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson, and Chant of a Million Women by Shirani Rajapakse.

Winner of The Magnolia Review Ink Award: to be announced

Ruben Rodriguez

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Ruben Rodriguez is a master of all things thrift. He holds an MFA in fiction from California State University San Bernardino where he was the fiction editor of Ghost Town. He is the author of a chapbook of experimental prose, We Do What We Want (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2015). Today, he is the poetry editor of Blue Mesa Review. His poetry has been featured in Passages North, The Brooklyn Review, Superstition Review, Forklift Ohio, Potomac Review, and elsewhere. He currently resides in Albuquerque, where he teaches and studies at the University of New Mexico.

When Broken, Volume 4, Issue 1
Interview

Christopher Woods

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher, and photographer, who lives in Chappell Hill, Texas. He has published a novel, The Dream Patch, a prose collection, Under a Riverbed Sky, and a book of stage monologues for actors, Heart Speak. His work has appeared in The Southern Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, Columbia, and Glimmer Train, among others. His photographs can be seen in his gallery: http://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/.

The Fire That Night, Volume 4, Issue 1
Interview

Roger Sippl

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Roger Sippl studied creative writing at UC Irvine, UC Berkeley and Stanford Continuing Studies. He has enjoyed being published in a couple dozen online and print literary journals and anthologies over the years. While a student at Berkeley, Sippl was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and was treated for thirteen months with a mixture of surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, seriously challenging him in many ways, but allowing him to live relapse-free to this day, forty-three years later. So, is this poem about an old love reappearing, or just the thought of her reappearing, or is it about cancer coming back, or all and none of these? Sippl has just self-published a book of poetry, Heavenly Whispers, and it is available from Amazon. He is finishing two other poetry books, Real Nature and Bridgehampton, which should be on Amazon in approximately the April timeframe. Samples of poems from those books are on his writing website, www.rogersippl.com.

Again, Volume 4, Issue 1
Interview
Review, Heavenly Whispers, Volume 4, Issue 2

Hilary Sideris

by Suzanna Anderson Creates

Hilary Sideris is a Greek/Irish American poet. Sideris spent the first 21 years of life in Indiana, in a ranch-style house on the edge of a trailer park. She has published four chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections, Most Likely to Die (Poets Wear Prada 2014) and The Inclination to Make Waves (Big Wonderful 2016). Sideris lives in Brooklyn and works as a professional developer and curriculum writer for The City University of New York’s CUNY Start program. Sideris has a BA in English literature from Indiana University and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She speaks Italian and grows tomatoes on her fire escape.

Rockaway and Yuletide, Volume 4, Issue 1
Interview