12 or 20 (second series) questions with Garin Cycholl

Garin Cycholl’s 2022 novel, Rx, is a play on The Confidence-Man, a man practicing medicine without a license in a Dis-united States. His recent work has appeared in The Typescript, ACM, and The Dead Mule of Southern Literature.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book was an unpublished novel from the mid-1990s, The Kerry Way and the Pentecostal Counterculture.  It was a local exploration of the shifting political tide in the United States and the pervasive influence of whatever Christianity has become, set in rural Missouri.  I’ve never been able to finish it.  The book taught me that I have to work slowly and deliberately.  That experience helped the development of Blue Mound to 161, my first book-length poem.  The more deliberate pacing gave me time to invite more historical strands into the narrative as well as more space in which to re-imagine the work’s larger shape.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I always say that I’m a novelist disguised as a poet.  I like to work within an epic impulse—long poems that explore trajectories in American history and culture, blowing the local up and rethinking connections.  It’s what Charles Boer called the “annalic” impulse—working with a story that’s both epic and local in scope, while recovering the mythic qualities of figures in personal and common memory.  It propelled his great book, VarmintQ.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I’m a sentence-writer, so it’s a laborious process.  A friend compares it to being a stone mason building a wall.  You pick up one stone after another, examine their shape and re-imagine their place within the wall.  You have to fit them in a process of trial and error to get the thing built.  The editing challenge is that often I’ve worked so long on some sentences that it’s difficult to shed them in the revision process.  I need a grade-school English teacher around to slap my knuckles.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Lyric poems (and short stories) tend to be diversions when I’m stuck within a longer project.  I typically want to follow the fuller line of an idea.  I get distracted too easily as a writer.  I wish I had more of that obsessive impulse that carries projects to completion.  For instance, for years I’ve been piecing together a novel about a Thoreau ancestor who lives in a high-rise condo above the Lake in Chicago.  He keeps getting distracted from the Lake though, more focused on the microbes crawling through his colon.  Psychologically, I guess it’s a figure of my writing process that emerges there.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Readings can be fun, although the hierarchy that can be inherent in a lot of readings is annoying.  I prefer reading with others “bluegrass” style, trading licks one poem or paragraph after another, focusing on the writing rather than the voice.  I think that in jazz Ralph Ellison called it “antagonistic cooperation.”  More of a conversation than “I liked your poem.  Now what do you think about my poem?”

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I was a kid in the Nixon era so the shifts in American (writ large, in the sense of the Americas) politics are both horrifying and fascinating to me, the anxieties and narratives that late capital feeds on.  I grew up listening to a lot of distant radio (particularly from New York, Detroit, and Toronto), so I’m curious about the relationship between geographical space and culture there.  In school, I’ve tried to develop a grasp of the range of political developments in Latin America across the past decades.  In the United States, politics has devolved into root points of identification, often more about anxiety and psychological stasis than polis.  At present, I’m wondering if the whole Trump phenomenon simply reflects not only a racist impulse in American culture, but the situation of American men who felt ambiguous feelings or even outright hatred from their fathers.  That hatred offers a terrifying point of identification.  How else does one understand the “sons of Trump?”

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that the communal place of writers was to recall and retell the common stories.  Of course, writers have been displaced in contemporary culture by other “tellers”—TV, Hollywood, and now, streaming services.  Vonnegut claimed that this situation left writers with only one place in the culture—getting drunk at weddings and dancing on tables.  I gravitate towards that communal role.  It’s seems essential.  I’m continually amazed by the great writers who offer a means of re-imagining the world around me—writers like Rebecca Solnit, Ed Roberson, Dan Egan, Cecilia Vicuña, and the late Muriel Rukeyser.  All writers who remind me about the “roads that lead back into my own country.”

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I’ve rarely had challenging experiences with editors.  Work always feels like “another rough draft” to me, so it’s generally an easy process to embrace revisions.  That said, I feel funny asking friends, “Hey, would you give this a read and let me know what you think?”  Great readers are perhaps even more rare than great editors.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Michael Anania: Great writers rarely appear by themselves; they more often appear in groups.  His words and teaching have fostered a generous, collaborative spirit in workshops and friendships. 

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I need to work between poetry, fiction, essay, and script as a means of working out challenges and impasse in projects.  Script-writing has influenced the way in which I imagine characters.  Narrative forms have impacted my sense of lyric play in poems.   Adaptation between genres has offered me a means of revision.  Translation offers a means of inhabiting someone else’s thinking.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

A great deal of my work gets done in the margins and back pages of books.  I string together sentences and paragraphs in those spaces as a means of starting more sustained pieces.  That process generally avoids the dread “blinking cursor” for me.  I used to write a lot in the early mornings, but that time has generally been absorbed by teaching online.  I miss that open space.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I’ve been fortunate to avoid prolonged stalls by moving between genres.  If I’m stuck on an essay or fiction, I’ll work on a poem or review.  Reimagining fiction passages as scenes on stage or screen helps, too.   

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Honeysuckle, wet sneakers, and chlorine.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Maps, memory and place.  The Illinois poems (Blue Mound to 161, Hostile Witness, The Bonegatherer, and the forthcoming prairied) all get their impulse from one stretch of road or another.  I traveled a lot by car and those glimpses from the windshield (and the parallel mapped lines) are always close at hand.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

In terms of poetic voice and impulse, Michael Anania, Rosmary Waldrop, Ed Roberson, and Barbara Guest have been significant in my work.  For fictional terrain, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Barry Hannah, and William Gay.  I also still really love Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres and Robert Schenkkan’s The Kentucky Cycle.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

A socio-cultural or political biography of a Chicago figure.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I worked in pastoral ministry and Hospice chaplaincy for twenty years before moving solely into teaching and writing.  I enjoyed the range of that work—maintaining a communal center, counseling, teaching, and of course, getting some time each week to say what was on my mind.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

My only means of making sense of things.  I would be loathe to give up the conversation in reading and writing.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I really loved Meghan Lamb’s Failure to Thrive.  Really strong Rust Belt storytelling.  In terms of poetry, I was struck by Ed Roberson’s To See the Earth Before the End of the World and Sylvia Legris’s Garden Physic.  Also, I recently watched Cecilia Vicuña’s films in the retrospective on her work at the Guggenheim.  Short pieces on quipu knots, sound, and seashore.

20 - What are you currently working on?

A review of Vladimir Sorokin’s Telluria, holy war and hallucinogens in post-Putin Russia.  I’m also trying to find traction on a Chicago mystery and some love poems from a surveilled city.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Nick Courtright

Nick Courtright is the founder and Executive Editor of Atmosphere Press. He is the author of The Forgotten World, about Americanness and identity in a vast global culture, Let There Be Light, called “a continual surprise and a revelation” by Naomi Shihab Nye, and Punchline, a National Poetry Series finalist. His prose and poetry has appeared in such places as The Harvard Review, The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, The Huffington Post, The Best American Poetry, Gothamist, and SPIN Magazine, among dozens of others. Find him at nickcourtright.com.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

I think my first book, Punchline, which came out in 2012, gave me a sense of relief. Not validation necessarily, but I think it freed me to write when I wanted, rather than write as if life depended on it.  My newest book, The Forgotten World, is my third, and by far my most personal book, and my book most rooted in the real world, rather than any sort of metaphysical space. Being the Executive Editor of Atmosphere Press, which is not tied to the academic calendar, gave me the opportunity to explore the world more fully, and that exploration made for a book set in places, rather than in the one place of the abstract.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I actually came to fiction first, back in high school, but poetry eventually became my mode. I was more interested in ideas than I was in telling stories—the invention of characters and plots started to seem like a weird game to me, whereas with poetry I could run straight at a problem, whether it be love, the universe, or culture.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I used to write prolifically, but now I take my time. My first two books were released two years apart, and it wasn’t until seven years later that I had a third. I wrote probably three books worth of material between that second and third book, though—I was writing whole books and chucking them. I think I needed to go through that process to get something that felt most authentic. As for drafts, they are usually 90% of what the final will look like, but that other 10% can take eons to figure out.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I’ve done both, and for The Forgotten World it became clear along the way that I was writing a travel book and a book about the intellectual struggle of being American while not in America, and respecting cultures that have been mistreated by people who look like me. Once I realized that that was the subject matter I felt compelled to write, I just had to spend the years it took to go the places I needed to go to learn. This book is a product of years of feet-on-the-ground research in a way my others weren’t.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I do enjoy readings, and I think going on tour for my first two books changed me substantially as a writer. I realized that I wanted to entertain and be accessible on a first listen, rather than just write poems that have to mulled over many times in quietude. I always imagine my poems as being read aloud, though some of them are better suited for this than others. But connecting to the random folks you find in an audience became a key part of my vision for the type of poet I wanted to be: engaging and challenging, but very much not elite.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I think the question of accessibility is a major item, and what is the goal of poetry? Why do we do it? I believe that writing is mostly something we do for ourselves, even if we have big goals of connecting to others—the act itself, the pleasure of refining one’s work…so much of it is just a hobby to enjoy, with the hope that someone else enjoys the product being secondary. In my PhD we often discussed matters of the lyric, “the overheard,” etc., and I do buy this idea, though lyric can be both navel-gazing and also a means for intellectual problem-solving. I think poets, given the economic limitations of the art (so long as their output isn’t connected to career advancement in academia) are freed to be their own souls.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Connected to the previous answer, I think one of the greatest roles of writing is to make the writer a more satisfied and content person. People often look to the value of a writer in relation to a reader, but I think the contrary view of what the writing does for the writer is more interesting. If all these writers weren’t writing, would they be less fulfilled individuals? Of course, the role of the reader is where this question would usually go, but as someone who helps writers every day with Atmosphere Press, it’s the satisfaction that writing can bring an individual that is at the forefront of my mind. Writing as art is a public service to the creator as much, if not more, than it is to the outside viewer of the creation.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Both, haha. It’s always tough to hear the thoughts of a good editor, because a good editor will challenge the writer. But…you’ve gotta hear those thoughts, because they’re going to help the work. You don’t have to work with an outside editor, but it’s almost certain that you won’t see everything your work has to offer.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

From Nobel economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman: no problem is as important as it seems when you are thinking about it. It helps keep things in perspective, and keeps the anxiety from going crazy. All things are transitory, and the sun is only too bright when you are staring directly at it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

My main art form nowadays is writing emails. That’s my primary genre, haha. I try to put a little of the poetic in there, though.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t keep a rigid writing routine, other than the aforementioned emails! A typical day begins for me with coffee and work at around 6:20am. Bright and early!

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Books of poetry. That’s really the key thing that gets my mind in the mode to write poetry. That and place, but really, it’s just finding a book of poetry that inspires me to write. They are pretty hard to find, so when I get hold of one, I’ll read it again and again. Recent stars for me were by Anders Carlson Wee, Kaveh Akbar, and Bianca Stone.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Diesel exhaust in the winter. Reminds me of having to ride the bus to school in Ohio in January. I’ve lived in Austin, Texas for nearly twenty years, but every time it’s cold and I catch a hint of this smell, it takes me back to childhood.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I’ve been inspired a ton by science, and by all of these mentioned things. The world is the filter through which the coffee of all poetry must run. That’s an absurd sentence, but you get what I’m saying.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Well, my fiancée Lisa Mottolo is the most important poet in my life. No doubt about that! She’s a great inspiration, and her book will be coming out in 2023 with Unsolicited Press. It’s gonna be awesome and devastating. Just on the literary front, though, I’ve always found kinship in Robert Bly, Federico Garcia Lorca, and the Bhagavad Gita, and my PhD work was on Whitman. These have all had a big effect on me. Emily Dickinson took me an eternity to comprehend in the slightest, but her genius is remarkable.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Gotta get Antarctica and Australia. Those are the two continents I still need to see. I’m also psyched to be a grandparent, but since my kids are 12 and 8, I’m good waiting another twenty years, haha.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I was a professor for a long time and thought that was what I was going to be, until I somehow found myself the Executive Editor of a successful publishing company. Weird how life does that. If I’d gone a wildly different route, I think I would have been an architect. Which is basically just poetry, except for buildings.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Had no choice when I was young: even when I was in elementary school I was always writing stories. Writing picked me, not the other way around.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Wine Simple by Aldo Sohm. Of course, this isn’t a literature book, but as someone who was totally ignorant about wine but wanted to learn, this was the perfect way to get started. Hard to say the last great film I saw, but I will mention the Italian film La Grande Bellezza as a great work I come back to again and again. It is a piece of literature.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working hard on the most ambitious artistic undertaking I’ve ever pursued, and that’s running Atmosphere Press. There’s always so much to solve, so many processes to refine, so much magic to witness. It’s a creative act every day, and the satisfaction I get from designing a workflow that will help my team and help our authors…as crazy as it sounds, it’s no different than landing the right ending for a poem.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jessica Palmer

Jessica Palmer lives with her children in the mountains of North Carolina. Her work has previously appeared in numerous publications.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different
Having my first book released was both exhilarating and terrifying. It is by far the most personal writing I've ever done, and the fact that others related to it both grieved and comforted me. My previous work had been mostly young adult fiction, so poetry seemed like a very different avenue. I was surprised to find my voice in it.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I had always written on and off, but it was pretty sporadic. Fiction had been my focus, but that changed a few years ago. Apparently my subconscious realized that I was searching for answers to my own questions. When I began to explore those doubts, poetry gave me the permission I needed to ask those questions.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It all depends. I was telling my students the other day that sometimes I can spend a total of hours agonizing about three words. At other times the writing is almost fully formed as is. It's a bizarre process.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
A poem usually begins with a phrase that appears in my brain, and the theme builds around that initial phrase. I was utterly shocked when I realized that the poems I had been writing were part of a cohesive whole, that they were communicating the same concepts. I hadn't realized I was writing about all of my questions and doubts about the universe.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I absolutely love doing readings. I’m an extrovert, so it feels like a way to connect to people. Readings energize me. I had never done a public reading of my own work until early in 2020 and was intensely nervous, but when I got up on stage, it mostly became about nothing other than me and the words. I also did an online reading with my local writing organization on the book release day. Covid really changed how the book was released, but I'm hoping to do more readings and promotion when it's safe to do so.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
The Unordering of Days unintentionally ended up being about all of the questions I had about my relationships, the universe, and my own place within it. I questioned my own value and worth for a very, very long time. Writing gave me permission to honestly confront those feelings, to understand my own unhappiness, and to realize that I had the power to change that. Much of the book is about the attempt to reconcile the heart with the mind, about how to embrace the ambiguity of the universe. Poetry allowed me to find my voice, to find peace and even joy in not having answers.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think the role of the writer is whatever the author wants it to be. I tell my students all the time that you have to know your readers. Whether it's entertainment or information, fantasy or realism, authors should write for whatever reason makes them happy, much as readers should read what connects with them. Reading and writing give us the opportunity to be more informed about our world, to become more empathetic people. Writers will always be essential.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
My experience with Atmosphere Press was excellent. You hear horror stories about the publishing process. They were nothing but supportive in making sure my voice was heard in the way I intended, and they had a level of intuition about my voice and desires that I think is unparalleled. They turned my poems into a complete work.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I don't know if it's the best, but one of the most profound pieces of "advice" was that I have the right to say that I'm unhappy, that I don't have to live my life by anyone's standards but my own. While not specifically about writing, it applies to all parts of life.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I haven't been writing the past year. When Covid hit, I had ambitions about using that time to produce a great work of art. I ended up binge watching television. And that's okay. It's been a difficult period of time. I work as a middle school teacher, so right now every single creative drop of energy goes to my students and my own kids. Writing is definitely not a priority right now, but I’m at peace with that.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I live in the mountains, so one of my favorite places is on my back deck in the evening when the sky is clear. I've done a lot of revising in my mind while looking at the stars. Music is frequently involved.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Bacon. Definitely bacon.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I'm influenced by everything: emotions and evidence, entertainment and art, but music tends to be a big part of my writing process. I have music that puts me in certain moods, and sometimes when writing I've intentionally remained in difficult spaces for a prolonged period in order to maintain a specific emotional framework that informs my writing. Music is part of that process. A lot of Radiohead has been involved.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
For modern poets, I'm a huge fan of Joanna Klink and Rudy Francisco's spoken word poetry. (I teach a few of his pieces to my students.) I also love W.S. Merwin and Mary Oliver; I have tattoos that represent words from some of their poems. T.S. Eliot is also one of my favorites.

I am a big fan of fiction and love Chaim Potok, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Chuck Palahniuk, Marilynne Robinson, John Green… I could  keep going. I love anything that Malcolm Gladwell does and am a huge fan of the Freakonomics series.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I should say "be independently wealthy as a result of my writing," but I'll stick within the confines of realism. I'd like to go to Greece. I’d like to have another book published, perhaps young adult fiction. I’d like to see all of the most beautiful libraries in the world and eat excellent food and drink excellent wine along the way.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I love teaching. Absolutely adore it. But some of the tasks and burdens that go along with teaching are exceptionally challenging, especially in the current environment. I'd actually really love to narrate audio books. Or be a professional board game player. There’s got to be a way to make money playing Catan or Dungeon & Dragons or Dominion, right?

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I am a huge advocate of using creativity to communicate, whatever that looks like. When I realized I had something to say, writing became the natural medium for that. I adore music but am not exceptionally musical. And I can't draw a straight line to save my life. I do, however, have a tendency to talk way too much, so I suppose writing is an appropriate fit.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I read The Three-Body Problem this year and loved it; bizarre, nuanced, and beautiful. While not a film, Watchmen was one of the best things I've seen in years. And one of the most important.

19 - What are you currently working on?
Reading final chapters that my students wrote for The Giver.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Glen Weissenberger

Glen Weissenberger, a Harvard Law School graduate, has distinguished himself as a trial lawyer, a law professor, a legal scholar and a law school dean. After four decades in the legal profession, Weissenberger began a second career devoted to writing short stories and novels. His stories have appeared in the SLAB Journal, the Broadkill Review, Bluntly Magazine, The Prospectius Journal and the Boston University Law Review. His novels include Made to Measure Man and Companions by Contract. Weissenberger’s legal books and articles are consulted and cited extensively by judges and lawyers throughout the United States. His latest publication is a novel, The Dark Secrets of Barth and Williams College, A Comedy in Two Semesters (atmosphere press, 2020).

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book was radically different than my current novel, The Dark Secrets of Barth and Williams College. Written in 1980, my first publication was a treatise on the newly enacted rules of evidence for Ohio courts. Over the years that book has been revised in annual editions, and it has become a legal classic.  Frankly, the book demonstrated to me that the law book market represents a continuous source of royalties for legal authors who can write clearly and meet a deadline. I am the author several legal books which are revised every year in new editions.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

In my career as a trial lawyer, law professor and dean, I have written volumes of articles and treatises on legal subjects. I have always enjoyed writing, even if the subject is rather dry. For me, the challenge of nonfiction is to make the writing engaging and exquisitely clear. I always anticipated, however, that when I retired from the legal profession, I would also write fiction, and not surprisingly, my first two novels were about lawyers. My current novel also draws upon my experience as a professor and involves the absurdities of academic politics.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

Anything I write, I formulate first in my head. As I am engaging in random acts of life, like reading, cooking, and exercising, my mind visualizes the content and structure of what I will ultimately put on paper. I never use notes. Consequently, when I write, the process is rapid and fluid. In fact, I generally use dictation software because I'm a pathetically slow typist. The first drafts, however, always require a great deal of polishing, and several revisions are a substantial part of the process.

4 - Where does a work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

My better short stories start with a complex emotion that I feel but do not fully understand. I write the story as a way of giving context to the emotion. The inspiration for my novels is not entirely different, but for a novel, I engage a parallel process of creating an imaginative plot. When I wrote Dark Secrets, I was in a particularly whimsical mood, and I totally enjoyed writing it. The story employs broad, absurdist comedy. Despite its title, it is hardly a dark novel.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

My publisher would like to arrange readings, but obviously, the pandemic has made this difficult. I expect that this novel will have a second launch after society returns to a semblance of normalcy. Nevertheless, I wanted to make Dark Secrets available now when it may have the effect of functioning as an entertaining escape.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Even when I was much younger, I considered that the most valuable commodity we have is time. I am not happy unless I am using my time meaningfully. In the same way, I hope that members of my reading audience will consider reading my work to be a rewarding use of their time. In my opinion, the greatest questions in this world are not universal. Rather, they are personal and individual. How a person sorts out these matters is up to him or her. If a book I write represents a good use of time for the reader, regardless of whether the book helps the reader discover something new or is simply entertaining, I am satisfied.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

In my lifetime, I have written for several diverse audiences, and it is impossible to identify a singular purpose of communication in the written form. Even if we focus just on novels, the role of the author varies greatly. Some poorly written novels have become very popular simply because they provide an escape or entertainment, and I think there is nothing wrong with fiction in this category. Very few novels change a reader's life in any significant way. In fact, there is research that shows that a substantial percentage of novels that are begun by a reader are never finished. I think a successful novel is one that at least sufficiently holds the interest of the reader to finish it.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I have always found that working with an editor is not only helpful, but enjoyable. Perhaps I've been lucky that I've only encountered reasonable editors.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Choose your mentors carefully.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (non-fiction to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I have had no great difficulty shifting between writing nonfiction for lawyers and writing fiction. Common to both is the challenge of keeping the reader with you. While it is obvious that legal writing should be clear, I also think that fiction authors should make an effort to keep the reader from becoming lost, confused and abandoned. For the most part, I think that while a plot may be puzzling and twisted, the actual prose should not be.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Whatever project I'm working on, I almost always write in the afternoon. When I'm writing, I don't like the overhang of other tasks that must be completed in the day. Consequently, things like exercising, reading mail and other matters of daily life, I complete in the morning. While I often write into the early evening, I never write after dinner, which in our house tends to be as late as 8:30 or 9:00.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I almost never get stalled because I already have in my head what I want to write on a particular day.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

German cooking: Sauerbraten, sausage, sauerkraut and apple pastries.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I am glad you asked this question, because I am greatly influenced by a variety of art forms when I write. My writing process usually involves visually imagining a scene in which my characters act. Consequently, my fiction employs substantial dialogue and descriptions of peoples’ actions. Because my fiction often seeks to be comedic, and I am greatly influenced by visual art forms, such as Broadway plays, films, and television. How I express myself is greatly influenced by other authors, but what I write about, is greatly influenced by visual art forms.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I have been influenced by Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, John Irving and Michael Chabon. I am also benefited by a lifetime of watching people do extremely foolish things.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I would like to have a feature role as an actor in a Hollywood film.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I have been extremely lucky to have had a career which has allowed me to assume diverse professional roles. Writing has been integral to all of them.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Even since I was very young, I naturally enjoyed writing. Writing nonfiction became a necessary part of my career as a law professor. Writing fiction is actually harder, but it is more enjoyable. Some things are just part of who you are.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Most of the "great books" I read as part of my formal education, but in the last five years, I have read one truly great book: A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. While it was well received, I don't think it garnered the accolades that it deserved. I consider The Phantom Thread (2017) to be a great film. While I think it is difficult to make a great comedic film like Some Like it Hot (1952), I consider Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel (1914) the best recent comedy.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Trying to spend more time with my family.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Stuart Jay Silverman

An east coast (Brooklyn, NY) expatriate retired from college/university teaching (Auburn Univ., Univ. of Illinois, Urbana and Chicago, City Colleges of Chicago), Stuart Jay Silverman divides his domestic life between Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Chicago, Illinois. More than 600 of his poems and translations appear in 100+ magazines and anthologies in the United States and five other countries. His two books of poetry are The Complete Lost Poems: A Selection and Report From The Sea Of Moisture. He also co-authored The Ozarks Traveler with his wife, Sondra Rosenberg, and his restaurant reviews and travel articles have appeared in a variety of newspapers and guidebooks. Travel, and a collateral obsession, collecting art and artifacts, have resulted in two houses of paintings, sculpture, and other craft works, as well as an ocean of memories and fragments of memory that have, over a long life, seeped into his poetry. Poetry and fiction and the personal essay he thinks of, however, as art, basically acts of creation, not primarily the venting and self-display that pervade contemporary poetry. .

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

The first one? Very little. A few friends made nice sounds, and stopped. I did a couple of readings and sold a few dozen books. Then, decades of deafening silence.

My new (second) book of poetry is more tightly constructed and has what I think is a funny send up of apocalyptic poetry as a conclusion.  I tried to do something like that in my earlier book (The Complete Lost Poems: A Selection) but was somewhat ham handed about it.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Just fooling around with limericks and triolets and getting involved with Brooklyn College’s literary magazine, Landscapes. The limericks have continued, mainly satirical and political and nasty, which allows me to vent without getting physically assaulted.

I wrote a few essays and flash fiction at times, more-or-less as an easier way to create a scene than the rigors of poetic composition.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

It’s almost entirely a matter of mood. Mostly, I simply begin writing. Once in a while, I’ll decide to write about a particular topic, for example, a drive up a scenic mountain road or a political gaffe, but the actual process is much the same: I half-free associate on the topic and half look for similarities on which to allow a structure to appear.  As a form begins to suggest itself, I work to make it more explicit and to refine it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it fails and I either rework it or abandon it. For me, notes would mostly hinder the subconscious process that produces 90% of my work.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I don’t write books. I write poems. At times, several poems may suggest a connection I hadn’t thought of. Sometimes, the connection will become insistent. I’ll start to think of a title, of what poems would hobnob interestingly with other poems. I may revise a poem to make it work with another, or even write one or two for that purpose. As people seem to want a book to deal with a defined subject, e.g., my brother’s cancer, or “my life in the Unitarian Church,” they may find my work “unorganized” and hard to follow.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I’ve done a few. They haven’t done much for me, either in sales or self-satisfaction, but I’d be happy to try them again post-Covid-19.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I want my poetry to create a plausible experience, i.e., one the reader can allow into his or her psyche. The reader should be enlarged by the poem, whether realism or fantasy, whether imagined or drawn from the writer’s direct knowledge. I am tired of narcissistic self-display, poems in which “I” appears in every line. I’m equally tired of poems that ignore logic, grammar, and punctuation, or rely on repetition, repetition, repetition.

Current questions? How do we survive as a species given the ignorance and egoistic drive of our political and social leaders? And religion isn’t the answer.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I don’t think the "writer" has a place in today’s world. The political writer does. The sociologist writer does. Their role would be to enlighten people about problems, e.g., climate change, and suggest solutions, but so many minds are frozen into dogma and propaganda that I’m rather pessimistic about any writer with a vision reaching and changing a significant portion of the populace. And the vast size of the population and its historical, political, religious, and cultural divisions may mean the problems are intractable.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

My one experience with Kyle of Atmosphere Press was helpful and easy, a reflection on him, not me. He made a few simple suggestions about the organization of my book which gave it greater structure and purpose than it had had and which led me to make an addition that I think ends the book effectively.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Write. Don’t talk about it. Write.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation)? What do you see as the appeal?

Not too difficult as I don’t think of it as “moving between genres.” When I write a poem, that’s what I’m doing. Should a poem by Montale or Apollinaire or Rilke catch my attention and make me feel anxious to find a way for it to adopt an English guise, I translate. They’re just different processes.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t have one. I write when I feel the impulse and nothing else absolutely demands my attention. I once kept my wife and two friends waiting in a car while I finished a poem. When it was done, we all went off to a local restaurant for a delayed dinner.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Mostly, I just give it a rest. Sometimes, I’ll pick up a book that for one reason or another resonates in my mind as I think of my own stalled work.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Baked apple pie. My father’s was hands down the best I’ve ever eaten.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Of course. A fishing trip and my father’s food foibles generated a poem. The scenic terrain around my second home in Arkansas is responsible for several. My fascination, partly from reading but largely from observation, produced virtually the entire first section, In The Biome, of what I hope will be my next book. Which is not to deny that books may offer material which the right writer in the right mood may find irresistible.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Philosophy and science largely, but often acquired from magazines such as Scientific American and Smithsonian, The London Review of Books and Harper’s, and novelists such as the Australian Patrick White and the Portuguese José Saramago. Of course, memories of Pope and Milton, Homer and Sylvia Plath, Aeschylus and Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde and so many others churn around in the memory making and breaking connections and being part of all that I am and, therefore, all that I write.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Publish my third book, preferably in hard cover, and revisit Paris and Portugal.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

But writing isn’t my occupation. It’s my obsession. I made my bread money as a college teacher.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Paul Newman said that he was a flop at sports when he was young, a source of deep unhappiness. When he found that he could drive a car in the company of the Daytona greats he was ecstatic (though his wife, Joanne Woodward was terrified whenever he exercised his skill). No sportsman, with no head for business, by nature indolent, I took to writing like the proverbial duck to the aqueous life. And I gradually learned to do it well, well enough to get over 600 poems into print in 100+ magazines here and abroad.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

The Ring And The Book, Robert Browning, a long, incredibly alive Rashomon-like telling of a story from a variety of perspectives. Last great film? I’m not much of a movie buff.

Probably, Dr. Strangelove, which I think uncovers what a writer whose name escapes me called “the giggle in catastrophe.”

20 - What are you currently working on?

Getting a publisher to become sick with desire to put my latest, Drifters, between boards.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kristina Moriconi

Kristina Moriconi is a poet, essayist, and visual artist whose work has appeared in a variety of literary journals and magazines including Sonora Review, Brevity, Cobalt Review, Superstition Review as well as many others. Her work has also been selected as a finalist in terrain.org’s 2017 Nonfiction Contest, december’s 2018 & 2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award in Nonfiction, and awarded Honorable Mention in Juncture’s 2018 Memoir Contest. Moriconi’s work has been included in the anthology Flash Nonfiction Food, (Woodhall Press 2020) and her lyric narrative In the Cloakroom of Proper Musings was published by Atmosphere Press in August 2020.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

I began working on this first book almost 28 years ago. I wasn’t “crafting” it at all. But, in handwritten journals, I was collecting snippets of my daily life. And I’m really glad I did because there are some things that I likely would’ve forgotten over all these years—especially the quote on page 67: “Prepositions are relationship words,” the oldest says. “They can never be alone.”

My recent work is a lot less conscious of rules or boundaries or genres. It feels freeing to write in a way that lets the work determine its form rather than the other way around.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I actually write (or have written) in all genres. And I am a visual artist as well. But I read more poetry than anything else. It is the lyrical sound of language that I’m drawn to, in every genre.

I can spend hours sometimes searching for a single word—because of the way it sounds. I read everything out loud as I’m writing so the musical quality of the language and the cadence are both super important to me. I guess that’s the poet in me.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

Most of my writing projects are works in progress for a long while. Big lumps of clay I keep adding to by collecting—or gathering, as I like to say—ideas and images and by doing extensive research. Only after I fill notebooks with crazy amounts of information so I even begin to carve away at that clay. Most of the sculpting happens as I transfer what I’ve written in my notebooks to the keyboard and screen.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I’ve started—I think maybe in the last year or two—to begin working from the idea or concept of a larger project. But I try to keep the concept fluid enough to shift direction as I go. Most times, when I’ve tried to pull together separately written pieces into something cohesive, I can’t seem to make those pieces coalesce.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

In my mid-fifties, I have finally accepted and embraced the introvert in myself. SO, that said, readings are not something I necessarily enjoy. But I remember someone saying to me once, having shared my unease just before a reading, “How else is anyone going to hear what you have to say?”

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I am mostly interested in questions I have about the world—both my own place in it as well as the complex network of relationships surrounding me. And it is with those questions in mind that I search for ways to compose my answers—the goal always being to connect with others who might be asking themselves similar questions. I believe there are places where many of our stories link and overlap so I try to write in a way that makes room for the experiences and voices of others.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think the writer’s role in larger culture is one of bearing witness. Of giving language to what is observed and finding places to weave into those observations both personal reflection as well as outside voices found in research and inquiry.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I love editors and the process of revision. I welcome any chance to be able to see my work through the eyes of someone else, and I look at editorial feedback as an opportunity to improve.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” This quote from Virginia Woolf was passed onto me by a writer friend. I copy this passage onto the first page of every one of my journals lately.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to essays to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal? / 11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin? / 12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I mentioned previously that I am a genre-shifter. Or perhaps genre-bender. But I didn’t used to be. For many years, I thought I needed to compartmentalize my work. And myself. That I had to be either a writer or a visual artist. And, if I chose writer, then I had to be either a poet or a prose writer.

It really wasn’t until I erased all of those labels or parameters that my work started to make sense to me, to grow and expand into what it wanted to be. It was freeing to exist outside of a box and to make things that mattered to me rather than things that were expected of me.

One of the ways I’ve broken the “rules” is to create poems and lines of prose by cutting up words from other texts or by erasing/blacking-out parts of other texts. This was actually how I discovered a way to assemble my book, In the Cloakroom of Proper Musings.

I’d found several terribly misogynistic books in my favorite used bookstore in New York City. Right away, I knew I wanted to get them off the shelves and turn them into something else.

I started with a book titled Beautiful Girlhood. I sliced apart the pages with an X-Acto knife. Sometimes I’d find one word alone or sometimes a short phrase. I cut out hundreds of them before I started rearranging. Juxtaposing. I found the word “cloakroom” and the phrase “proper musings” on separate pages but, by placing them beside one another, I had discovered the title of my book.

A cloakroom is what we called the closet in my first-grade Catholic school classroom. So, the school-related theme emerged with that single word. Then came the Google searches: What are the names of different kinds of schools? What are the components of a school building? What are its functions? Its associations and interconnections?

Since so much of both motherhood and childhood are processes of learning, this theme seemed perfect to me.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I have moved around a lot in my life so far but I have always felt at home in a library wherever I am. So, I’d say it’s the smell of old books that offers me the most comfort.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

All of the above! Nature and visual art inspire me constantly. I’m definitely a visual person—always seeing patterns in things and being drawn to colors. I once saw a job posting for the person whose responsibility it is to name paint colors. Ever since then, I’ve challenged myself to do exactly that whenever I see a color that catches my eye.

Music inspires me in the way that it reminds me of specific moments in my life. On page 19 of my book, I mention the Rusted Root song, Send Me on My Way. So, on my website (www.kristinamoriconi.com), I created a Spotify playlist to go along with the book, many of those songs having taken me back to the experiences I write about.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Mary Oliver will always be a writer I turn to when I need to be reminded of what language can do and how close observation of the world around me can offer new perspectives.

I also enjoy reading the words of visual artists. One of my favorite books to open to any page is Van Gogh’s collection of letters to his brother Theo.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I want to take a road trip with my husband from coast to coast and back again, dipping our toes in both oceans. I also want to learn how to play the piano.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I’d either be a documentary filmmaker or I’d like to make things—like furniture—out of reclaimed wood and other recycled materials.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Books. I read constantly as a child. My grandfather and I used to go to the library or the Book Swap together every week. When I first read the book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler, I wanted to be Claudia, the girl who ran away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I also wanted to be E. L. Konigsburg, the writer who imagined this gripping story and gave it words. 

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

The last great book I read is the one I’m still reading (and I don’t want to end!): Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. And the last great film is one I’ve watched several times already: The Secret Life of Lance Letscher, a documentary about an Austin-based collage artist. His work and his work ethic inspires me so much!

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on a series of collages that have a somewhat political/social justice theme. I’m combining words + images from volumes of old encyclopedias and old children’s primer books.

I’m also in the very early “gathering” stages of a new writing project. It is about disbelief. And waiting. And grief. Or at least that’s what I think it’s about.

12 or20 (second series) questions;