Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Deborah Harvey

Deborah Harvey’s poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please, while her poem Oystercatchers recently won the 2018 Plough Prize Short Poem Competition. Her fourth collection, The Shadow Factory, will be published by Indigo Dreams during 2019. She has three previous poetry collections, Breadcrumbs (2016), Map Reading for Beginners (2014) and Communion (2011), also published by Indigo Dreams, while her historical novel, Dart, appeared under their Tamar Books imprint in 2013.

Deborah is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy.

Home

http://deborahharvey.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-shadow-factory.html

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

I started writing poems and stories when I was a young child and continued throughout primary school, but as is so often the case, at secondary school the emphasis shifted onto learning for the purpose of passing exams, rather than exploring any creativity we might have; in fact, the teachers seemed to go out of their way to discourage such unruly impulses, and eventually I stopped writing altogether. Then, decades later, when I was struggling to raise four children and my marriage was falling apart, I had a very vivid, urgent dream, which seemed to me to be saying that unless I found a way of expressing myself, I’d die. So there I was, knowing I had to write poetry but not even sure what a poem was. I started to write what came, though, and to read poetry too, to make sure I was doing it right, and gradually the process became less agonising.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Being brought up in the Methodist tradition meant I was exposed to poetic images, language and cadences for several hours every Sunday from a very young age. I used to love the call and response of psalm reading, and hymns were great because I got to stand on the pew and sing words I didn’t understand but which were mysterious and conjured pictures in my head – fiery cloudy pillars, chariots rising into the sky, all that sort of stuff. So the poets of the Old Testament and Charles Wesley have a lot to answer for.

Then there was my grandmother, who taught me and my many cousins all our nursery rhymes and told us traditional stories with lots of repetition in them; tales like Chicken Licken and In A Dark Dark House. She wrote poems too, and always kept a scrap of paper and a pencil in her apron pocket to jot down lines and images as they occurred to her.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

When I started writing 20 years ago, I was not only aware but completely over-awed. I’d enjoyed English literature at school and planned to study it at A-level, but was told by my teacher that I wasn’t good enough (even though I got As in language and literature at O-level).  I was completely thrown by this experience and believed what she’d said for years, so when I realised I had to write, the thought of reading poetry as well was very daunting. A few months earlier I’d seen a programme on telly about Ted Hughes’ ‘Birthday Letters’, so I took the plunge and found it completely absorbing. The second poetry book I bought was Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems, and I went on from there.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I have three day-jobs, two of which involve caring for dependents, so I rarely get a whole day to myself, and I’m pretty much on call all the time. What makes writing poetry a practical means of self-expression is that I can do it out of the corner of my eye, as I go about my day.

5. What motivates you to write?

The greatest motivator of all: the fear of dying before I’m finished. I think this is partly because I spent three decades in a relationship that was obliterating me, and I neglected my responsibility towards myself and my development as a creative human being. Now everything I do is an attempt to make up for the years I lost, and expressing myself by writing poems is a kind of redemption.

6. What is your work ethic?

It’s very basic, really. I try to spend at least a small part of each day writing, and if that’s not possible, doing something that will feed into my writing, whether it’s reading poetry or prose, walking somewhere new or in a place that has resonance for me, doing a bit of research, going to hear another, better poet read, watching starlings in the garden. Then, even if I’m stuck in a trough of discouragement, at least I can tell myself I’m cobbling together a ladder to climb out.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Calling someone a coming-of-age author carries quite pejorative connotations, but the three writers who had the biggest impression on me as a child and teenager – Bulgakov, Camus and Steinbeck – shaped me to such an extent that I carry them with me every day.  ‘Master and Margarita’ is still a very important novel for me, and I don’t know where I’d be without my inner witch. As for ‘The Red Pony’, which I started to read by accident when I was seven and abandoned in disgust when it turned out to be about death rather than gymkhanas and rosettes, that early encounter coloured my whole life. That experience convinced that early exposure to seminal stories and poems has a profound effect on the developing imagination – as long as you remember to read them again later too, when you can fully understand them.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Alan Garner is just about the last of my childhood heroes who’s still alive. Reading ‘Boneland’ a few years ago, having grown old alongside the character Colin of ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ and ‘The Moon of Gomrath’, was profoundly moving, and I was bereft when the story ended. I am completely in awe of Garner’s connection with his landscape, and the way his stories inhabit mythic time.

In contrast, a writer I very much admire whom I read for the first time recently, is Rebecca Solnit. I got such a lot out of her memoir/travelogue ‘The Faraway Nearby’ that I’m lining up more of her books by my bed to read.

As for poets, there’s Alice Oswald, Kathleen Jamie and Stanley Kunitz for the way they capture nature; Charles Simic for his startling imagery; Neruda for always taking the reader with him on his huge associative leaps; Raymond Carver for his story-telling; Heaney and U A Fanthorpe for their unrelenting humanity; Carol Ann Duffy for her surety of touch; Kei Miller and Liz Berry for their true voices; Leonard Cohen for sounding like God; I could go on

9. Why do you write?

Because not writing is not an option.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Becoming a writer – a good one – means embarking on an apprenticeship that will last the rest of your life. You have to be prepared always to improve, to welcome criticism, and above all, to read the work of others. In fact, read whatever you can lay your hands on: poetry, novels, folk stories, plays, non-fiction, atlases, art books, biographies, soak it all up. Don’t ever think there’s no room for improvement.

The other thing is to be prepared to stick your neck out in order to get an audience for your writing. This can be particularly hard for poets. The impulse that makes us write poems often co-exists with a profound reticence when it comes to publicising our work. But poetry is an inherently collaborative art form, and a poem only fully exists when it is being inhabited by the reader, so all that uncomfortable stuff has to be done. Good luck with it.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

My fourth collection – The Shadow Factory – is due to be published by Indigo Dreams in 2019, so I’m now in that lovely space where I can turn my attention towards something new. Well, not really new; I’ve lived in Bristol all my life and have amassed stories, family anecdotes and memories, old photos, historical snippets, the voices you hear in the queue at the bus stop, the way places change and people come and go, but the city remembers how it always was and keeps re-creating itself in that image. The past in the present. I want to write all that.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Don Beukes

(According to his Amazon author page)

was born in Athlone in Cape Town, South Africa. He spent his childhood in Elsies River and Belhar and graduated at the University of the Western Cape with a BA Degree in English and Geography in 1992 where he also studied Psychology. He then qualified as a teacher with a Higher Diploma in Education (Post-Graduate) in 1993.

He is a retired teacher of English and Geography and taught for Twenty years in both South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Don’s debut collection of poetry, ‘The Salamander Chronicles’, was published in December 2016 by Creative Talents Unleashed, dealing with a range of themes such as oppression, bullying, politics, globalism, sexism, abuse, birth, death, refugees, as well as racism, having been born, raised and educated during the last two decades of Apartheid.

His second book ‘Icarus Rising – Volume One’ is a collection of Ekphrastic poetry with most of the poems based on original artwork and close collaboration with artists from South Africa, America and the UK.

His South African publication debut of fourteen exclusive poems was published in August 2018 with three other prominent SA authors Bevan Boggenpoel, Leroy Abrahams and Selwyn Milborrow in a unique anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’, which upon release went to number 1 in ‘African Literature’ on Amazon Kindle.

https://donbeukes.wordpress.com/

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

My first experience of poetry actually was in my first language, Afrikaans both at school and visits to the local library. As a second language, English appealed to me as well and I found myself able to read and write efficiently in English inspired by my English teachers and family to do the best I could in both languages.

Towards the end of my secondary education, I started to write micro poems on pieces of paper and started giving these to close friends even when I started university studies. I guess it came naturally to me but it would be years later in 2009 when I started to keep a dedicated journal of poetry in both languages, dealing with my years in South Africa under Apartheid (1972-1994) and my professional career as a teacher in England. It felt natural to start archiving my writing  and it would all come to fruition in 2016 when my first collection, ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ was published by Creative Talents Unleashed (Raja Williams).

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My early experience of poetry was purely academic. We had a set list of poems to study in high school each year both in Afrikaans and English, so my teachers although in a formal way, guided me into the obvious and hidden magic of poetry.

At home, my much older sisters, Ruth and Joan, introduced me to their reading material, including poetry in both languages.

2.1. What poets you were introduced to showed you the obvious and hidden magic of poetry?

South Africa:

Adam Small
Breyten Breytenbach
Ingrid Jonker
Tatamkula Afrika
Zakes Mda

Nigeria:
Chinua Achebe

UK:
Thomas Hardy
Wilfred Owen
John Donne
Dylan Thomas
Benjamin Zephaniah

US:
Charles Bukowski
Laurence Ferlinghetti

2.2. What was that hidden magic?

Breytenbach’s free verse displaying a powerful visual imagination and richly eclectic use of metaphor, mixing references to zen with surrealistic images, idiomatic speech and recollections of the South African landscape as a dissident Afrikaans exiled poet ending up in Paris.

Adam Small’s persisted theme of depicting the lives of oppressed people, especially the so-called ‘coloured’ people classified as such by the racist divisive white South African Apartheid government, as well as the working class; using his writing as an existential weapon in the struggle for freedom.

Wilfred Owen’s use of half-rhyme gave his poetry a dissonant and provoking quality, which shadowed his recurrent themes. Also his use of assonance created a quiet tone and different sounds prevalent to war.

Benjamin Zephaniah’s battle for social justice through his writing incorporating humour, thereby highlighting the underlying seriousness of the struggle of black people and giving them a voice.

Charles Bukowski dabbling in conscious art and craft, mostly writing about ‘the sense of a desolate, abandoned world’ and well known for caustically indicting bourgeois society, whilst celebrating the desperate lives of alcoholics, prostitutes and other disreputable characters in and around L.A, USA.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s use of everyday language, which articulates his themes, offering a personal voice through his delivery of words. His figurative, honest and raw poetry presents things that are actually before us in the visual world, thereby presenting writing that could be understood by the average person on the street.

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

3.1. Would you say they were a dominating presence?

Not all of them. Certainly Wilfred Owen, Chinua Achebe, Dylan Thomas, Adam Small, Breyten Breytenbach, Ingrid Jonker and Benjamin Zephaniah and Charles Bukowski

3.2. How were they dominating?

I refer You back to Q4 , highlighting the ‘hidden magic of the selected poets, specifically singling out their ‘dominance’ at the same time… Furthermore, any poets I was expected to teach, revealed their ‘dominance’ through the interpretation of each and every student who individually reacted in response not just to any exam question, but also challenged me as a teacher to judge them on their unique interpretation of poets they’ve never even heard of but bravely dived into their words and literary worlds…

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Catching up on current and breaking news, jotting down key words, ideas and associations. Any theme that makes me sit up and take notice morphs into a storyline, character development and alternatives but mostly I am inspired by art, photography and moving images. I might even research ideas from films, articles or any breaking story in the world for possible poems, Ekphrastic responses and short fiction.

5. What is your work ethic?

As a visual learner, I need to be moved by imagery, art or any visual stimulus to ignite my writing planning. Sometimes it takes me days to interpret a painting or image before a pattern or writing plan emerges. I then find myself spilling ink until I look up at what I’ve written and then astonish myself with what I’ve managed to write. If I am forced to limit myself to any structure limit, it challenges me to focus and be more creative than usual. If I don’t believe in what I’ve written, I would delete it and start all over again. Sometimes I just stop and pick up stalled writing when I’m ready to focus all my attention to it, without any interruptions.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today?

Good question! Aside from poetry, my first Stephen King book I was introduced to as a teenager by an older neighbour,  was ‘It’. I was stunned by the page turning experience. It is King’s choice of characters however flawed, which made me start writing short fiction. My first published story was ‘The Trilogy of Em’ (Scarlet Leaf Review), a story of a genetically engineered girl who ends up in an institution for ‘the gifted&talented’, where she uncovers many secrets about her ‘creators’.
King also inspired me to think of creating characters with a flawed past, subdued memories and psychological problems.

My favourite teenage ‘horror’ go to read still remains ‘The Rats’ by James Herbert. He inspires me to tap into the darker side of my imagination and to push the boundaries.

Peter O’ Donnell’s ‘Modesty Blaise’ inspirés me to create exceptional resourceful female characters with dubious pasts and many talents.

As for a great South African poet, Adam Small inspired me to speak from the heart, not holding back in pointing the finger to autocratic racist governments, which I try to reflect in my resistance poetry and political articles dealing with race, culture and identity.

I know you have already mentioned Alan Britt, Michael Johnson and Duanne Vorhees and Beau Blue. Please can you expand on why you enjoy these writers and who else in today’s writers you admire, and why?

Michael Lee Johnson writes in a conversational.style, almost with familiar imagery and references; “I drink dated milk/sip Mogen David concord wine with diet 7Up/My neighbors’ parties/loud blast language” from ‘Missing of the Birds’.

Duanne Vorhees’ metaphorical poetry speaks directly to the reader; “Come find me in some brick and vinyl Inn/when your soul is frozen in hard winter” from ‘The Poet’. His galloping rhyming style of writing makes you willingly trot along, “history is the mystery of mud and bones/how many of me, me, me have died or grown since yesterday”, from ‘Mean Time’.

Beau Blue’s no-nonsense and straightforward, honest writing, using familiar scenes or situations; “And when I asked where they kept The Cummings and Pounds/she pointed lemon lips at me/Paperbound poets are on the backside of humor”, from ‘Reviewing the Bookstore Massacre’.

Although its becoming very author heavy at this point, I only want to give a special mention of two voices of these modern literary times, although quite uniquely different, they have become booming legendary poetic loudspeakers –

Scott Thomas Outlar for his ‘fluxing and flowing’ sweepingly honest and almost prophetic writing, commenting on the good, the bad and the ugliness of humanity, somehow sometimes making us uncomfortably shift in our seats when we admit to ourselves we actually know what he wants to remind us of and what he suggests we do about it.

Heath Brougher for his visionary and increasingly intergalactic premonitional utterings of literary galaxies we can only try to imagine. His spectral visions take us onto a far flung comet hurtling us to far flung stars not even born yet.

Both Scott and Heath for me epitomise contemporary written creativity and that’s just my honest opinion.

7. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I would say you must have some inkling that you are able to write, be it in diary form or in a formal setting like a language exam at school, or writing a letter (in my younger days posting to pen friends).

If thoughts keep bubbling in your head and you need to pen it down in whichever form and you feel a surge of creativity and feel good afterwards, then you are a writer.

If reading inspires you and you are moved by words and the magic of language, which stirs a passion within you and flips your emotions, then you are a writer… You just have to believe and trust in your unknown destiny. Pour out your heart, frustrations and inner voice onto paper or a screen!

8. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

Well I have written a chapbook entitled ‘The Girl in the Stone/La Chica en la Piedra’, inspired by an image of the face of a girl in a stone from the Bronze age, which I found in my summer home in Spain, near a UNESCO world heritage mountain site. The poems deal with the surrounding people, the vineyards, the earth and the mountain, as well as folklore and the African migrant seasonal workers, as well as the surrounding areas. I hope to get it translated into Spanish. Know anyone perhaps?

My new full collection is entitled ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of the World with the book cover painted by Janine Pickett. It also contains a few short fiction pieces. Watch this space!

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Zach Linge

(pronouns: they/them/theirs) is the Editor-in-Chief of The Southeast Review and a PhD student in Poetry at Florida State University. Linge’s publications include poems in or scheduled for publication in The Journal, Poetry, Puerto del Sol, and Sonora Review, among others, and a refereed article in a special issue of African American Review on Percival Everett.

www.zachlinge.com

www.southeastreview.org

The Interview

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Sue Hardy Dawson

is a poet & illustrator. Her debut collection, ‘Where Zebras Go’, was shortlisted for the 2018 CLiPPA prize. Sue’s poems and teaching resources can be found on the CLPE website. Her second, ‘Apes to Zebras’ co-written with poetry ambassadors, Roger Stevens and Liz Brownlee won the North Somerset Teachers Book Awards. Sue has a First Class Honours Degree. Sue loves to visit schools and he has worked with the Prince of Wales Foundation, ‘Children and the Arts. As a dyslexic poet, she loves encouraging reluctant readers and writers.  Her new solo collection, If I Were Other Than Myself is due out with Troika, February 2020.
Look for her on Twitter @SueHardyDawson,
Facebook, Poet Sue Hardy-Dawson https://www.facebook.com/poetsinschools
clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poets/hardy-dawson-sue
Book her with Authors Abroad https://www.authorsabroad.com/search-authors/sue-hardy-dawson

The Interview

1. What and who inspired you to write poetry?

When I was a small girl my father used to march around the bedroom reciting poetry. He grew up during the infancy of accessible radio and most people had, a party piece back then. He actually had a rather wonderful singing voice as well, but he had a way of sort of acting out the poems. He was a great fan of AA Milne and would do The Kings Breakfast and The Dormouse and the Doctor. He knew by heart great long stretches of Hiawatha and the rhythms and repetition, exquisitely crafted language I loved. He would do The Highway Man, The Green Eye Of The Yellow God, Night Mail and the now somewhat none PC Cargoes with its cargo of ivory. However I loved to listen to his voice and his enthusiasm was infectious. Of course I didn’t understand all of the words but I was mesmerised by them. I wrote a kind of tribute to Auden’s Night Mail, you can find it in Where Zebras Go.

Like myself my father was dyslexic, though I didn’t know until after I was diagnosed aged 16. He was an extremely well read man but deeply embarrassed by what he couldn’t do. I didn’t particularly enjoy school either, though like my dad an avid reader, I struggled to spell legibly and had terrible handwriting. Dyslexia was largely unheard of and little understood then. I enjoyed art though and had a vivid imagination. When I was about 8 faced with the dreaded task of writing holiday postcards I wrote a little poem. It seemed to please everyone and was something I seemed to be quite good at. When my Nana died many years later, she still had that poem in her bedside drawer.

But in the meanwhile I became disillusioned, fearful even of writing, the sheer effort of it and when I left school I didn’t write for many years. Then fate intervened I had children and I started writing poems and stories just for them. Next one of them was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia and kicked off big style, they didn’t want to be stupid like me. Computers were in fact my saviours, when I first saw one it had to be filled with binary codes, not very dyslexia friendly, but suddenly I was helping a reception class and four-year-olds were using them. I learned and went on to do a degree and yes began to send poems out.  I went to a library event and Nick Toczek put two of my poems into a Macmillan Collection, Toothpaste Trouble, 2002, my first step. It would be 14 years before I got my first collection accepted. Poetry lists for children died and came back again during that time and it was essentially an apprenticeship. Yet I don’t regret it, I think my poems grew as did my family. It was the right time for me.

2. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

When I was 14 in an English lesson I first discovered Ted Hughes, his poems were quite different to the ballad style poems my dad recited. I was struck particularly by ‘The Thought Fox’, it was as if he saw into my head. The best poetry, however simple or complex reaches out to a common experience and shows it in a different way. I think then was the first time I had actually thought about poets being people who wrote, that I might write poems. It changed my view of what a poem was and I felt I need to read as much of it as I could, to experience its constantly evolving form. From Hughes and those before him right back to 16 century and forward to the Mersey Sound, Kay, Duffy and too many to mention I absorbed them.

Many years and two collections later, I found to my delight that I was in an anthology called A Poem For Every Night of the Year,  with Ted Hughes’s Thought Fox, still one of the most exciting things I have ever achieved.

Here also I owe a great debt older wiser poets, children’s poets, well at least those I have had the pleasure of knowing, are wonderfully kind and generous people. I have had lots of support and encouragement. I met Roger Stevens some years back and through him, Liz Brownlee, Gerard and Cathy Benson, Rachel Rooney, Jan Dean, Michaela Morgan and many, many other wonderful poets. I feel so very lucky and at first was more than a bit star-struck, poets whom I had read for years, I felt like a child at a grownups’ party. But though we span the country the internet means we can stay in touch, because writing is essentially a lonely business.

3. What is your daily writing routine?

On a writing day I like the first few quiet hours, I will take those thoughts once formed out for a dog walk, do admin on my return. Then late at night when the house quietens again I will work on until I feel my brain is too sleepy. I find that things become clearer if you put them away for a few days. So I’m always on with multiple things. If I get a block I read through old notebooks until something comes. A deadline has a great capacity to focus the mind. Essentiality, though, a good idea can arrive at any time, so I have paper pens, phone, notebook, Dictaphone always. I have a bad memory so if I lose the first line it’s lost forever. But if I scribble that even on my hand the rest will return.

4. What motivates you to write?

Everything and anything, I need to write or I feel quite lost, even if it’s not working out as I’d hoped I need to try every day. Sometimes though the best days something flies into your head and you just feel it has wings, it might obsess you for days and that for me is the best feeling, the constant surprise of not knowing quite where you are going but that it is worth the search.

5. What is your work ethic?

I write something every day, even if I don’t think it’s good, because without words on the page you have nothing to craft to work on. Sometimes a line is just shorthand for where you are going so it’s a case of don’t think too hard about good or bad just write. I will spend days, weeks or even occasionally years crafting and changing bits, for me that is the joy, the shaping and smoothing.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I think immensely, first you must know what has been before so you don’t write it again, or at least provide a new way of looking at it. I think whatever you write you must read because there is no substitute for reading if you are a writer. I read once for pleasure and closer to see why it is wonderful or in some cases terrible. I unpick why and that informs my writing process. Not that I think about any of this when I’m actually writing. Writing is a bit like diving into a pool, you can control the way you leave the ground, but how you land and the bit in the middle is free falling.

7. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I have very diverse tastes in writing, for poetry, apart from all of the above I love, Pie Corbett, Philip Gross, John Foster, Joseph Coelho, Roger McGough and not exclusively Billy Collins. Literature, David Almond, Andrea Levy, Lucy Waters I could go on for pages.

Why I like writing that transports me, I love poetic prose, essentially if I read something and aspire not to recreate it but to write as well then I love it with a passion.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Well, because I can’t stop, in a way. I do have other things that I do but nothing that fulfils me in quite the same way. I also paint and illustrate though so I have times when those things take over, but even so I have to stop every couple of days just to write something or it gnaws at me and I can’t concentrate.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I would say that we are all writers, but write what is inside yourself. Read as much as you can and not just what you think you like, writing that is bad can tell you as much about process as good writing. Write something every day even when you feel like you don’t have anything to say. Read what you write to others, draft and redraft, keep going. Write for the pleasure it gives you and because you can’t help it. If it gives you no pleasure you probably should do something else. Being a writer is a tough life because inevitably you need a thick skin. I thought when I got my first book out how wonderful, then a second later what if no one likes it? It’s not easy but if you try and keep going it’s possible even for someone like me who finds manual writing difficult.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

Well some things are still top secret, however, I have a new book due out February 2020 with Troika Books, ‘If I were Other Than Myself’, I have done all of the illustrations and I am very excited about it.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Ellie Rose McKee

has had a number of poems and short stories published, has been blogging for over ten years, and is currently seeking representation for her debut novel. She lives in Belfast with her husband, cat, and accidental chihuahua.

The Interview

1. When did you start writing, and why?

The technical answer is: I started writing way back in primary school when teachers would set small creative writing assignments in class or for homework, like a poem about your pet or a piece about your summer holiday. I guess what makes me different from most people is that, when I stopped getting these assignments, I kept on scribbling anyway. My early teens were filled with many dark, angsty poems and I wrote my first couple of “propper” short stories at maybe fourteen or fifteen. I attempted my first novel when I was eighteen or nineteen, and I started blogging around that time as well, when I should have been working on my degree.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Again, it goes back to my school days, studying it in English class. I really regret not keeping the poetry anthology I had for GCSE, because I fell in love with so many of the poems in it. Of course, that’s all ‘classic’ stuff. When it came to the more modern, free verse I was writing in my teens, I kind of found my own way. Although I suppose a lot of it was inspired by music.

2.1. Which poems did you fall in love with in your school poetry anthology, and why?

The poetry anthology, as far as I can remember, was focused on the themes of war and nature. The main one I vividly recall is Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. But I’m not even sure if it was the specific poems themselves or just having access to them in a more general sense. (Poetry – or any other kind of written medium – was not something my parents or siblings engaged with.) In class, we spent maybe an hour each week, for two years, unpicking them and it was a revelation to me. I’d never experienced poems in that way before, or to that degree. I think it blew my little teenage mind.

2.2. What music inspired you?

Pretty much anything on the ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Scuzz’ music channels in the early 2000’s but, in particular, Linkin Park. They are my all-time favourite band to this day. Their words resonated with me in a way I’d never experienced before. I was going through a very hard time, between bullying at school and having a terrible home life, and music and poetry were an escape from that. Listening to the tracks from Hybrid Theory (LP’s debut album) helped me tap into a lot of what I was feeling, and then turning to the page myself allowed me to release those feelings in a healthy way. Without that, it’s no exaggeration that I probably wouldn’t be here today.

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

Oh, that’s an interesting question! I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about it. Do older people dominate poetry? Is that the perception, or have studies been done into it? Obviously if there are hard facts saying that, I can’t exactly argue, but if it’s just a perception… well, I’m not sure it matches my own way of viewing it. I think a lot of young people write poetry. But I suppose it’s not until one becomes older, or gets ‘established’, that they become well known (relatively speaking). I don’t think you need to be published to be a poet, you just need to write. A poet is a poet even if no one else ever sees their work. Because who’s to say when someone is published ‘enough.’ Being ‘established’, I think, is such a subjective thing. I’m not sure the literary ‘canon’ is as concrete as some people think it is.

4, What is your daily writing routine?

I work from home, devoting part of my time to writing, but also caring for my husband the rest of the time. He’s disabled, as I am myself (to a lesser degree). As such, we don’t really have a routine. It changes day-on-day depending on what else is going on. Some days I can’t write at all, and other days I end up doing quite a lot. What stays constant is that the words come at night. My peak creative period is from midnight to about five am.

5. What motivates you to write?

For me, it’s all about human connection. I love nothing better than reading books or watching shows that get to the core of what it is to be human, even if that means the show or book is incredibly sad. When it comes to my own writing, I want to emulate that. Literature should make you feel something.

Even though I’ve cut back on the angst, my poems are still incredibly personal. There are bits of myself and my own experience in them. That’s me reaching out to whoever reads them. Same goes for my short stories, really. As for a my longer fiction: my novels are all, in essence, character studies. By letting the reader experience the inner thoughts and feelings of this person, and what they’ve had to go though, I want to build empathy. That’s what motivates me.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today?

The truth is, I didn’t read when I was young. Not really. Not beyond whatever school made me read. I always loved the IDEA of books, and I sometimes picked them up at school jumble sales but because the rest of my family didn’t read, or encourage reading, it didn’t get much further than that. I struggled with it and those struggles went ignored until, finally, I got diagnosed with dyslexia while at university. That’s when I properly got into reading: age eighteen or nineteen.

What I hadn’t realised before then (aside from the dyslexia thing) was that books had genres and that some of them would work for me and some wouldn’t. I was clueless about all that as a kid. I picked up the jumble sale books based on the covers and then wondered why the story inside didn’t grab me. (One of the books I remember buying was a huge James Herriot hardback because it had a sheepdog on the front. I didn’t know it was for adults, let alone the middle part of a series.)

At age fifteen or sixteen, I got Witch by Christopher Pike from my school library and absolutely devoured it. Next time there were school book tokens on the go, I asked my parents if I could use mine towards another one of his books. They took one look and dismissed the whole thing as evil (as they were in the habit of doing with anything they didn’t like or understand). That was that. I did get a free sampler with my token instead, but my enthusiasm had been successfully trampled.

I realise that’s a very long answer (more of a confession, probably) and I still haven’t got to the heart of your question. I apologise. How all this influenced me is that I now value reading and am even more adamant about the importance of children’s literature, in particular, having been denied it myself as a child. That’s probably one of the main reasons why my novels are for teens. They are for my younger self.

7. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

My favourite poet is probably Hollie McNish. Her words pop and always feel super fresh. I heard her perform live earlier in the year and it was fantastic. In terms of authors, I’m big fans of Rainbow Rowell, Malorie Blackman, John Green, Shirley-Anne McMillan, Becky Albertalli, and Adam Silvera: all fabulous YA novelists I want to emulate (and maybe someday rub shoulders with). What they all have in common is that their books pack an emotional punch. You come away from having read them changed for the better.

8. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Anyone who puts one word in front of another is a writer. Start there. Start bad. Don’t expect yourself to have instant success. You put the words down, you read, you put more words down, and repeat. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.

9. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I always have a ton of projects on the go. In the short term, I’m trying to get more individual poems and short stories published as I work on a poetry pamphlet and short story collection I hope to get traditionally published. I’m also on the hunt for a literary agent for my novels. I’ve written a children’s picture book, and drafted part of a manuscript for a single release comic. I have a short play looking for a home, as well as a short screenplay. And that’s not even all of it! Basically lots of pieces looking for homes.

Thanks so much for interviewing me!