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.

Rachael Clyne,

lives in Glastonbury. Her collection, Singing at the Bone Tree, concerns our relationship with nature, (published by Indigo Dreams). Recent anthology: #MeToo. Journals incl: Tears in the Fence, The Rialto, Under the Radar, Shearsman, Lighthouse, The Interpreters House. Her new pamphlet, Girl Golem, about family, migrant heritage and sense of being ’other’, is published by 4Word Press.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I grew up with Christopher Robin. As a child I went to elocution lessons, to obliterate my flat northern vowels and because I was clearly a little, show-off performer (I later became a professional actor). I spent several years reciting: Hilaire Belloc, Gerard Manley Hopkins & Edwin Muir. I remember relishing the word sounds. My Mother loved poetry, so there were classic collections at home, that I could read. I started writing when I was reading Eliot, Donne, Herbert, Dylan Thomas, Wilfred Owen and such at school. I wrote to express teenage angst and a longing to escape. Angst kept me going for a decade or so, until my sister became ill with cancer, dying in 1985. I was then commissioned to write a book for cancer patients and began to take my writing more seriously.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

As mentioned, my mother loved poetry, then elocution classes & school, particularly A levels. In the eighties a friend introduced me to Angels of Fire, a poet performance group. We’d sit a write in a café near Tottenham Court Rd. I performed with them a couple of times. It was the perfect combination of being an actor & poet. I still love doing collaborative readings with a touch of theatre.

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

I’m pretty old myself now, so it was normal to read Victorian & Georgian War poets, back then. Then, there was ee cummings and William Carlos Williams. Then, there were the Liverpool Poets – my generation, who had accents & wrote in common language. I grew up just outside Liverpool and was a teenager in the 60s.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Bed & more bed! I used to avoid writing, by going to my desk, turning on my computer to check emails, telling myself I’d do it after, but time always ran out. Thankfully now I work less, I’ve reversed it. I can spend whole mornings in bed reading poetry, writing, going online. Jo Bell’s 52 got me writing daily, which she encouraged.

5. What motivates you to write?

Hmm it’s changed. I don’t have so much to say these days and rely more on prompts, workshops and hearing certain poets.

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m not sure what you mean by this. I try to keep myself challenged to improve and get feedback. I read, go to events and keep connected to the poetry community, which I love. Ethic to me, also means being supportive of other poets, writing about issues that matter to me, such as #MeToo anthology, eco issues.

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

I’m not sure if they do. Living itself imbues us with outlook, values and all sorts of subliminal stuff. I don’t go back and read them. I’m an Aries and tend to keep moving on. There are so many amazing poets today, I just trust that those of the past have gotten into my woodwork and added to its patina.

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

I tend to respond to poets who are direct, with fresh imagery, who write with passion, and who connect me to my heart. I’m not good with very cerebral poetry. There’s something about poets who’ve experienced dark times and have courageously kept their humanity. They’re way-showers and help us too. Poets like: Jo Bell, Kim Moore, Kai Miller, Ocean Vuong. I also love poets who are witty, surreal and playful like Kathryn Maris, Hilda Sheehan and lately I enjoyed seeing the American writer D.A. Powell.

9. Why do you write?

I’ve always been creative in different forms, with a desire to communicate. In fact, it overwhelmed & confused me, when I was young. I had periods of doing art, and times of writing, in between acting jobs. The ‘in between time’ was far greater than working time. I no longer do art, but have a much more fraught relationship with it, than with writing. I’ve a massive resistance block with art, plus cost of materials, need for storage space. Writing, and poetry in particular, is so portable. You can pick up & put down a poem. It can last for years of tweaking, editing. I still have a rollercoaster relationship with self-belief in my writing, as do most poets. One moment you’re in love with your latest poem, the next, it’s dog-chewed doggerel. I’ve written 2 self-help books since being commissioned to write a book for cancer patients & families, back in the 80s. I love the idea that someone can benefit from my writing. I have a regular column of articles in the local journal. I’m a psychotherapist so it’s an outlet for my insights about human experience.

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

Oh gosh, there’s so much on this topic. Firstly, a desire/need to write that will not be put-off by the many obstacles. Just write, even if it’s a private journal, get used to putting your thoughts down. Observe things closely. If you want to get published, join a writing group, do a course. This means being prepared for feedback and re-editing work you hold dear. It’s confidence building to have support from other writers, not just friends who adore everything you do. Learn to take rejection and keep going. Reading is paramount, find writing/writers you admire; let them inspire you and identify where you might fit into the broad church of writing. Like many naïve poets, I thought reading others might interfere with my ‘voice’. I was so embarrassed when I realised my arrogance. So, beware of grandiosity and leaping ahead of yourself. It’s pointless sending your unseen manuscript to Faber when you’ve never been published. Having said that, try to avoid comparing yourself with your peers, it’s a deadly pursuit that spawns envy and wrecks confidence. You’ll never be a Carol Ann Duffy, that part’s taken. There are so many talented poets out there. Aim to be the best you can be, challenge yourself. Be genuine and write from who you are.

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

I’m still enthusiastically launching my new pamphlet, Girl Golem, which was published by 4Word in September and doing readings. It’s the culmination of several years’ writing, on my childhood & family heritage. My parents were child migrants from Ukrainian Russia in 1912 & 1914. The sense of ‘otherness & foreignness’ is a major theme, one that pervaded my childhood and youth. Being Jewish was one factor (as was not being an orthodox Jew), being left-handed, creative, spiritual, and lesbian were other obstacles I battled with. It took me till nearly 50 to feel at home in myself. Despite my current post-publishing doldrums, I hope to expand Girl Golem into a collection that explores wider themes of identity, in relationships, with nature, society and of course ageing. I will be 70 next year and it feels like a big deal. I may be entering my last decade and I want to make the most of it, while I can.

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 Wrinch

is a poet, organiser and presenter of Loose Muse for writers at Winchester Discovery Centre. Her first poetry collection, ‘Down By Wild Water’ was published in 2015.She has had poems published in numerous Anthologies and in response to Art Exhibitions. She appears in ‘154 Poems By 154 Contemporary Poets, Poems in The Woven Tale Press Vol 1V. ‘Leads To Leeds’ a collaborative poetry project set up by Helen Mort in 2016.
She was Highly commended and also won second prize in the Elmbridge Poetry Competition 2015, 2016 & 2018; has poems commissioned by Live Canon for the Pink Floyd Exhibition at the V&A in 2017, a Brexit Haiku and a Christmas poem.
She was organiser and Director of the “UK-India Festival Of Words’ in 2017 at the Winchester Discovery Centre and Co-Editor with Abegail Morley for Loose Muse Winchester Poetry Anthology published April 2018.
She is currently working on her second collection.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I have written poetry from a young age mostly I think to understand the world in general and my relationships.  I find poetry clarifies, I can use it unpick and express feelings.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

We had poetry books at home but I think school teachers encouraged me to take an interest in poetry from Primary onwards.

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

I think I was aware of the ‘great’ poets but I didn’t find them dominating just inspiring.  I love the Metaphysical Poets but also Hopkins and Heaney.  I have always read a wide range of poets, seeking knowledge and inspiration.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a routine!  I write when I feel inspired but also when a deadline approaches.  I organise and present a writers’ evening once a month called ‘Loose Muse’ in Winchester where I book two poets to present their work.  We also have Open Mic sessions and I try to write a new poem to read at this every month.  I also often have ideas for poems while I’m walking my dog.

5. What motivates you to write?

I often write about my experiences, feelings and relationships.  I find poetry helps clarify how I feel.  Writing about it helped me express grief and anger.  I also write about joy and find a great deal of inspiration in the natural world. I sometimes write for commissions which I really enjoy.

6. What is you work ethic?

I think to write as well as I can while reaching to do better if that makes sense? I am writing for my second collection at the moment so I am trying to hone each poem and make it the best I can.  I’m also listening to advice from poets I admire and trust.
7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I am quite good at remembering poems or bits of them and I still feel admiration for a lot of the poets I read growing up.  I think everything we read influences us in some way, language, turns of phrase, the rhythm and rhyme of poems.  I think I collected a lot along the way that influences how I write today.

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

I am delighted by and admire many contemporary poets, particularly some excellent women writing today.  I was entranced by Liz Berry when I first heard her read her work and later read it for myself.  I greatly admire and enjoy the work of Helen Mort and also Kim Moore.  I had the great pleasure of booking all three of these poets for Loose Muse and found their work astoundingly good.  They are intelligent, articulate women that often express current issues concerning women today such as everyday sexism, motherhood etc. My list of poets I admire would be too long to write here!  I am constantly on the lookout for new poets and am always amazed at both the quantity and quality of those I find.

9. Why do you write?

I write because I have to, I have no choice.  I find it illuminating, sometimes infuriating but always rewarding.  I simply couldn’t not write.

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

I would first encourage them to read as widely as possible.  Tell them to try and hear the poets who inspire them.  I think it is also important to learn the craft of writing and there are many opportunities to do this.  Taking short courses, poetry workshops and Poetry Residential’s all help to develop confidence and skills. Finding a mentor can also be important for developing your work. Joining a poetry Stanza group may also help. When you feel ready it can also be very beneficial to put your work before an audience in an Open Mic.

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

I am working on my second poetry collection.  I often get distracted by organising readings, putting workshops together or, recently, editing a Loose Muse Anthology so it is great to take some time now to concentrate on my own work.  I am hoping to publish this collection next year.

 

 

On Fiction Wombwell Rainbow Interview

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 fiction writers you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Andrew David Barker

was born in Derby, England in 1975. He is a writer and filmmaker. He is the author of The Electric and the novella Dead Leaves. As a filmmaker, he wrote and directed the cult, post-apocalyptic indie feature, A Reckoning,in 2011, and has recently made the short films, Two Old Boys and Shining Tor. He lives in Warwickshire with his wife and daughter, trying to be a grown up.

andrewdavidbarker.com

twitter.com/ADBarker

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write fiction?

I’ve just always loved stories, and I’ve always had ideas for stories. I had a pretty poor education though and I was still pretty much learning to read and write when I left school. I spent my 20s educating myself and novels for very much part of that education. I didn’t read a novel voluntarily until the summer I left school. That was Clifford D. Simak’s Out of their Minds, a fantasy novel from 1970. This led me to outline my own fantasy, adventure novel and me and my friend Ben Waldram spent the next five years or so trying to write it. It was set in the afterlife and the project grew large and unwieldy and was certainly beyond my capabilities to finish it. I learned a lot working on that project though.
Plus, I was always distracted by other creative pursuits. Filmmaking was, and sometimes probably still is, just as interesting to me as writing novels, so I was always trying to make films as well when I was younger. Me and my mates made our big hit when we were in college in 1993 – an anthology horror called Tales from Hell, which is about as good as you can imagine.
Stephen King was a big influence early on. But I also read David Gemmell, and Clive Barker, and Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole, which also had a big effect on me. I was interested in genre, but also interested in stories that existed in worlds similar to the one I grew up in. Certainly judging by my first book, The Electric, the balance between the two has never left me. That book deals with movies and the supernatural, but also exists in the world that I grew up in.

2. Who introduced you to fiction?

Early on it was my mum. She liked horror fiction and tales of the supernatural. My love of a good ghost story comes from her. She read James Herbert and had books by Aleister Crowley on the shelf. She still loves a good ghost story.
My friend Ben, who I mentioned earlier, also introduced me to fiction, and without his influence and excitement for reading and writing stories, I probably wouldn’t have become a writer.

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

I’m not really. I suppose I was when I was younger. I never really thought I’d ever be published. I was conscious of my lack of education and was always frightened someone cleverer than me would pull my writing apart. I used to think that because I was from a working class background I had no right becoming a novelist. I thought of writing novels as an elitist thing – something only the privileged get to do – and it most cases it very much is, but I forged on anyway.
I am intimidated by the brilliance of say, Cormac McCarthy or Dickens, but I’ve learned to live with all that now. You can never be that good, so why worry about it? I no longer care about any of that stuff anymore because I’m just doing my own thing. My background and experiences and the way I see the world make me who I am as a writer – they give me my identity, my voice, for want of a better word, and I wouldn’t change any of that now.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Like many writers I still have a day job. I’ve always had to have another income. I feel that if you are able, in this day in age, to get up every morning and afford to write all day, every day and still pay all the bills, then you are in a very privileged position indeed. No art form really pays anymore, unless you are really flying. So I work and I have to carve out time every day to write. I have a family and a job and mostly I don’t get started until gone eight o’clock at night. After a day of work and being a parent and a husband there’s not much juice left in the tank by eight, but I have to discipline myself to do it. Some nights it works, some nights it doesn’t.
I’m working on a novel at the moment so my routine is to work Sunday to Thursday in the evenings and also very early on Saturday mornings. I give myself Friday and Saturday nights off. That’s it. If I wasn’t working I would write in the mornings all week as that’s my preferred time to write, but I have to just do what I can in the time I’ve got.

5. What motivates you to write?

The excitement of a good story idea and being with the characters I create. It’s that simple. I don’t write for money because as I’ve said making money out of this stuff is impossible, certainly on my level. So I do it because I love it. I feel good once I’ve written, feel great in fact. I think writing makes me a better person, certainly a saner person. I can handle life better when I’m writing.
I’ve attempted a lot of other creative pursuits. I’ve directed films and played in a rock band, and although I did love those things, they did not give me the same sense of satisfaction as writing a good page does.
I remember when I finished writing The Electric, my first novel; I could hardly believe that I’d done it. At long last I’d written a novel. That feeling was like nothing else.

6. What is your work ethic?

To try and finish everything I start. After Dead Leaves came out in 2015 I attempted and abandoned two novels in the space of a year and a half. This ground me to a halt. It knocked my confidence and sent into a kind of limbo for a while. 2018 has been the year I was determined to turn things around.
I wrote and directed two short films, Two Old Boys and Shining Tor, and wrote the screenplays for two other shorts directed by other people, One, Nine, Three and Endling, and I wrote a small collection of ghost stories, which I hope to get published in 2019.
Making these shorts, actually completing the work and having them screened in front of an audience was thrilling and energising. More than that though, I’ve been successful in getting an Arts Council grant to write a novel, which is just incredible because I’ve never had any help or backing before. So I’m back at work on a novel, writing as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast truth be told, but I am doing it and I am going to finish it.
Finishing a project is the key to everything.

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

Stephen King is still an influence. He’s a master storyteller. He has an identity that just draws you in and his characters are great. I always remember the characters more than the monsters.
8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?
Magnus Mills is my favourite British novelist; Paul Auster is my favourite American novelist. Although that could all change next week. They both write about characters and worlds I understand. I also greatly admire Haruki Murakami for his balance of the fantasque and surreal and the deeply personal.
I’m always looking for someone new to inspire me. Books are very personal things, much like music. It has to connect. I don’t see one thing as being high art and other being low art. The Great Gatsby speaks to me as much as The Shining. They’re both great books that speak of the dread, honesty and darkness of the human heart. Magnus Mills speaks to me because I know blokes like the ones he writes about; I’ve grown up with them, worked with them, and he’s one of the very few working class writers out there that is genuinely from the world he writes about. So there is a real honesty about his work. Honesty and heart are the things I look for, I suppose.

9. Why do you write?

To make sense of the world and to make sense of myself.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”
Just write. Take to the time to develop yourself and only submit or put something out there when you are a hundred percent sure of it. That said, I’m still learning. I’ve only ever been published through small presses. I’ve never had an agent or even had an agent interested in me. I hope to change that, but I’m not pushing it. The work itself is what I’m interested in. If you’re in it for fame and money and power, then forget it. It has to be a pure love, otherwise, what’s the point? You might get fame and money – there are a few lucky ones that fall through the net – but more than likely you won’t, and you’ve got to be fine with that.
Keep writing, keep submitting, keep getting better.

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

Well I feel like a novelist again. It’s taken a while. I’ve been making short films for the most of this year and writing short stories, but now I’ve cleared the decks of all that stuff and am only working on the novel until it’s done, which will be in the spring, all being well.
My novella, Dead Leaves, has just been reissued in a new paperback through Black Shuck Books and I’m hoping to work with them again at some point. Moves are also being made on the production of an audiobook for The Electric, something I’ve been wanting to get done for years, so I’m very excited about that. Hopefully that’ll be out early 2019.
As for the novel, it’s a departure in that the first two books are in first person and were told in the timeframe of only a couple of days, whereas this one is in third person and covers a decade in the lives of the protagonists. There are movies, of course – they seem to be my thing – and working class characters struggling to stay afloat, but there is also love, and a lot of heart. I’m trying to dig deep on this one. We’ll see.

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.

Photo by Emma Bolland

Angelina D’Roza

Angelina lives in Sheffield.  Her first collection, Envies the Birds, was published in 2016 by Longbarrow Press.

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing?

I saw a Margaret Atwood quote that may or may not be real, but it went something like … most people write when they are children, so the real question is why do they stop …  I know why I stopped, at least I have a list of likely contributing factors.  They are mundane.  Predictable.

For me the question is why did I start again.  It was 2005.  I was 29.  I’d worked in healthcare since I was 16, had a nursing degree, a good position.  And I left.  I’d decided to do the MA Writing at SHU, except I had no good reason to give them for letting me in, no writing portfolio, no clue, nothing.  So I applied for the Film and Literature degree, with no expectation of getting on.

The reasons I give for why I made these decisions vary according to who’s asking.  None untrue.  But what we think of as driving our choices, are to some extent, the stories we tell to make sense of them.  No one story fully explains why I gave up the career and security I’d worked so hard for, with no evidence to suggest it would work out fine.  But it did.

Actually, it took me till 2015 to feel like I was writing.  So your answer is 2015.  But the real question is why I kept trying the 10 years prior.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

The first poems I heard were prayers, but I don’t remember being introduced beyond that.  Perhaps I was.  There would have been this and that at school, but I don’t have any strong sense that poetry was part of the same world I grew up in.  I think I introduced myself.

3. How aware were you of the dominant influence of older poets, traditional and contemporary?

“The lyric subject, the lyric ‘I’, was largely invisible to me until I crossed a border.  To put it more accurately, it became noticeable only when I returned to England, where I was born, and into the sovereignty of its dominant poetic mode”.
(Sandeep Parmar)

I feel like this question has an answer embedded, which makes me wonder what we mean by dominant and what we mean by awareness.  And how both these concepts might shift depending on where you’re standing.

As someone with only very little knowledge trying to introduce myself, 20 years ago, every book I picked up felt like a drop in some uncrossable sea.  I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was looking at.  At least dead poets gave the impression of holding still, while I asked myself that most basic question of whether I liked the poem.  Coleridge, Hopkins and Dickinson were my beginning.  I liked the poems.

Is it older poets that dominate, or specific older poets, specific voices, values, aesthetics?  Is it a familiar (imagined, nostalgic, constructed, aspirational?) version of ourselves (some selves) being reflected back to us, a potential sense of shared culture, of lineage, a reading foundation we might have in common as readers, and later, converse with as writers?  Reframed, revised, the same processes of exclusion and amendment going on and on.  It can make the shelves navigable.  But how aware can you be that something is dominant, if you don’t know much else?  It’s a process, an activity, a becoming aware that accrues each time you glimpse the aw(e)ful and wondrous abyss of all that remains unknown to you.  When you catch sight of your own conditioning.

In Sandeep Parmar’s essay, “Lyric violence, the nomadic subject and the fourth space”, she describes the British lyric “I” as speaking “from within a kind of integrated knowingness and belonging”  That is, “its inherent premise of universality, its coded whiteness”.  She talks about “the literary gatekeepers of shared assumptions [and] the ways that assumptions about individual voices are read within national idealisations of the state and its culture”.  What dominates in the UK?  Do we know?  Is it older poets, is it white European, heteronormative, male?  Are we inside it, addressed by it, and so, unseeing of it?  The more questions I ask, the more questions I have.

4. What is your writing routine?

I’m not better in a morning or better at night.  I don’t write every day.   I haven’t done morning pages for years.  When I’m writing, really writing, it’s intense and it feels like it will go on forever.  When I’m not writing, it feels like I never will again.  I’ve learnt to go with it, to listen to my rhythms, to pay attention to when it’s time to stop, because if I keep going I’m going to be writing the same poem over and over.  And when to clear the day of everything else because it’s time to start again.

I just finished writing a poetry pamphlet.  I thought it was finished in spring.  In the summer, I started a new writing project, a collaboration with an artist, and found the poems belonged to the pamphlet.  They had a different undercurrent to what had gone before, but they lifted that earlier work, completed it.  And I came to them because of the break.  That time to take things in from all sides.  To be affected, altered even.  But I don’t like to stop.  I miss it.  It’s my safe place, the one place I am certain of.  It rescues me.  Not painless, not at all, but mine to feel in, to work things out in, to trust.

Most often, I write in bed.  Half the bed is always covered in books, biscuits, a guitar.  So, there’s no reason to move.  I’ll have made a cup of tea to go cold beside me.  I have a notebook full of recipes and shopping lists and work-related maths and poems I’m working out.  But I don’t start poems on paper because it will take me a lot of trying to begin, a lot of testing a word, a phrase, a line, before something catches.  I can’t do that on paper.  I censor myself on paper, though I like to see notes of other people’s crossings out.  I think it’s beautiful.  Later, when something is taking a shape on my laptop, I might hand-write it out, try to summon up what I have and see what falls away in the remembering, see what that might mean or where it might go next.  I forget to eat, am late for everything, sleep little.  I don’t clean my house or brush my hair.  I write.

5. What motivates you to write?

The impetus to write comes from reading, though it would be difficult to say why a certain line catches me that way.  It is something to do with the language and turn of it, as much as what is being said.  Obvious, I know, but still somehow, hard to pin down.  Perhaps because that line might have nothing to stick to, but leave a trace that waits for the right time and some unrelated image or story or emotion to collide with.  It’s always a surprise to me, where it begins and where it goes.

6. What is your work ethic?

Don’t settle.

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

I’m reading Anne Carson’s “The Glass Essay”, where the speaker goes to visit her mother after a break-up.  Her mother lives alone on a moor, and her main fear whenever she visits, is that she is turning into Emily Brontë:

my lonely life around me like a moor,
my ungainly body stumping over the mud flats with a look of transformation
that dies when I come in the kitchen door.
What meat is it, Emily, we need?

The poem talks about Emily, at times, as though she’s in the room, an explicit exploration of the ways some writers sit with us in our attempts towards expression or sense-making.  Perhaps writers I’ve read help to define the range of potential sense intelligible to me.  To read widely, then, is to increase this possibility.  Nothing is fixed.

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

Vahni Capildeo, Fay Musselwhite, Maggie Nelson.  Because I believe them.  Because they make beautiful, thoughtful, thinking work.  Because they don’t settle.

9. Why do you write?

To work something out.

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

“Please give me some good advice in your next letter.  I promise not to follow it” … (Edna St Vincent Millay).  The advice that I’ve most often seen going round is to write and to read, and those are the two activities that make me a writer.  But I don’t know how useful that is as advice.  I think people will read and write what interests and excites them as they find it.  The thing is how to find it.  What I’d be interested in suggesting is the value of a community, that if they can find or build a community of other writers, they’ll be fine.

11. Writing projects.

Dostoyevsky Wannabe are an independent press and they have a “Cities” series of books.  I’m writing a sort of essay-epistolary-poem for the Sheffield edition, which will be launched in March 2019.  It’s got an amazing line-up with Emma Bolland editing, so I’m looking forward to that.  (https://www.dostoyevskywannabe.com/dw_cities_sheffield/Cities)

Also, the pamphlet I mentioned is called “Correspondences”, and is a series of poems reflecting on aspects of home and distance and displacement, a sort of writing into the space created by working in the Middle East.  It will be published by Longbarrow Press next year.  Longbarrow are another independent press and it’s their care and craft and ethics that makes them quite special.  Genuinely valuable.  They don’t get funding.  They don’t make a profit.  They just make lovely, thoughtful things.  Small presses are vital, to resist, augment, diversify from, the mainstream, so I think it’s important to engage with them, support them, buy from them …  (https://longbarrowpress.com)

Wombwell Rainbow Interview

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.

‘How interesting that one of the finest books on NIetzsche should be a novel’ – Jason Wirth (Seattle University)

David Pollard

has been furniture salesman, accountant, TEFL teacher and university lecturer. He got his three degrees from the University of Sussex and has since taught at the universities of Sussex, Essex and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he was a Lady Davis Scholar. His doctoral thesis was published as: The Poetry of Keats: Language and Experience (Harvester and Barnes & Noble). He has also published A KWIC Concordance to the Harvard Edition of Keats’ Letters, a novel, Nietzsche’s Footfalls (Self-published) and five volumes of poetry, patricides, Risk of Skin and Self-Portraits (all from Waterloo Press), bedbound (from Perdika Press), Finis-terre (from Agenda) and Three Artists (from Lapwing Publications). He has translated from Gallego, French and German. He has also been published in other volumes and in learned journals and many reputable poetry magazines. He divides his time between Brighton on the South coast of England and a village on the Rias of Galicia.
There is a substantial article on his work which appeared in Research in Phenomenology and which can be read here
Further information can be found at
davidpollard.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pollard_(author)

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I have written poetry all my life but think I might be a rather better critic than a poet. I used to put my scribbles away and come back to them a couple of months later only to be dismayed by their lack of promise and chuck them in the waste-paper basket. This continued until about a dozen years ago I sent a couple of pieces off to Simon Jenner at Waterloo Press who immediately came back to me with a promise to publish. With this encouragement I stopped throwing everything away.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Well I came to it late and have to thank my English teacher, John Middleton Murry, son of the famous critic, who made me love Wordsworth and Shakespeare at school and was a great encourager. I recall his immense patience as he read through my meandering teenage Romantic wanderings about sex and death – about which I knew precisely nothing – and quietly correct them. He finally put his arm round my shoulders and told me ‘David, go away and write a sonnet’. Good advice indeed.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets? Not too much. I was schooled in the Romantics and did my PhD on Keats although T.S Eliot was there along with Emily Dickenson wordsmiths like Tennyson.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t really have one. Being retired and having a pension, I can please myself but I do sit at my desk and deal with questioneers like this and then look at an essay I am working on and write a few words. I am essentially lazy. I do some Book designing for Waterloo Press which also takes up time.

5. What motivates you to write?

This rather depends on the kind of writing. Poetry either comes or not. It is a question of inspiration. Poetic creativity is based in the failure of language. It is when the word withdraws itself that the poet can listen into the silence in the hope that the word will grant itself. This withdrawal of language is itself the greatest gift that language has to offer and it is this gift that the poet faces. The poet accepts gratefully the hint which language grants him in its withdrawal and, turning towards the hiatus thus given him, maintains himself within it. Refusing to accept any alternative, he recognises the fact (exactly the reverse of what is generally thought true of the poet) that, far from being a particularly gifted user of language – the one who, above all else, has language under his control – it is language that controls him.. I have to wait for this gift. Sometimes it comes, sometimes not.

6. What is your work ethic?

‘Work ethic is a rather WASP notion. I don’t really have an ethic relating to work. In the case of prose composition, reviews and such like (what I might consider work) I sit at my desk and think the subject over in the hope that something vaguely original might come out of it.

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

Just as painting is looking so writing is reading. I read Shakespeare through T.S. Eliot and Dostoievski. I even read Dostoievski through Dostoievski. You bring your reading history to whatever you do. You can’t help it. Wordsworth was damned by Keats’ calling him ‘a poet of the egotistical sublime’ but I love him nonetheless and, of course, Keats himself to whom I devoted my doctoral thesis. I was resident Romanticist at the Hebrew University for a year.

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

It’s a pretty long list buts here are the headers: Carlos Fuentes, Alejo Carpentier, Marguerite Yourcenar, Edmund Jabès, Maurice Blanchot. For the beauty of their writing style and the depth of their thought. Earlier: Heidegger and Dostoievski, Thomas Mann, Hannah Arendt who all drag you back to yourself and make you think afresh at each reading. John Sallis is currently occupying me as a (what might you call him?) post-aesthetician. Of poets: Neruda, Wallace, Celan, Jabès, Oppen, Crane, Ashbery. It’s a long list.

9. Why do you write?

You write because the words are given and it would be such a waste not to write them down. I follow Keats in thinking that forced labour produces second-rate work. Without the 10% inspiration you are lost. Its all about negative capability.

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

If someone asks that question then they are, it seems to me, unlikely to become a writer. If you need to read my book, you will never understand it. If you understand it, clearly there will be no need to read it.

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

I am currently working on two projects: one is my next book of poems provisionally called ‘Broken Voices’ which will hopefully be out early next year from Waterloo Press and the other is a prose text examining self-portraiture which is rather longer term and probably impossible to publish because of the number of costly illustrations. I wrote a book of poetry called ‘Self-Portraits’ which is a set of 88 artists imaging (imagining) themselves and each poem relates to a self-portrait. This new work is really a continuation of that interest but in prose. On the back boiler are work on Blake and Nietzsche (a continuation of my ‘Nietzsche’s Footfalls’) and on Shakespeare.

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.

The illustration is the cover of her pamphlet “Spoiled Milk + Wet Specimen” from The Blasted Tree,

Erin Emily Ann Vance

holds a BA (honours) in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Calgary, and is nearing the end of her MA in English and Creative Writing under the supervision of Suzette Mayr. She will be pursuing an MA in Folklore and Ethnology at University College Dublin in 2019. Vance attended the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry summer course at Queen’s University Belfast in July 2018, and will be a fellow of Summer Literary Seminars in Nairobi in December 2018. She will be attending the Writers Guild of Alberta Banff Centre Residency in February 2019 and is a 2019 apprentice of the Writers Guild of Alberta Mentorship Program. Vance’s work has appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, Augur, In/Words, The Quilliad, Plentitude, and filling station. Her first chapbook, The Night Will Be Long but Beautiful was published by Lofton8th press in August 2016 and the Blasted Tree Publishing Collective published her leaflet, Wet Specimen + Spoiled Milk in 2018. Erin Vance was a recipient of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize in 2017 (nominated by Aritha van Herk) and a finalist for the 2018 Alberta Magazine Awards for her short story “All the Pretty Bones.” Her poems “the drag of the key in the lock,” and “Honey Cookery” were nominated for the 2018 Best of the Net Anthology. Her first novel, Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers will be released by Stonehouse Publishing in Fall 2019, and her latest poetry chapbook The Sorceress Who Left Too Soon: Poems after Remedios Varo will be published by Coven Editions in 2019.
http://www.erinvance.ca
@erinemilyann (Twitter/ Instagram)
Buy her latest pamphlet here: http://www.theblastedtree.com/store/spoiled-milk-wet-specimen

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

My father is a musician and songwriter and he would write the most beautiful songs to commemorate events, like my great grandparents’ anniversary or the death of a loved one. I could see how the words and melodies connected to the moment and people better than a cake or a casket ever could. My parents read to me as much as they could and I devoured books. As a child I found myself both obsessively writing stories and singing to myself all day. We lived in the country and I would wander around the property, through the trees and jumping across the creeks, singing and telling myself stories. I enjoyed solitude and being outside where my words could fade into the wind.

For me, poetry was the bridge between stories and song. Poetry has an immense flexibility that I held onto while growing and evolving from a small child to an adult. The fluidity was something that I could not replicate elsewhere.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My father introduced me to the power of words through song writing and I’d grown up reading poetry, but my real induction into the realm of poetry occurred when I was ten years old. I attended a summer camp for ‘gifted’ children at the University of Calgary lead by Jennifer Aldred. For two weeks we journalled, wrote stories and poems, sang, watched films, made art, and read and recited poetry.

Later, I attended a summer camp called Youthwrite, where I met and was later mentored by Sheri D Wilson in spoken word poetry. I learned about the Beats and surrealist and contemporary spoken word artists. Later, I attended Wordsworth, a summer youth residency, where Lisa Murphy Lamb introduced me to Sandy Pool, whose instruction helped shape me into the poet I am today. During my undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Calgary, I had the unparalleled experience of working with Aritha van Herk, Suzette Mayr, and Larissa Lai. All of these writers had profound influence on me, but much of my philosophy on writing and craft is thanks to Aritha van Herk.

I spent a week this summer at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast, and I feel as though I was reintroduced to poetry. There is a difference, though it feels intangible, between my poetry education in Canada and my poetry education in Ireland. In Canada, I’ve shied away from any semblance of sentimentality altogether. In working with Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Ellen Cranitch, Stephen Sexton, and more unbelievably talented people in Belfast, I found not only was it okay to write with feeling and sentimentality, but that doing so often enriched my writing and helped me to further establish my own poetic voice.

3. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a regular, structured routine right now, because my work and study schedule doesn’t allow for it. Some days I start work at eight in the morning, others at six in the evening. I write for about an hour each day, though often that time is also split between editing and submitting work for publication. Editing and submitting are just as important as the writing itself. I write at my desk, in bed, on the bus, in cafes, at the bar, and anywhere else I may be when I feel the itch. I work several jobs and am a graduate student, so while I have much more free time than most people, I don’t yet have the luxury of long stretches of daily scheduled writing time. I get a surprising amount done while my students write tests, however!

4. What motivates you to write?

Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I am always trying to write the books and stories and poems that I want to read, so in a way, I write for myself. I want to see my thoughts and ideas realized.

5. What is your work ethic?

I have a fairly strong work ethic. I rarely go a day without writing, editing, or submitting, and often do all three in a day, however this work ethic is spread over multiple projects at once. I switch genres frequently, so sometimes it feels as though I’m working at a snail’s pace, though I really am working quickly, just on enough projects that each seems to progress rather slowly. I also try to read as much as possible, and include it as part of my writing practice.

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

The first poets I became obsessed with were Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I still read them nearly every day and collect editions of their work and various biographies. I never “grew out” of the confessional poets, and I am always aching to know more about them and read new work by them. I love reading their letters and diaries and collected works, over and over. It’s like crawling into bed with my childhood teddy bear. They are with me every time I sit down to write.

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

There are so many writers working today whom I admire for both their talent and their commitment to bettering the world. I admire all of the incredible poets and novelists out there fighting the good fight: Jen Sookfong Lee, Bola Opaleke, Billy Ray Belcourt, Joshua Whitehead, Bhanu Kapil, Carmen Maria Machado, Nikki Reimer, Vivek Shraya, Chelsea Vowel, Ian Williams, Alicia Elliot, Jordan Abel, A. H. Reaume, and so many more! I admire writers who work from a place of unease, who are stirring the waters with their words and careers all of the time.

I also love following writers who I’m just really excited about! Some of these are: Sonya Vatomsky, Vanessa Maki, Afieya Kipp, Effy Winter, Isabella Wang, Jenna Velez, Ailey O’Toole, Arielle Tipa, Hannah Kent, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Miriam Nash, Milena Williamson, Stephen Sexton, Lauren Lawler, Paul Meunier, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Jess Rizkallah, Sennah Yee, Susannah M. Smith, Catherine Garbinsky, and Sandra Kasturi.

9. Why do you write?

This question used to be simple—a clichéd answer about ‘making a difference,’ ‘being heard,’ or ‘it’s my passion.’ The more I write the more I realize that it is less of a choice and more of a compulsion—a wonderful, exciting compulsion, but a compulsion nonetheless. Simply put, I don’t know how to exist without writing and reading. I have so many thoughts and ideas that send me manic and restless and the only relief comes with writing them down. Writing is both pleasure and pain, but it is above all, a persistent knocking from the inside of my skull telling me to put that overactive imagination to use. I love writing, and rereading something I wrote after a time away is like greeting a messy, old friend.

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

This is a tricky question, because there are so many different ways to be a writer. Many will say that to be a writer one simply has to write. I disagree. My advice for those aspiring to be writers is always this: read voraciously and widely. At the risk of sounding redundant, you cannot be a successful writer if you do not read. Read outside of your comfort zone, and every day. Not only will it make you a better writer, but it is important to stay current in the genres you are working in, and writers have a certain level of responsibility to each other to read books other than their own. It sounds harsh, but if you do not read, you are not a writer. Full stop. Oh, and keep your day job. You’ll probably need it to pay the bills, and if you’re lucky enough not to, it’s important to get out of the house once in awhile.

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

I am currently finishing my master’s thesis, The Art of Drowning in Haunted Waters under the supervision of Dr. Suzette Mayr; a hybrid gothic novel about a young epileptic woman told in poetry and prose. It is part fable, part mystery. That is my biggest focus until I hand it in on November ninth. I am also polishing my novel, Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers, which is set for publication in late 2019 (Stonehouse Publishing). This book is a meditation on grief and family dynamics following trauma, with a fair amount of ghosts and small town gossip thrown in. I am thrilled for it to be out in the world. In addition to these projects, I have a full-length poetry manuscript that I will be working on with Kimmy Beach as part of the 2019 Writers Guild of Alberta Mentorship Program. This collection focuses on women in folklore and history labelled as “hysterics” and interrogates their position in society and attempts to elevate their voices. My last ‘big project’ is a collection of short stories and flash fiction called No One Believes You Except for the Dead. The collection is slowly coming together, and I work on it when my motivation for my other projects diminishes. And, of course, I am always writing poems when an idea comes to me, regardless of whether they fit into a particular project or not.

 

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.

Jean O’Brien

Jean O’Brien’s fifth poetry collection, New & Selected, Fish on a Bicycle was published by Salmon Publishing (2016). and has recently been reprinted. Her work is widely anthologised, most recently in The Lea Green Down, Ed. Eileen Casey. Eavan Boland: Inside History (Eds. Campbell and O’Mahony), Reading the Future, Ed. Alan Hayes. The Enchanting Verses (Irish Ed. Patrick Cotter), The Windharp, (Ed Niall MacMonagle), If You Ever Go, One City One Book (Eds. Boran and Smyth). She was featured writer for New Hibernia Review (USA).
Festival include: The Gerald Manley Hopkins, The Goldsmith, An Cuirt, Armagh Literary Festival, Dublin Book Festival, Five Lamps (2012), Leaves, (2015 and 2017) Dromineer (2013). In conjunction with the Polish Embassy she took part in the tribute readings for Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska. This year she read at the Cork International Poetry Festival.
She works as a poet and tutor in prisons, schools, travellers centres, libraries and various County Councils. She tutors in the Irish Writers Centre in person and on-line with a USA university on their MFA programme.
Awards include:
She was a 2017/18 recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship. She was the winner of The Arvon International Award (2010) The Fish International Award (2008) She was highly commended in the Forward Prize and was awarded two residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and more recently at the Tin Jug Studios in Birr. She has just been shortlisted for the UCD competition ‘Voices of War’.
http://www.jeanobrien.ie

The Interview

Q. 1 What inspired you to write poetry?

I was originally moved to write poetry, like I suppose a lot of teenagers are, to explain the world to myself. You know that mournful adolescent phrase most of us go through where we are our own whole world. I had lost my mother to suicide the summer I turned fifteen, and my beloved grandmother a few months previously, and so had something to be mournful about.

Q. 2 Who introduced you to poetry?

Funnily enough my mother. She had a copy from her own schooldays of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury which I used to read a lot. In school I also liked poetry and liked learning it off by heart, which is frowned upon now, but I still remember snatches of poems I learned over 40 years ago and cannot remember any of my own writing. I wish I had had more drummed into me in the ‘sponge’ years.

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

Initially barely in the ‘home scene’, obviously I was very aware of the poets in Palgraves who were the likes of Keats, Wordsworth, Shelly, Byron etc. The Sylvian poets as Eavan Boland called them. Of living Irish poets I was barely aware, but loved Kavanagh and Yeats.
As I started publishing I became very aware of them and of the idea of having to do an apprenticeship before you could even dream of joining their ranks. Unfortunately the world changed and now it seems to be all the New Kids on the Block who get the attention and other than a handful such as Boland, Muldoon, Meehan, Longley McGuckian etc. the rest of us I think feel a little short changed, by the moving of the goalposts.

Q. 4 What is your daily writing routine?

Not good! I write in my living space, so it is hard to stop myself just ‘hanging out the wash’, ‘cleaning the draining board’. This of course is death to inspiration. Most writers also work at tutoring/reviewing/readings etc for a living, so the awaiting ‘work’ emails can take up a lot of time and things such as this questionnaire. When I have the bones of a poem down, I relax as I know it is there to go back to. Going to writing retreats really helps you to knuckle down and actually write.

Q. 5 What motivates you to write?
Feeling I have something I want to say, sometimes as much to myself as anyone else, but I suppose I have chosen a public platform to share my thoughts in. Occasionally if I write what could be regarded as a ‘public’ poem and I get good feed back from people, people do write and send cards etc. it is a great feeling to feel you have connected with someone and made even a tiny difference, if only for a short while. I have poems by others that I turn to for comfort and value them.

Q. 6 What is your work ethic?
I refer you to question 4 above! Not as strong as it should/could be, unfortunately I have a very strong work ethic to housework, which I know is silly, but I like things calm around me. I certainly go about the business of poetry every day and usually read other people work every day. Writing needs a lot of daydreaming time, which is often hard to achieve, going out for a walk helps.

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

I read, as I have previously mentioned, a lot of Palgrave’s and loved the mournful poems of Byron, loved too Robert Frost, who is a terrific poet for younger poets to read, as he is a master of form and has much more going on that first appears. Who could fail to be moved by Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar or Coleridge’s rousing Kubla Khan? I certainly took away a sense of rhythm, rhyme and pacing from them, whether or not I still apply them today is a moot point.

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

Oh I have a few. I just love Paul Muldoon’s sparkle and flare, his amazing use of language and his wily wit . Mary O’Donnell’s honest and subversive work, Paula Meehan’s powerful use of mythology mixed with social concerns. Eavan Boland for leading the way. That’s just in Ireland, in the UK I love people like Carol Ann Duffy for her wit and tender use of words, Simon Armitage for his socially concerned well worked words and Gillian Allnut for her surreal and mysterious poems. In America people like Ocean Vong, Joie Graham and Billy Collins. I could go on all day. something in their work sparks and excites me.

Q. 1 Why do you write?

I have some deep need too, I get fairly antsy if I haven’t been able to write for a while, it is a sort of hum in the back of my head that needs to be attended to.

Q.2 What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I would say read, read, read, and then write, write, write. It is a muscle that will grow is exercised. But you must read widely and deeply this will help you improve your word-hoard. You cannot hope to play in the orchestra until you have heard the orchestra play. Join a workshop or writing group, get used to critiquing your own and other peoples work. When you have polished a piece and put it away for a week or two then look at it again and send it out, accept rejection and keep sending out.

Q. 1 Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I am involved in something that I am not at liberty to say yet, My last collection my New & Selected Fish on a Bicycle has just been reprinted by Salmon and I tutor in prisons and colleges which keeps me fairly busy and I am always at the project of finding time for my own writing.

On Fiction 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 fiction writers you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Julian Gallo

is  author of ‘Existential Labyrinths’ and other novels. He lives and works in New York City.

My ‘author page’: https://www.amazon.com/Julian-Gallo/e/B004LZ298G
Website: http://www.juliangallo66.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Julian.Gallo.Author

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write fiction?

It most likely stemmed from my love of reading, my love of books. I’ve always been a voracious reader, since I was a kid, and I suppose that was the stimulus for me wanting to write stories of my own — and I did, many of which are now lost to the ages. I’ve always written things, poems, stories, etc, but from my teens through my thirties, I was primarily involved in music. It wasn’t until I was about 30 years old when I started to actually try to seriously write something. Poetry exclusively, at first, which seemed to be the natural progression from songwriting, then I moved on to fiction, which is what I always wanted to write.

2. Who introduced you to fiction?

As a child I read a lot of adventure, science fiction, horror, things like that — Jack London, Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and so on. In my teenage years I discovered Jack Kerouac and Beat poetry and literature in general, as well as Milan Kundera, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Herman Hesse, and the Polish novelist Tadeusz Konwicki, who’s ‘Dreambook For Our Time’ had an enormous affect on me. Then came Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Juan Goytisolo, Julio Cortázar, and too many others to mention, which opened up a new world for me and the various possibilities of the novel. Not only did I enjoy reading these authors but they all taught me there was no single way to approach the novel, that it was open to infinite possibilities.

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

They are always present, of course, but I never paid any mind to it except for their impact on literature, the enjoyment of their writing, and what they could teach me. We all approach the page in our own way and have to work with what he have. To think that I’d one day be among them is laughable nor was it ever a serious aspiration to stand along side them. With that said, this doesn’t mean one shouldn’t write. It’s like telling a young pianist to never play because they’ll never be Beethoven or Glen Gould. The younger generations have to forge their own path, do things their own way. Learn from the past but one doesn’t necessarily have to be beholden to it. We live in a very different time, with very different concerns and perspectives. It’s important that today’s writers find their own way.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I try to make it a point to write every day, though that doesn’t always happen. If I can write anywhere between 500-1500 words, I feel as if I achieved something for the day. Some days are better than others. Some days there’s nothing at all due to other life responsibilities (even though I’ve been able to sell some books over time, let’s face it, no one makes money at this). I always try to carve out some writing time each day.

5. What motivates you to write?

The love of writing. That was always my motivation and probably always will be. I thoroughly enjoy it and would do it whether I had only a handful of readers or no readers at all. Writing for me is a way to explore questions I have about life, about my personal life, about society, about identity, about the so-called ‘meaning’ to life, though I don’t pretend to have any answers to any of it. All my work explores these issues in one way or another, and this is what motivates me more than anything else. I think this is true for most writers, whatever it is that brings them to the page. Publication and writing are two completely different things and I always felt the writing itself, and the process of writing, is far more important. Some people just want to be ‘famous’ but I think those writers eventually give up when they quickly learn it’s not as easy as they assume it is. Other writers write for their own personal reasons, whether that is the love of writing, the joy in the act of creation, or whatever personal journey the act of writing gives them — self-exploration/liberation, or to simply bring into life an idea, to see it come into fruition, like any artist, whether you’re a musician or painter. Most do it for the joy it brings them.

6. What is your work ethic?

Honestly, I’m not sure, except that I am determined for my work to be unapologetically my own and to do things in my own way, despite the so-called ‘rules’ others try to impose upon it. I always feel I’m still learning, always seeking to improve and to move forward. After I’ve written something (and/or published it), I tend to leave it behind and forget about it, move on to the next thing with that goal in mind. I’m not trying to *be* anything — or anyone — other than myself and the best writer I can be, for better or worse. I’ve always admired artists who approach what they do in this way, those who couldn’t care less about trends or who the ‘darling of the moment’ is; those who have a vision and see it through to wherever it may lead; artists who are unmistakably and unapologetically themselves.

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

I think their influence is always there in some ways. For me, writers like Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, to name just a few, are always lurking over my shoulder, I suppose. I try not to *be* them, of course, but to take what I learned from them and incorporate it into my own work in my own way. I think the writers who influence us always remain with us to some extent, some more than others, but they’re always present. These are the writers we learned from, those we tried to ape when first starting out, until we find our own voices. Even if we do, I think they’re always lurking in the background or in between the text. I think this is true for all artists, no matter what medium one works in. They’re always present in some form or another.

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

There are far too many to mention but I will name a few. I admire Cesar Aira and Alejandro Zambra, for the reasons stated above. They’re both unapologetically themselves, do what they want to do, in their own way. I also like Jean-Philippe Toussaint for much of the same reasons; Patrick Modiano for exploring the questions that haunt him; Youssef Rakha, who in my mind is a genius, whose work simply stunned me when I first read it. I also love Ariana Harwicz’s ‘Die, My Love’, which I found incredible; Sjón, for not only his talent and imagination, but, again, for being the writer he wants to be; Niccoló Ammaniti, who is a brilliant storyteller and I admire his explorations into the psychology of adolescence. Then there are the writers I’ve come to know either personally or through social media — Garry Crystal, who I feel I share a literary sensibility with, and is another writer who is unapologetically himself and writes very real stories which I think anyone can relate to; Fernando Sdrigotti, who is another writer who gets it and is consistently coming up with imaginative and thoughtful work; Jessica Sequeria, whose work I find highly imaginative; the list goes on and I don’t want to insult anyone by not mentioning them. The world is teeming with interesting writers doing highly interesting work. The notion that ‘the novel is dead’ is utter bullshit and those who believe that aren’t intellectually curious enough to make the effort required to seek out the wealth of talent there is out there.

9. Why do you write?

Two reasons, mainly. First and foremost, I just love to write, and secondly, to explore those questions that are of interest to me personally. Existential issues mostly — on identity, meaning, whether there ever was one single, all encompassing ‘meaning of life’ or if we give one to ourselves, and of course self-exploration, to try to find whatever ‘meaning’ there is to life in relation to my own, which I think is a universal thing. We all have these questions but I don’t and never claimed to have the answers. Sometimes, the journey itself is the whole point and writing allows that.

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

I would tell them to trust their own instincts and write about whatever it is they want to write about. Don’t get caught up in what I like to call the ‘literary bullshit’, which unfortunately is legion (the petty competition, the joy in hatchet jobs, slavishly obeying someone else’s arbitrary ‘rules’, etc). Do your own thing. Be in touch with who you are and allow your writing to reflect that; tell your story/stories, whatever they may be, in your own way. In short, be yourself. And of course, read — read, read, read, explore, keep interested and intellectually curious about life. Inspiration is everywhere and in everything. Be open to it.

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

I have two (short) novels coming out by the end of this year. The newest, ‘Existential Labyrinths’, was just released, the other, ‘Juliette’, will be out by Christmas. I have other ideas for books I want to write. I want to take the next year to focus on that, take each day as it comes.

On Poetic Memoir 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 writers you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Christina Tudor-Sideri

lives and writes between Bucharest and Valletta.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

My first memories of writing come from the age of three, when my grandmother taught me how to write with midnight blue ink on freshly painted walls. She taught me to dip my fingers in bowls of ink and write on whatever surface I had in front of me. I course at the time I could only draw stick figures and write non-existent words, but that feeling stayed with me for a long time. The feeling of writing as a way of externalizing my insides. Anytime, anywhere, on any surface. A temporal foundation of what we sometimes call ‘being’. The transition from midnight blue stick figures to poetry happened a few years later, while visiting the local graveyard. I found myself surrounded by lilies, statues, and memory loss – erasure, traces of life leaving our collective body. Something didn’t feel right about the graves with faded names, about the tombstones lacking photographs, about all those people long-gone and now forgotten. I had this idea in my head that without a name or a photograph, without being alive at least as a memory, a person could not exist in the afterworld, expect for in the fires of hell. I know it was a peculiar thought, and it probably came from growing up in a culture influenced by death – and most of all by a fear of wrong-doing. But it was because of that thought about collective memory loss that I started writing poems on little pieces of paper and placing them on graves or tombstones without names. I would come up with stories, names, write lumbering verses about the dreams of those resting there in the cold ground, hoping that through my words they will keep on living. The opening lines of Barthes’ Camera Lucida talk about life consisting of “little touches of solitude.” If we can see history in photographs, we might be able to alter it in writing. With writing. I might be able to take all those absent faces, the negatives, the reproductions, and bring them back to life with my writing.

Looking back, not much of it makes sense. I was a child taking her first steps into a world I couldn’t explain, a world of failure, shock, and lost time. A world of which the adults around me were frightened. Writing offered me a way to understand all of it, long before reading provided me with such marvellous escapes.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

The transitory. The fleeting beauty of everything around me. I believe I was aware of it long before I understood words. Veils. Crowds. Rays of sunshine. Everything I looked at. Touched. Tasted. The world was ending, and I knew it. I still know it. There was nothing else I could have turned towards but poetry. If I were to pinpoint a moment, it would perhaps be the time I started kindergarten. I was much too young for it, so my grandmother prepared me by teaching me thirty-seven short poems with which to astound my teacher. Some of the poems were her own, others were about death or mythical creatures from Romanian folk legends. Baudelaire lines about absence, Rimbaud, Minulescu, French and German songs from when she was a young girl, poems about mothers losing their children to the mercilessness of war. Poetry was her whole life. She would look at an object, a person, a small shadow on the wall and come up with a poem in a matter of seconds. She still does.

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

As time passed, and I found the joys of reading, as more and more philosophy and poetry books made their way into my life, I started to draw my own path, leaving behind some of the influences of my childhood and taking the shapes and voices of those who resonated with me at the time. I saw a poet in everyone I looked at, I saw a poem at every street corner. Yet I was not that aware of older poets, except of poets from different times, poets reaching out to me from the pages of their books. I had Paul Celan tell me about almonds, love, bitterness, and tulips. Arseny Tarkovsky accompanied my path showing me dark expressions of grief, which I so needed to find in writing, but also the beauty of nature, of new possibilities, of regenerating oneself over and over again. Georg Trakl, with his rhythm, structure, and colours. Marina Tsvetaeva. Borges. Anna de Noailles. There were older poets in my life. I studied and worked surrounded by poets, writers, philosophers. But somehow, I would always end up turning to those in my books, turning against the metaphysics of my surroundings.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a daily routine. I write whenever and wherever I need to. Sometimes I wish I could write more. Other times, I wish I could write less. My writing has a flow of its own, which is not always of much comfort.

5. What motivates you to write?

The unforgiving struggle of defining myself over and over again under the threat of erasure. There is this literary practice of placing words under erasure, ‘sous rature’ – originating from Heidegger, I believe – where you cross out a word within a text, yet the word remains both legible and in place. Without putting much emphasis on what the concept meant for the philosophy of deconstruction, this is what I do with my writing. Instead of words, I put memories, people, and pieces of the past under erasure, in the midst of poetical prose oftentimes shaped as journal entries. I need my memories there, on paper; I need my memories here, out in the world. I need them be able to cross out the imprint on my flesh, while allowing them to preserve their rightful place. So I guess what motivates me to write is the (sometimes inexplicable) hunger to become a story, to become something more than thoughts on their way to erasure.

6. What is your work ethic?

The one constant in my writing is that I need to keep doing it. And I try to always be faithful to that, to myself, and to the words that come from within. Even though I have given up so many times. Even though I burnt poems, pages, books almost, I need to keep writing.

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

I spend a lot of time reading and writing. I also spend a lot of time considering the correlations between what I read and what I write. I have always been fascinated by the way my words transformed themselves in the light of things I’ve read. I also have a special relationship with film and philosophy, I’ve played with the idea of teaching for a while, and the films of Andrey Tarkovsky have had a major influence on my life. I don’t know how to explain this process, I can’t say with preciseness how books, films, and other works of art influence my life and my writing, yet I know that I would be a different person without them.

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

2018 has been an amazing year for me in terms of discovering new writers, a year that I will probably talk about for a long time, as it has brought back a hunger I had as a teenager of being surrounded by breathing artists. I am rediscovering European literature, and falling back in love or revisiting the work of Norman Manea, Romanian poet Nora Iuga, Serbian poet Jovan Zivlak (his poems are not yet available in English, which is something I hope will change soon), and Daša Drndić, who unfortunately is no longer with us. I have been reading a lot of journals and magazines, and am looking forward to new releases from some of the writers I’ve discovered this year and have grown very fond of, such as Tomoé Hill, Sussana Crossman, Fernando Sdrigotti, Rachael de Moravia, Joshua Rothes, Susana Medina, Jenni Fagan, and so many others. I found words, pages, whole books of stories, poems, and realities incredibly close to my heart. There are so many books on my shelves and in waitlists now, from all times and places, that I no longer know how I will be able to read them all. Oftentimes I think of myself more as a reader than a writer.

There is also the unceasing need of feeding my appetite for newness in terms of writers I’ve known and read since I was a little girl, which got me reading a lot of biographies, critical studies, and essays on the works and lives of those who have influenced my writing. I am in a never-ending quest to find out more about Paul Celan, Maurice Blanchot, Andrei Tarkovsky, Emil Cioran, Leonard Cohen – and the list could go on forever.

9. Why do you write?

I will let one of my favourite poems, by Arseny Tarkovsky, answer this question.

“I am a candle. I burned at the feast.
Gather my wax when morning arrives
so that this page will remind you
how to be proud and how to weep,
how to give away the last third
of happiness, and how to die with ease—
and beneath a temporary roof
to burn posthumously, like a word.”
10. What do you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

You write. It is both simple and tremendously difficult. It is as if you are letting got a veil while the veil itself is gripping on tighter and tighter to your face. You retain the memory of everything you ever were, of everything you will never be, and you keep on writing.

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

In the past two months my devotion towards writing has seen a significant change. After years and years of writing for myself, of burning, drowning, or erasing most of my words, I decided it was time to let some of those words live. I don’t know if I am doing it for myself, for someone dear to me, or for the words themselves, yet I do know that it is time to shelf The Little Match Girl. I am still trying to decide what to do with my old journals, thoughts, half books. Currently, I am working on a couple of essays, and putting together some ideas for a book of prose poems, memories, and battles of perception – other selves, other bodies, mirroring of residing fragments, a collection of gestures and sighs existentially present in my mind, which I would love to turn into words.