The Prairie Schooner Blog

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Prairie Schooner — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 17:18:33 +0000

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, we've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with Bonnie Arning, author of The Black Acres, to be published in Spring 2017 as part of the Mountain West Poetry Series, about moving beyond the manuscript constructing advice you get in the MFA, and how to scare your fiancé like you mean it.

1. How many books have you published, and where?

The Black Acres is my first book length publication. Its release date is set for the spring of 2017.

2. Describe the process of constructing your first manuscript. How did you conceive of ordering the collection?

Well, before I attempted to order my own poems, I sat down with a handful of books I admired as complete projects and mined them for strategy. Rebecca Lindenberg’s Love, an Index, Matthew Dickman’s Mayakovsky’s Revolver, Jericho Brown’s Please, and Louise Gluck’s Ararat became my instruction manuals. Before studying other collections, all I knew about order was the same weird book-building advice that floats around MFA programs: put your three best poems in front, bury your weak poems in the middle, save a strong poem for the end. But each of those collections is a cover- to-cover work of art. I stopped thinking about what I was doing as showcasing my best poems and started thinking of it as a project with an overarching goal. A few years ago I had the privilege of seeing Louise Gluck give a reading where she spoke about attempting to construct Ararat as a sort of novel in poems (which is my poor paraphrasing of the intelligent sentences she actually said). That idea intrigued me because I hadn’t before considered that individual poems could be used in conversation with each other to construct a bigger overarching narrative.

From there I began ordering in a way that allowed the narrative to progress—but in a manner that embodied the logic of a poem (being careful never be too direct or obvious). I decided to use section breaks as a way to alleviate tension and give readers small breaks. Much of the book deals with difficult subject matter (miscarriage, affairs, divorce, domestic violence). I paid close attention to the emotional volume of the collection at any given point and attempted to achieve a dynamism. Much like a successful piece of music, I wanted my narrative to emotionally crescendo and decrescendo. I was afraid: too much and my audience would be anxious; too little and they would be bored.

Once the poems were arranged in their sections I went through and looked for little kinks. For example, in one draft a poem ended on the image of spiders and the next poem began with spiders. If that connection was accidental (and it usually was) it became a question of either moving the poem or changing a few lines. For me, this was the strangest part! Up to that point, editing had been about the artistic value of individual poems. But here I was, changing lines that fit a poem because they didn’t serve the overall manuscript. In the end, I think the manuscript as a whole is far stronger than any one poem—and I’m proud of that.

3. Did you notice poetic tics once you’d put the poems together? (I spent the year 2007 trying to break myself of the verbs “bloom” and “ache,” for instance, once I realized everything I wrote was blooming or aching.) How did you decide which tics were fruitful (interesting in that they accrued throughout the collection in a meaningful way) and which were not?

Yes! When all the poems were put together I recognized that every poem ended on three images shot out in a row “blank and blank and blank.” I must love the rhythm of that pattern. But needless to say—it forced me to challenge myself to construct more creatively.

Like you, I did find a reoccurring verb: which was burn. At some point I recognized everything was burning—and that I paid attention to. The title of my book, The Black Acres, references the way the speaker looks at her choices as destroying her life; burning it down. I thought, why not play that up? So, for better or for worse, now there’s tons of burning.

4. How did you decide which poems to include in the collection?

When I first gathered work together, it was everything. I crammed together every decent poem I’d written in the last 5 years. As the project as a whole became a priority, I started to make cuts. First, I had to make sure each poem served the overall project. There were poems that I have published that I chose not to include because they didn’t fit.

Second, I had to make sure each poem was doing something different. For example, I had four different poems about miscarriage. Although I was emotionally attached to each of them, the manuscript didn’t need four. I had to pick the two that best served the overall narrative. Also, my personal nightmare was a reader turning a page and saying “ugh, another miscarriage poem?”

5. How did you decide where to submit the collection? How many places did you submit?

I submitted EVERYWHERE. I spent a few weeks researching contests and open submission periods for all poetry presses. It was costly. I think I spent around $200 on reading fees. But I know each publisher gets tons of submissions and I wanted the best chance for my book. If I hadn’t gotten picked up last year, I’d be doing it again right now.

6. What does current-you wish you could have told past-you about the whole process?

I think about myself a year ago. Some of my MFA friends were starting to publish their books and I was thinking, man, I wish I could be a real poet like them. I thought the moment I got a book contract, it would validate me as a writer and all my self-doubt would dissipate. If I had a book it would be easy to make myself write everyday. Or, if I had a book, I wouldn’t need to ask fellow poets if my poems are working. Unfortunately, none of that is true. I am the same writer I was before I signed the contract; and all those old fears of failure and inadequacy are re-directed towards my next project. Which is all to say, if you are a serious student of poetry who reads diligently and works on your craft, don’t doubt yourself. You are as much of a poet before your book is published as you are after.

7. Has publication of individual pieces in the collection changed your writing or manuscript construction processes?

For me, that’s an interesting question. I am not a poet who has had a ton of lit mag success. So far, only four poems from The Black Acres have appeared in literary magazines. Part of that is because I didn’t include all of my published poems in the book. It was important every poem served the overall project. However, the other part, if I’m being honest, is that my poems are not always ones that stand out in a slush-pile. Which is not to criticize my own work. When read cover to cover, I believe I’ve created a piece of art. However, not all of the poems are as strong when read alone outside the context of the collection. I’ve accepted that’s just the poet I am (or am right now). Especially as I start work on my new manuscript, I want the finished book to be something beautiful. If several poems receive individual success, great. However, I won’t be disappointed if that doesn’t happen.

8. What did you do when you heard it was accepted?

I terrified my poor fiancé. I called him but could only manage to stutter, “Oh my God!” over and over again. Of course he thought something terrible had happened.

Bonnie Arning is a poet from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her first book, The Black Acres, will be published by The Center for Literary Publishing in the Spring of 2017.

Literature in Conflict: Children's Literature in World War Two

Prairie Schooner — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:21:28 +0000

by Keene Short

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor prompted the United States to join the Second World War, a conflict already thoroughly encompassing the Pacific, Europe, and North Africa. The sudden political shift sparked the emergence of literature related to the war, and an outpouring of literature addressing the complex issues involved in the war. The war effort absorbed writers from all backgrounds, including children’s writers.

For example, Theodore Seuss Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss, produced hundreds of war-related editorial cartoons for a New York-based newspaper called PM from 1941 to 1943, during the bulk of American involvement in the war. Although normally a children's cartoonist, these political cartoons were directed at adult audiences. often with patriotic messages urging readers to invest in war bonds. Dr. Seuss, then, put his career on hold to support the war effort from the home front.

During the war, many writers fled Europe for safety abroad. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was one such author, who was exiled to the United States after the Nazi invasion of France. While in exile, he wrote his novella The Little Prince and published it in both English and French in 1943, around the time he left for Algeria to fight with the Free French. The novella tells the story of a pilot who meets a prince of an asteroid stranded on Earth, and follows his exploration of Earth and human affairs. The novella is set in a subtle war-time space: the Sahara Desert where a pilot has crashed, reflecting the North African campaigns in the war.

War served as a backdrop for other war-time children’s literature more overtly. In 1943, the historical children’s novel Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes was published. The novel is set during the American Revolution and features both historical and fictional characters, exploring the impact on young men of going to war. Published two years into American involvement in the war and one year before the historic D-Day Invasion, Forbes uses a distinctly patriotic plot to explore many of the issues young men in the United States faced when preparing for combat abroad. A year later, Johnny Tremain won the Newbury Medal for Children’s Literature.

The war had a profound impact on literature in all genres. As many American writers joined the war effort on the home front, as Dr. Seuss did, literature quickly became a convenient propaganda tool. This was especially true in the emerging genre of comic books, a genre still somewhat loosely defined by 1941. Comic book writers and animators produced a plethora of characters and narratives dealing with American involvement both before and after the US entered the conflict. Some explored the war explicitly, such as a pre-Pearl Harbor narrative entitled Daredevil Battles Hitler from July, 1941, and numerous other arcs featuring Captain America, Superman, and other popular characters at the time directly confronting Nazis and Japanese soldiers. Other comic book authors utilized the genre to advertise war-related investments, featuring characters on covers urging readers to invest in war bonds, similar to Dr. Seuss's political cartoons.

War-time literature served a multitude of purposes, part of a phenomenon called total war in which war affects all levels of society in visible and active ways. Today, total war has diminished significantly, but literature can still be a venue for exploring military conflicts, and can do so in more complex ways. Markus Zusak's 2005 YA novel The Book Thief, for example, explores civilian participation in war efforts, set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany. Other recent literature delves into contemporary military conflicts directly: The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq and Narseen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, both authored and illustrated by Jeanette Winter, explore life in Iraq and Afghanistan, offering children a unique perspective on life in and around war-torn places. New children's literature can articulate more complex and nuanced portrayals of regions the United States is engaged in militarily, which can be vital in preventing simplistic understandings of these conflicts. The above texts by Winter and Zusak help humanize civilians caught in the middle of military conflicts, and can help foster compassionate approaches to a myriad of issues related to war.

"Strive to remain an amateur": An Interview With David Baker

Prairie Schooner — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 19:28:37 +0000

by Keene Short

Recently, poet and editor for The Kenyon Review David Baker gave a craft talk at UNL, followed by a poetry reading. His recent poetry collections include Scavenger Loop and Never-Ending Birds. I emailed him a few questions about his work with literary journals, environmental poetry, and about what advice he has for writers about entering contests and submitting to journals.

You’ve been Poetry Editor at The Kenyon Review for some time, and the past few years have seen the addition of some new features, such as KR Online and switching to six issues a year. How do you see the role of the literary journal evolving to remain a vibrant force in literary publishing?

I’ve been Poetry Editor of Kenyon Review since 1994, though I’ve been with the magazine on and off, in some capacity or another, since 1983. That’s given me a great chance to watch our journal and the literary arts evolve.

The literary journal is a vital form of memory. To me it’s the single most exciting publishing venue, since it’s often the first place a new work appears in print. A journal serves a lot of purposes—to help us all select what we think is worthy or significant, to help new writers emerge and get established, to help established writers stay connected with readers, to provide a large diverse canvas for our expressions and our community.

Just look at the huge variety. There are journals in print and online. There are magazines for general and so many particularized audiences. The journal is also the single most important source for that vital first step of critical evaluation and conversation: the review. I can’t stress enough the importance of the book review nor emphasize strongly enough my concern that the state of reviewing is, just now, meager and under pressure. It’s one area I would like to see enlarged and deepened. I’d like to see more crossover in reviewing. You know, established writers reviewing new ones, young writers working on books by older writers, critics from one group or affiliation writing about people outside their insular communities.

Your writing and poetic interests seem closely tied to place, particularly the natural world. How has your movement from Missouri to Utah to a small rural town in Ohio affected your work?

I have a sneaking suspicion this answer would be better provided by someone other than me. We do all we can when we write our poems (or whatever we write), and then we release that work into the custody of others, who assume responsibility for its being sustained or forgotten. There’s a significant difference, at least in my mind, between the author and the authority.

But I am grateful for your attention here and your kindness in asking me this question. So yes, indeed, I guess I am a “place” poet, a regional poet, a nature (or environmental or eco) poet. Wherever I live, I look around. Not only look, but I try to attend to the rhythms and particularities of that place. I mean not only the green growing place but the human natural world, too, our neighborhoods and villages and farms and urban centers, all of which are “natural.” What is a metropolis but a habitat?

Without a doubt I am a Midwestern poet. Not because I think the Midwest is the best place, or most poetic, or whatever, but simply because this is where my life has been, and my family and my family’s family. I wish to be attuned to the landscapes and manners and I try to learn and embrace the things that grow here and to live as peacefully as I can among it and us all. My movements in and around the Midwest have not so much “affected” my work. They are my work. My poetry is part of my daily life and my manner of attention and my devotion. My poetry is my prayer and my curse, both, to my habitat.

In your craft talk during your visit at UNL, you mentioned that The Kenyon Review will begin to publish more environmentally- and ecologically-themed work, and will have an issue devoted to the topic every May. What inspired this move? Do you see other journals taking a similar interest?

Yes, I am very pleased to see that we will devote much of our May-June issue every year to environmental or nature poetry. In fact, in this forthcoming feature of “Nature’s Nature,” I’ve included a lovely piece of nonfiction, too, a lyric essay (though I admit this generic designation baffles me a bit) to go with all the lyric poems.

The inspiration for “Nature’s Nature”? Of course it is terror and depression. We are in a very dire, long-term struggle to keep our home vital. I mean, by home, both our tiny locale and our wholly interconnected eco-sphere. We are a ruinous species with our heads buried in the sand, we are pitifully superstitious, and we are the victims of our own greed and hunger, expressed powerfully by the corporations and militias that shape our environment, our language, our identities.

Poetry can be a powerful voice of resistance. We can name names—of those destructive corporations and militias but also of the gorgeous growing things. We can remember and attest. We can provide language and narrative and engagement in ways that insist on the values we hope to maintain or achieve. So the “Nature’s Nature” feature will likely include political complaints alongside lyric descriptions of praise and adoration. I hope the variety is rich, from experimental to more traditional poems, personal to collective. I hope this feature will express some of the variety that the subject itself—nature, in all its definitions—offers. I am really proud of the first iteration of this project, which appeared in our May-June 2015 KR, and I’m excited about the next, in 2016, which is editorially complete now, and eager to see what comes our way in the next months and years. I can think of no more important thing for poetry to do now than rise in a complex single voice to sing about our home.

In the craft talk, you also mentioned the notion that every lyrical poem is a formal one. Can you elaborate on the shapes you see the lyric taking in contemporary writing?

Sure. I mean this literally. A lyric poem is always a formal poem. But let me slow down. First, I find no productive and no logical reason to argue that a poem is either a lyric poem or a narrative poem, to begin with, though many others do hold to those poles. I think it’s more helpfully accurate to see every successful poem as both a lyric and narrative construction. The question is not, then, to identify whether a poem is lyric or narrative but rather to describe the nature of its lyric and narrative elements.

Likewise a poem is always a formal poem, with a body, a shape, a rhetorical enterprise or purpose. The point is not to determine whether or not a poem is formal but rather what kinds of forms it operates in and around. I am writing a long piece, maybe a book, about this. I find every poem always to be a matrix of forms, ranging from its outer forms (its manner of lineation and visible structures) to its interior forms (its methods of troping as well as its rhetorical designs). Yes, a sonnet is a form. But so is a performance piece. So are a georgic and an erotic and a complaint.

Contemporary poetry, like all the poetry before it, is made of these ancient and evolving forms. But there are also thrilling new methods of formation in our present work, ranging from attentive experiments with erasures and fragments, to an intensified hybridization of forms and rhetorics and narratives, and currently also a heightened awareness of the social or cultural voices and aptitudes of poetry. To listen to some contemporary poets, I do have to say, you’d almost think they have invented the political or collectively voiced poem. Poetry has always had the capability to plumb deeply interiorized spaces and well as social spaces. It has always been able to sing the song of oneself but also insist on those more plural concerns like justice and equality. This is why we have more than one poet at a time, right?

You were a guest judge for Prairie Schooner’s 2015 Book Prize in Poetry. What challenges do you face judging book contests at that level, considering manuscripts by some of the best new and emerging poets?

I just don’t think of an honor like judging a book prize as a challenge. It is an opportunity, a lucky one. I have been able to judge a number of book contests and have a couple on the horizon as well as a couple of major judging opportunities for published books. The only challenge is really time.

Because there are so many poets and poetries, I try to approach each book with sympathy, to meet it halfway in its aspirations and aims. But I read with that intention anyway, whether I’m judging or just reading a new book at night in my lamp-lit study. I try not to worry about the professional implications of such choices, I should add. There’ve been times when I’ve been shocked at the apparent significance of even the smallest decisions—how they affect other publication and grants and jobs and fellowships and tenure—and the pressure and panic people can feel over such things.

I try very hard to read with a good heart and a demanding eye to find what is, to me, a book deserving of the prize I’m tending. It is frustrating, very much sometimes, to find two or even several books of merit and have to send all but one back home. That was the case with the Prairie Schooner prize. But that’s the case with The Kenyon Review, too. I say “no” so much more than I say “yes.” That’s why we have more than one editor, one judge, one contest, one press.

What advice would you offer to writers about entering contests and submitting to journals?

Don’t submit your work to a magazine you do not read. Don’t submit your work to a magazine you do not respect. Don’t submit your work to a magazine whose presiding aesthetic is utterly different from yours. Don’t heckle. Don’t pester. Don’t keep asking the editors whether or not they have received your manuscript, just because you haven’t heard from them in a month or three months. They got it. They got others, too, more than you can imagine. Be patient. Read a book. Do you subscribe? Do you support? Or do you only want to be validated? If you want to be validated, get a dog.

Try to read first as a reader, a lover of the art. Only later read as a potential submitter. This is all about the art more than it is about you and your art. Or it should be.

Read and heed the magazine’s submission requirements. Note such things as the editors’ statements regarding special issues, submission periods, and simultaneous submission policy. I hate simultaneous submissions, by the way, though my magazine accepts them. If everyone stopped that practice, each magazine’s submission pile would shrink by a huge percentage and you would hear from us editors much more promptly. I say this is a writer, too, who is frustrated when a manuscript sits somewhere for many months or even more than a year. I have a batch of poems right now at a Big Magazine in which I’ve published several things previously, and these poems have been there for eight months. But then, what’s the hurry? You are trying to write something incredible and lasting, not merely publishable. Or if your aspiration is merely to be published, alas, why? What would that mean, what would that validate, what would that prove? Who would love you more?

Contests are a vexing issue. The frustrations are obvious. They are expensive. They provide, usually, only a single winner. They seldom result in a real relationship between writer and publisher; once you win a contest, then you often have to start all over with the next book, the next contest, endlessly. Contests are our version of patronage, though; when we enter a contest, we are supporting a system in a culture that otherwise provides very little support, either material/financial or emotional. The up-side is that the many contests, large and small, provide a necessary forum for the selection and publication of new work, often by first-time writers. That’s exciting.

Don’t go in search of “your voice”; don’t possess that voice. Write—and your voice will emerge, your real voice, after a long while, maybe. Voice is the result of style and vision, the intertwining of them all, and it all comes most deeply from some unbidden place.

Be an amateur at your writing and strive to remain an amateur. Be a professional at your occupation—whether teaching or editing or counseling or any other job. Be a professional for your job and an amateur for your writing. That means, simply, be in search of the new and the strange, the thing you don’t know how to do. Sit in the shadows of the things you don’t know how to do. Grow. You are making art, not a product. The professionalization of creative writing is lamentable—agents? spread-sheets? projects? suitable briefcases?—though the professionalization of teaching is worthy.

Final advice: be patient. Be patient with the process of submission of individual manuscripts. Be patient when you put your book together. Get it exactly right. That may take much longer than you think. And finally be patient with yourself. I would hope you aspire to write a poem, not a book. Write one magnificent poem. (It will require writing many non-magnificent poems—so throw those away or at least keep only the good ones). Be patient to write a fine thing. The world does not particularly need a zillion more okay or decent poems. But it’s dying for a great one.

For more information about The Kenyon Review, follow this link. You can purchase David Baker's most recent collection, Scavenger Loop, here.

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Prairie Schooner — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 18:20:42 +0000

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, we've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with Danez Smith, author of [insert] boy, winner of the Lambda Literary Literary Award for Gay Poetry, about finding a book title that holds all your poems, and saying 'no' to poems that you really do love.

1. How many books have you published, and where?

I have 1 full length published ([insert] boy from YesYes Books), one of the way (Don’t Call Us Dead from Graywolf Press), and 2 chapbooks, black movie from Button Poetry and hands on ya knees from Penmanship Books.

2. Describe the process of constructing your first manuscript. How did you conceive of ordering the collection?

Oh, it was an absolute mess. It started as my senior thesis at the University of Wisconsin, then changed and changed and changed as I grew as a poet and as my poems became interested in different things. I knew I wanted to try to divide the poems into topical sections in order to cover a range of topics in relationship to the body, but how was a struggle. Because of how I was structuring the book, if 2 or 3 poems went from a section, the section itself was usually dropped too. There could be a whole book of the poems not in the book that once had their place. The hardest part for me was saying no to poems that I love on their own, but just didn’t move along the book as an arc (but hey, we have the rest of our lives to put all the poems in all the books). The idea of titling the sections didn’t come until I had the manuscript for 2 years already, when [insert] boy became the title, largely because it gave me a way to hold the poems.

I love(d) the word all, and I also love mouths. I embraced it when it felt useful, but tried to shy away from it. Once I did that, I also tried to go through and remove as many little words (the, and, then, they, that, etc) as I could. I also have a tendacy to break the 4th wall and talk directly to the reader, which was a great tool in some places, but in others I had to realize it was just a way to give me access to the poem. It really helped me to think about the book as a meal, to consider all the tin foil and bay leaves and pans that go towards making dinner that aren’t actually on the table once it’s time to eat.

4. How did you decide where to submit the collection? How many places did you submit?

I only submitted to places that published books I love, that made great physical products, and that I wouldn’t be upset if I accepted their contract and some other place made an offer. I probably sent it out 15-20 times before YesYes picked it up. My goal was to feel like I won a prize, even if I didn’t. My book was picked up during an open submission period, but it felt like I had won a huge prize because I really love the work that Katherine and YesYes do.

5. What does current-you wish you could have tell past-you about the whole process?

I would tell myself to let the first book be the first book and not ALL THE BOOKS. I was so stressed out thinking that every banger I had just had to be in the book, but that didn’t make for a good book. You have to think about the book as one long song, not just the sum of many little ones.

6. Has publication changed your writing or manuscript construction processes?

I think publishing that first book lifted a weight I didn’t know I felt. Its difficult to articulate, but it made me realize how much useless stress I put on the first book. It felt like a race, but PLEASE NEVER THINK OF IT AS A RACE! This is a long game we are playing here.

7. What did you do when you heard it was accepted?

I had just got off a plane after touring around the country for a summer. I was waiting for my mom to pick me up and take me home when I checked my email and saw the acceptance. I danced and cried all around the baggage claim and in the car with my mom and at home with my grandma and maybe didn't stop for a week.

8. What was the most surprising thing about the publication process?

How much the book changed once it was accepted. There are only like 13 or 14 poems in the book that were there when it was accepted. In the year and a half from Acceptance to Publication, it was wonderful and strange to see the book they had accepted turn into a different book, or at least a much fuller, more mature version of itself. It was beautiful to watch it grow in ways new to me once the concern was not convincing someone that I was worthy of publication.

9. What is your favorite part of your first book?

The experience I had making it. One of the reasons I was so excited to be on YesYes is that I had heard about how well they treat their writers, which is true. I’ve heard so many horror stories from friends about their presses or their experiences with getting a book to publication, but I felt taken care of and supported in ways that I think artists must demand from their presses. If your press isn’t willing to support you and support your book post-publication, then what is the point of the press? Self-publishing is a great option for a lot of folks now-a-days, so it must be the work of the press to elevate and nurture the writer in ways only a press can.

10. [insert] boy explores the body immersed in violence—whether that violence is at the hands of the lover or at the hands of an annihilating white supremacist society. Your chapbook black movie examines the body under the gaze. Does your second full length continue to—for lack of a better term—mine the body for material? If so, how does the body evolve in this collection?

Oh, the body is my body of work. Don’t Call Us Dead looks at the body in some new and similar ways to my previous work. It opens with a long poem that I call a better attempt at what I was trying to do in “Song of The Wreckage” in [insert] boy. It’s an imagined paradise for black men who have been murdered by some kind of violence, a heaven exclusively for the slain. I want to reclaim our bodies, even in death; to hand our joy back over into our own hands even after, or in the midst of, grief. I hope the poem does that. The 2nd half of the book mediates largely on the body, my body, in relationship to HIV. I wrote a lot of the poems in the first 2 months of finding out I was positive in the spring of 2014, but as I become more comfortable in this poz beautiful black body of mine, the conversation I have with my body in poems is becoming deeper and more nuanced in ways that are shaping the book in some hopefully powerful ways. Similar to the long poem, I am attempting to reclaim my body, our bodies, from the jaws of illness and stigma. I want this next book to make readers re-imagine their relationships to death and live, to find the beautiful and terrifying space between.

Danez Smith is the author of [insert] boy (2014, YesYes Books), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and Don’t Call Us Dead, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2017. Danez is also the author of two chapbooks, hands on your knees (2013, Penmanship Books) and black movie (2015, Button Poetry), winner of the Button Poetry Prize. Their work has been published & featured widely including in Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Buzzfeed, Blavity, & Ploughshares. They are a 2014 Ruth Lilly - Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, a Cave Canem and VONA alum, and recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship. They are a 2-time Individual World Poetry Slam finalist, placing 2nd in 2014. Danez is a founding member of the Dark Noise Collective. They are an MFA candidate at The University of Michigan and currently teach with InsideOut Detroit. They is from St. Paul, MN.

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Prairie Schooner — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 18:27:34 +0000

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets (open now!) We've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with critically acclaimed novelist Adrienne Celt about editing and plotting, and all of the *headdesk* moments that led to her first novel The Daughters, recently shortlisted for the PEN Southwest Award. Read an excerpt from the book here.

1. How many books have you published, and where?

My debut novel, The Daughters, was published this August by W.W. Norton/Liveright. I've just finished the bulk of my book tour, and it's all very exciting!

2. Describe the process of constructing your first manuscript. Did you plot organically? Did you outline? How did the story come together?

The novel began as a short story way back in grad school, and, upon the urging of my workshop cohort, I revised it into a novella and then into a novel (letting myself spin out longer and longer as it became clear how much space the story I wanted to tell would take up). That makes it sound so tidy though – although I wrote the first draft front-to-back in what might be considered the traditional way, the book contains many threads of past, present, future, myth, and questionable reality, and in the process of revision I frequently spliced and reorganized the entire manuscript, based on the emerging needs of tension, plot, and character development. I didn't outline originally (unless you count that short story – which one well might), but I did end up plotting the book out on index cards. I reshuffled them, added and subtracted, and then sketched that plot out on a single page so I could see it all together before revising towards it.

Sometimes I also hit my head against the desk for awhile to move through periods of extreme uncertainty. It's only with great luck that I avoided physical bruises.

3. Did you notice any writing tics or themes once you’d gotten through a first draft? (For instance, I spent the year 2007 trying to break myself of the verbs “bloom” and “ache,” once I realized everything I wrote was blooming or aching.) How did you decide which tics were fruitful (interesting in that they accrued throughout the story in a meaningful way) and which were not?

Ha, this is a great question. One of my grad school professors made us revise a story draft by pinpointing two tics of our own – and also seeking out every instance of the words "it" and "that" in our piece – then ruthlessly cutting them whenever possible and choosing a more precise or original phrasing. The exercise forced us to interrogate our own voices, and recognize that even those aspects of our work that felt intuitive or innate could be handled with careful intellect, and often made much better through hard work. Put another way, the goal was not to elide our personal style with arbitrary edits, but to discover and highlight that style.

I can't remember which tics I chose for the exercise, but during the revision process for my book, my editor pointed out that I have a habit of repeating and reinforcing ideas at the end of my sentences by using a comma and then a synonym. (Fake example: "She was perfect, quite splendid.") That hit pretty close to home for me; I still do it, but I try not to let myself go quite so crazy.

4. What was the editing process like? How did you get from draft to draft? Did you find yourself excising large portions? Adding?

Editing/revising really encompassed a huge amount of my writing process for this book – I'd say that the book took five years to write, and probably four of those years were revision/rewriting/index card plotting/etc, some of which I've already touched on. It was interesting, after all that time, to work with an editor who really understood my book and yet still had ideas for how to make it better: she and I cut an entire chapter, reversed the order of two more chapters, and made other significant edits (both by adding and subtracting). By that point, though, the process was much more straightforward, because the bulk of the novel's structure and thematic integrity already existed. We were making very intentional changes.

5. How did you decide where to submit the finished manuscript?

I wish I had even one iota of good advice about how to know when your book is "ready," but the best I can do is to say: make it as good as you can, let several people read it, revise it several times, and then wait for a couple of months and look at it again, and edit it some more. I had probably written three drafts of my novel before I sent it to agents, and based on the feedback of a couple of them (both of whom offered similar advice which felt intuitively correct to me) I withdrew my submissions for long enough to write a fourth draft.

Querying is a funny process: there is little that's less fun than writing a synopsis of your novel, especially when you're still quite close to the initial composition and everything seems essential. ("You mean I have to describe just a few key pieces? But everything is vital! That's why I wrote it that way!") But painful as it was, I found that process helpful in clarifying to myself what my book was about and how it was structured. And it resulted in a wonderful agent, and later a wonderful editor! So: worth it.

6. What does current-you wish you could have tell past-you about the whole process?

Keep going. Being fiercely critical of your work can be a form of deep love. Maybe don't buy a house the same year that you're launching your first book.

7. What did you do when you heard it was accepted?

I interrupted a video meeting I was doing for my day job – in fact, I think I just ran off-screen without saying anything to them at all – and then drank some bourbon and boasted to my co-workers and soon thereafter began to cry.

8. What was the most surprising thing about the publication process?

Certain things move very quickly (changing the title; choosing the cover) and other things move very slowly. Also, right after publication, I couldn't always predict what would make me happy or sad on a given day, and sometimes I still can't. I've learned to just lean in to the happy times, and try to stay focused on the next project. That's where the future is.

9. Can you say more about that title change and the cover art?

The original title of the book was Rusalka, which I chose because of its thematic resonance both in the world of Polish folklore and the world of opera (both key elements in the book). But, I suspected I might be asked to change it, since it was usually a 50/50 shot whether someone I told that title to would say "I love it!" vs. "Ruska-what?" And I was right. I still love that title, and find it distinctive, but I understand why it made the marketing team nervous. Once we decided to change it, the funny thing to me was how seemingly casual (but wonderfully collaborative) the process of choosing something new was. Basically, my editor, agent, and I went back and forth with suggestions and reactions for a couple of weeks, until finally I hit on The Daughters, and we all immediately knew that was the title that worked. (Everything else had resulted in some form of hemming & hawing, whereas with The Daughters our reaction was "Oh dang, I actually think I like this? A lot?") And then it was done! Just like that! I guess I expected there would be some more formal approval process, but the marketing team liked it and we liked it, and that was all there was to it.

In terms of the cover, the only reason it was surprising to me was that I didn't really talk to Liveright about it until they had two good options to put in front of me – and I feel very lucky that they were both good, and that they listened to me in terms of which one I preferred. In that case, it seemed like a swift process of approval to me, but I know from the designer's point of view there was a lot more that went into it. Thanks, talented designer! You're a gem!

10. Why do you think there was so much emotional whiplash involved in the publication process?

In terms of the whiplash of publishing, I'd just say that there's a big difference between talking about something great that hasn't happened yet and then seeing it happen. There's a lot of emotional investment not only in the book itself and in its reception, but in the whole public face you as a writer are asked to put forward, and it can be hard to feel like you have two sets of emotions – the good and the terrified – and there is only a receptive audience for one set of those feelings. One thing that really helped me feel calm was talking behind the scenes to other authors about their debuts and learning that they shared those feelings of uncertainty and anxiety, in balance with the joy and pride and gratitude (which, luckily, are also very real parts of the experience). As always, it's nice to learn that you're not alone in anything.

And of course the other things that helped were working on new projects, and getting the hell out of the house sometimes to go hiking/horseback riding/hanging out with friends and talking about something completely different.

11. What is your favorite part of your first book?

I couldn't possibly pick one thing – its very existence is my favorite part. Maybe the fact that I began, and then finished. The fact that it's a beautiful object I can hold in my hands. More importantly, the knowledge that other people can hold it too.

Adrienne Celt is the author of the novel The Daughters (W.W. Norton/Liveright 2015), which was recently shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Southwest Award. A writer and cartoonist living in Tucson, AZ, her work has appeared in Esquire, The Kenyon Review, Epoch, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, The Lit Hub, The Toast, the Tin House Open Bar, and many other places. Find her online at adriennecelt.com or visit her webcomic at loveamongthelampreys.com.

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Prairie Schooner — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 18:28:14 +0000

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets (open now!) We've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with National Poetry Series Winner and Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellow Marcus Wicker about the process of writing and organizing his manuscript, knowing when to excise swear words in your poetry, the benefits of literary citizenship, and the best way to celebrate when you win one of the most prestigious poetry prizes in the country.

How many books have you published, and where?

One book, from Harper Perennial.

Describe the process of constructing your first manuscript. How did you conceive of ordering the collection?

I didn’t realize I was writing a book until I started using titles to diagnose a draft’s essential, or at least surface function. A few early pronouncements: In Ambivalence of the Immortal Light Heavyweight, Mr. Flavor Flav. Talking to Myself about the Trees. Poem Ending with RuPaul Flash Dancing in a Sequined Dress. Talking to the Man in the Mirror. With a little nudging, I realized beneath those awful titles were the themes of adoration and inner voice—tropes that evolved into a series of “love letters” and “self-dialogues.” I like the generative process of constructing a series; the idea being that circularity leads to layering which leads to complication.

Initially, Maybe the Saddest Thing began with ars poeticas, then self dialogues, followed by love letters, followed by poems about desire, poems concerning masculinity, and ended in hip hop. I tried to sell myself on that version of the book for a while, but with each straight-through read, I found it harder and harder to reach the end. It felt, for me, like trying to complete a Rubik’s Cube—repetitive and impenetrable. I think my instinct to regulate the collection with some visible, thematic overlap was correct, but the execution was stifling.

The next draft featured one poem from each series or thematic block placed back to back, which achieved the obsessive, cyclical reading experience I was chasing, while adding some variety. Only then did the manuscript begin to really take shape. Only then was I able to make my poems converse. For instance, if you read the first seven pieces without coming up for air, you’ll note that a spare lyric about a mute boy, self-dialogues featuring Richard Pryor and Jim Kelly, and epistolary addresses to Justin Timberlake and Pam Grier, work in concert to both populate, and question the concept of authenticity—a notion I wasn’t necessarily thinking of while writing the poems independent of one another.

Did you notice poetic tics once you’d put the poems together? (For instance, I spent the year 2007 trying to break myself of the verbs “bloom” and “ache,” once I realized everything I wrote was blooming or aching.) How did you decide which tics were fruitful (interesting in that they accrued throughout the collection in a meaningful way) and which were not?

Ha! That’s great. I think you should keep them. I’m totally pro blooming and aching. For me, maybe a proliferation of fire imagery and the word “fuck?” I gave a reading from an early draft in front of an older audience on Martha’s Vineyard and felt bashful enough to censor myself. Later, I removed a portion of those fucks from the book (though obviously not my vocabulary). I kept the fire.

The one serious tic that emerged when I started purposely penning poems toward a book: this habit of ratcheting a piece inward, toward the “I,” once it called for a volta. Eventually, the tic started to feel like a poetic crutch, and it is; a crutch I removed from a number poems where unwarranted or seemingly cheap. But at times—at it’s most sincere—this move allowed me to be productively self-conscious. To check a speaker’s point of view for something like mansplaining, or to make certain the poem itself isn’t too certain in what it already knows. You can see me doing this is in “To You” (the second one), which employs a tonally tough depiction of an obscene rap performance and questionable concert-going mother before shifting the lens, “What type of man would let a child in this poem?” I suppose learning how to better manipulate the tic was good for my tool kit in general.

How did you decide which poems to include in the collection?

I wish I had a smart answer to slide you here but the truth is, a little time and distance helped. After the book was summarily rejected I decided to get ruthless about which poems were reflective of my intentions/poetic sensibilities, and which were apprentice pieces. I mostly figured this out after grad school at the Fine Arts Work Center. There I cut poems that made similar arguments, keeping the best one or two. And I wrote new ones. I also threw out poems that didn’t progress the book’s movement— several of which were published in perfectly good magazines! That was one of the tougher pills to swallow at the time, but it needed to be done.

How did you decide where to submit the collection? How many places did you submit?

Too many places. I started sending out a manuscript before I finished my MFA. I wanted a book so badly that “where” was secondary to “Right now.” I googled book contests and sent to most all of them. I could sport three or four months-worth of Southern Indiana rent with the money I wasted pushing a premature script, if that gives you an idea. Eventually, I read every first collection I could find in the library, then submitted a tighter book to presses I thought might 1) be open to my work, 2) published well-made (read pretty) books, and 3) venues promising good distribution.

What does current-you wish you could have tell past-you about the whole process?

A. The most obvious advice is to be patient. The first year I began submitting I was a finalist for a contest from a good press, and had they published that immature version, I probably wouldn’t have the pleasure of this exchange.

B. Again, be patient. Some of the most excellent books don’t find a home right away. It’s just the nature of publishing.

C. Craft two working versions of your book: one with all the strongest, most arresting poems frontloaded, and the real version, in your back pocket, for when the book is selected. Doing so might help your book make it through the first round of readers.

D. Yes, writing is a solitary pursuit, but once your book enters the world, it helps to have a system of believers and supporters. Be a good literary citizen. Cultivate meaningful relationships. It’ll be good for your book and better for your heart.

Has publication changed your writing or manuscript construction processes?

Sure. Most notably, my mind starts to do its cartographer thing without much ushering now, drawing intersections and bridges between the last few poems I’ve written and poems I may pen in the future.

What did you do when you heard it was accepted?

I split a pint of cognac with my pops in my parents’ basement. I called all my closest writers friends and shared the news. Then told them they weren’t allowed to share the news.

What was the most surprising thing about the publication process?

The galley approval process. Harper assigned three or four proofreaders to my book, none of them poets. The gulf between a press’ style guide and a poet’s style, at least this one’s, can be wide.

What is your favorite part of your first book?

The wealth of seriously wonderful people MTST has put me in touch with, in person and virtually. It’s altogether humbling. Oh, and the cover. The cover’s really righteous.

Marcus Wicker is the author of Maybe the Saddest Thing (Harper Perennial), selected by DA Powell for the National Poetry Series. Wicker's awards include a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, and The Fine Arts Work Center. His work has appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Oxford American, and many other magazines. Marcus is assistant professor of English at University of Southern Indiana and poetry editor of Southern Indiana Review. He serves as director of the New Harmony Writers Workshop.

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Prairie Schooner — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 18:33:04 +0000

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets (open now through December 1st!) We've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with Prairie Schooner contributor and best-selling novelist Colin Channer about the process of writing his first book of poetry, Providential, out now from Akashic books. Check out an excerpt from Providential here, at the Harvard Review online. In this interview, Channer discusses the challenges and pleasures of genre-hopping and the difficulty of writing an honest poem.

How many books have you published, and where?

There is a novel, a novella and a story collection that I'm proud of. The novel and collection were put out by an imprint of Ballantine. The novella came out from an indie, Akashic Books. I've done a bit of editing as well—two anthologies of fiction with Akashic. I coedited a poetry anthology as well. This was with Akashic too.

Describe the process of constructing your first poetry manuscript. How did you conceive of ordering the collection? If you'd like, you might speak to the differences in thinking about ordering a story collection, or constructing a novel and ordering a book of poems?

Writing a story cycle, anthology editing, having a previous life as co-creative director of a print catalog—all this picked-up knowledge made Providential conceptually seeable as one poem jointed at odd angles as I worked. Many of my favorite collections are dynamically tensed between obedience and cross purpose.

In practice this involved among other things looking at the work like they were poems submitted by other writers for a themed anthology on Jamaican police. In truth I'm made up of several poets who write at different times in different modes. While looking at the work unbiasedly, an organizing order showed up — Before Duty, During Duty, After Duty. As it turned out, this flash of clarity came after a similar structure had been suggested by the actual editor of the book! Poems in each section were selected and aligned with logic and feel as guides. I looked at length, shape, tone, presence of echoes, setting, language register, and so forth.

I had many tics, sure; but the troubles with my poems were not subtle. So many of them were just dishonest and bad, and bad in a way undealwithable — showoffy with language, smug with the metaphor. Tics on the language level I've blocked out. The shame of facing them I guess. Actually, one is coming back now, an overuse of nouns as verbs.

The tic of dishonesty showed up in a few ways, but one of the most unbearable ones was a tendency to adopt a proven poet's relationship to herself and her subject along with her technical approach to her craft. As a result I made many poems that stood no chance of making a meaningful contribution to poetry's corpus. And I am not saying that this is something the poems in Providential are destined to do. What I am saying is that poems that rely on technique alone are unlikely to make it. Technique is needed but what is vital is perspective—where you stand, how you stand, what your eyes lock on to and stay with, examine. The more you do this as a principle and practice the more you learn yourself. And here "learn" also means "teach." I would not always see from my "I" with my own eye but from the one that wrote the poem I technically admired. As such there were many poem-things that read well, and looked pretty good, but which on close inspection shared a problem of parallax, always seemed "off."

How did you decide which poems to include in the collection?

I mostly depended on my editor to tell me. If he said no to a poem I'd get rid of it. No questions. No defending. No argument. My philosophy is that I don't work for an editor, an editor works for me. Arguing with my editor about a poem's fate would've been as sensible as having a fat bill for back taxes and second-guessing the directive of my CPA.

Now on the occasions when my editor said a poem was good, well that's when long talk would start. I'd quiz him on the poem's peculiar and particular qualities of goodness, ask him to take me through the work, and not just to feel validation, which I wanted, for nailed-in begins to hurt. I asked him to do this to learn. His editor-deemed good poems were checked as "possibles." No greater commitment than that. Final including came down to "fit," which is a thing of "feel." As such good-deemed "possibles" did not get in.

How did you decide where to submit the collection? How many places did you submit?

I asked my editor. He's tremendously experienced. I took his advice. The press he recommended took the book. It's in England. A joint release was sorted with Akashic for sub rights in the States. Both of these presses, Peepal Tree and Akashic, have a cosmopolitan list of international writers, are very overt in their interest in good work period, and have done the work of communicating their openness to interesting work by black writers.

What does current-you wish you could have tell past-you about the whole process?

I'm a bit ticked off with current-me for not telling former-me of the peculiar mental pleasures of making poems. I should have started this seriously years before.

On a technical level, I wish I'd followed my instincts and allowed myself to feel comfortable with the notion of shifting how I thought of poem-making purely based on need. Sometimes it's useful to see a given poem as dance, or painting, architecture, bricolage, ferrotype or film, especially Marker and Varda types. This ability and willingness to shift perspective, to work under the aegis of a metaphor allows you to sneak up on a poem and take it in control.

I also wish me-now had been able to say to me-then, "There's no such thing as a line break, there are only lines." It's better to make a line in prospect — with beat, sense and sound in mind instead of retrospect, as afterthought. We tend not to think of breaks and not of lines in wholeness, only when our poems rhyme.

Has publication (either of individual pieces in the collection, or of the collection as a whole) changed your writing or manuscript construction processes?

Because publication came as a result of lots of focused writing guided by frank feedback from my editor and clear notes my recent bad poems are not as bad as those before. Still, most of what I write is tossed. Process-wise, the most important change is the full acceptance that honesty is a matter of craft and not just temperament. This is a very big shift. Vantage, stance and vision count.

What is your favorite part of your first book of poems?

There is a poem by the name of "Fugue in Ten Movements" that I admire for the way its ten poems intersect at odd angles. I wrote it after the book had come together in ways complete enough for me to see what was missing. It's a poem with moving parts like a contraption dragon. The way the parts contain internal references and echoes across short and shorter poems is something I'm proud to say I pulled off.

What did you do when you heard it was accepted?

I can't remember. For me acceptance is never the moment of deep feeling. This comes at the moment I see a cover and see pages set. At this point manuscript registers as book, potential turns to something assured. The book is in many ways my unit of creative thought and purpose. Not the single story. Not the single poem. The book.

What was the most surprising thing about the publication process?

I was surprised by how different poems look when set. Prose runs to the margins in manuscript, so prose pages don't change as much in production as poetry pages do. On top of this, my editor did needed work on line integrity (not breaking), after the house had taken on the work. This meant the shape of several poems changed, and this affected me. I suddenly didn't quite know how to hear or read aloud work I'd known closely. By the time I saw bound galleys though, intimacy had returned.

Colin Channer was born in Jamaica to a pharmacist and cop. Junot Díaz calls him “one of the Caribbean Diaspora’s finest writers.” His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Harvard Review, The Common, The Wolf, Black Renaissance Noire and other venues. He's served as Newhouse Professor in Creative Writing at Wellesley College and Fannie Hurst Writer in Residence at Brandeis University. His many books of prose include the novella The Girl with the Golden Shoes, “a very moving and mesmerizing journey” in the words of Edwidge Danticat. Honors in include a Silver Musgrave Medal in Literature. Providential is his first poetry book.

Literature in Conflict: Syrian Writers Abroad

Prairie Schooner — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 14:09:05 +0000

by Keene Short

The civil war in Syria has driven millions of Syrians into forced migration and diaspora, creating a large-scale refugee crisis in Western Asia and Europe. The conflict emerged after the Arab Uprisings of 2011 and early 2012, when Bashar al-Assad’s regime cracked down on the Syrian population through censorship, arrests, and eventual military tactics. However, just as the Assad regime did not wake up one morning and decide to oppress its population, the population did not wake up one morning and decide to resist. The current struggle follows decades of resistance against authoritarian regimes in Syria, and writers have always been a part of that resistance.

Nihad Sirees, for example, is a Syrian novelist, born in Aleppo in 1950. The author of seven novels, including The Silence and the Roar which is currently banned in Syria, Sirees fled his home country in 2012, and now writes from Berlin, Germany. He has also authored several plays and written for television.

Similarly, Zakaria Tamer, born in Damascus in 1931, fled Syria much earlier in the early 1980s, when President Hafez al-Assad’s military conducted a massacre against Islamists during a period of authoritarianism and civil unrest mirroring the conflict today. Tamer used his writing to denounce the regime before departing to England, where he continued to write for and about his home country. He is the author of numerous short story collections, including We Shall Laugh and Breaking Knees. A short sample of his writing, "For Every Fox, an End," can be found here.

Writers in diaspora can connect places and themes across the globe. Palestinian-Syrian poet Ghayath Almadhoun is a best-selling author in Belgium. Similarly, Syrian-born author Mohja Kahf, whose work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, grew up in the United States after her parents migrated in the early 1970s. In her writing she explores life as a Muslim woman living in the west. She now teaches English at the University of Arkansas. Samar Yazbek, a journalist from Syria, writes about crossing theSyrian border to report on the conflict in her memoir The Crossing, after years of exile in Paris for her opposition to the Assad regime long before the Uprisings.

Dima Alzayat, whose short story “In the Land of Kan’an” appeared in the Fall 2015 edition of Prairie Schooner, is another Syrian-born author raised in the United States. Apart from her own writing, she also works as the social media manager for Salam Neighbor, a film campaign to benefit Syrian refugees.

Political strife has risen and fallen in Syria since the 1960s, decades after French colonial occupation ended in 1946. Hafez al-Assad eventually seized power in 1970; his policies sparked tension with Islamists and other factions, culminating in riots and massacres during the 1980s. Bashar al-Assad took over in 2000. Initially a peaceful regime compared to the brutality of the 1980s that forced a first wave of Syrians to flee, Bashar al-Assad’s tactics became increasingly authoritarian. The Uprisings and civil war pulled apart the regime’s peaceful facade, exposing a brutality similar to that of other regional dictators such as Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.

Writers may not connect to places more than the rest of us, but they have the power to express the meaning of those connections. Writers in diaspora are often torn between places, one of safety and the other of heritage. Like the millions of refugees fleeing Syria now, Syrian writers abroad must navigate the relationship between a cultural community and the home that that community can no longer occupy. Syrian and Syrian-born writers in the U.S. and Europe rise to the occasion through a rich variety of poetry, fiction, memoir, and theater. For audiences seeking to know Syria better, they offer invaluable insights, experiences, and voices. They have already contributed a vast canon of Syrian literature despite decades of conflict.

Reading and Writing Across Difference at Omaha LitFest 2015

Prairie Schooner — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 15:44:37 +0000

By Rebecca Macijeski, Assistant Editor-Poetry and Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Assistant Editor-Nonfiction

Centered around the subject of anxiety, and featuring panels on diagnosis, treachery, and empathy, the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest was held on Saturday, October 17th at the W. Dale Clark Library. Moderated by Lit Fest Director and Author of Swan Gondola, Timothy Schaffert, the event brought readers and writers together in a discussion of craft, the connection between narrative and literary responsibility, and anxiety’s influence on literature.

Diagnosis

The opening panel featured doctors and writers Bud Shaw (author of nonfiction book Last Night in the OR: A Transplant Surgeon’s Odyssey) and Lydia Kang (author of YA sci-fi novels Catalyst and Control). Touching on everything from the pedestals that doctors are put on by patients and society to the shifting perception of medicine as a service industry, the discussion eventually moved into a meditation on the role of narrative for patients and physicians. Kang analyzed the need for new physicians to embrace medical rhetoric, remarking that “They start to learn the language of medicine—it’s a very distinct culture.” Yet because of young doctors’ eagerness to assume their specialized roles, “they lose their ability to speak jargon free,” she warned, which creates distance between physicians and patients. The role of creative writing, she said, is to provide physicians a way back into other cultures, to help them navigate between the languages of patient and medicine. Literature thus becomes an important medical link. Similarly, Shaw described all of medicine as a narrative act, diagnosis the result of a developing story. Young doctors, he argued, “need to look at these patients and figure out what their stories are.”

Treachery

Bringing together Marilyn June Coffey (author of Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals That Helped Settle Nebraska), Douglas Vincent Wesselman (author of Tales of the Master: The Book of Stone), and Theodore Wheeler, (author of On the River, Down Where They Fond Willy Brown), the second panel discussion explored the role of personal demons, social outcasts, and taboos on literature. Treachery, panelists insisted, is essential to literature—not for shock value, but because of its relationship to the human condition. “All writers are treacherous,” remarked Wesselman.“We clean up our histories, and writers like to dirty it up again.” The many forms of treachery—from the taboo of Coffey writing about masturbation to Wheeler writing about local race riots to Schaffert speculating on the human fascination with apocalypse—are not mistakes or flaws to avoid, but material to mine. While the audience was vocal about trigger warnings and writer censorship, Wesselman defended a writer’s expressive freedom, comparing trigger warnings to “emotional bubble wrap” and likening literature to the appeal of danger, saying “it’s a risk writing it; it should be a risk reading it.”

Empathy

Joy Castro (author of How Winter Began: Stories), Julie Iromuanya (author of Mr. and Mrs. Doctor), and Jennie Shortridge (author of Love Water Memory) concluded the panels with their discussion of emotion in literature. Initially focusing on how to create empathy in readers through character and suspense, and the ways reader reaction impacts author choices, the panel quickly shifted its discussion to the larger conversation surrounding empathy and gender. Pointing out that the panel was comprised of three female authors, moderator Schaeffert invited the panelists to share how larger cultural assumptions about women and emotion shaped the marketing of their novels. Shortridge found that gender influenced presentation, for when her book came out in paperback the figure of a woman was added to the front cover in order to feminize it for potential readers. Castro, too, commented on how her thrillers, which follow a tough heroine (which Castro pointed out some readers have difficulty empathizing with) were feminized throughout the publishing and marketing process. Her original titles were softened, as was her initial vision for the covers. Iromuanya toyed with the idea of publishing her work under initials in order to hide her gender, but ultimately did not, her choice a deliberate act in a publishing industry that creates endless boundaries through its subgenres. Castro ended the panel by encouraging readers to “learn to read across difference,” an idea that many of the day’s panelists seemed to circulate around, and one that holds potential for closing the distance between readers and writers.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from California State University-Fresno and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches and works as Prairie Schooner’s Nonfiction Assistant Editor. She is the author of The Astronaut Checks His Watch (Finishing Line Press). Her work has been listed as notable several times in Best American Essays, and her poetry and prose have appeared in various magazines including Confrontation, Crab Orchard Review, DIAGRAM, Fugue, Georgetown Review, The Los Angeles Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The Pinch, Puerto del Sol, Southeast Review, Zone 3 and others.

Rebecca Macijeski is a Doctoral Candidate in Poetry at the University of Nebraska and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She currently serves as an Assistant Editor in Poetry for Prairie Schooner and Hunger Mountain. She has attended artist residencies with The Ragdale Foundation and Art Farm Nebraska, worked for Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry newspaper column, and is the recipient of a 2012 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Lore, Nimrod, Sycamore Review, Potomac Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Storyscape, Rappahannock Review, Border Crossing, Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, and others.

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Prairie Schooner — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 17:45:59 +0000

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets (open now!) We've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with 2014 Sillerman First Book Prize winner Ladan Osman about the process of putting together the manuscript that would become The Kitchen-Dweller's Testimony.

1. Describe the process of making the manuscript. How did you conceive of the poems together?

This book developed from my MFA thesis. At first, I conceived of the poems as a discovery process. The speaker articulated her developments and trauma through images and incidents, in distinct stages of revelation. I wasn’t happy with that sequence so I let the poems shadow or reflect off each other, and found the updated manuscript moved more smoothly and with greater tension.

2. How long did the process of making the manuscript take, from beginning to put it together to the moment you submitted and won the Sillerman?

I started early drafts of some poems during grad school, in 2009-2010. Until late 2012, I cut, added, and rewrote poems. When I felt I’d filled in the manuscript’s gaps, it took less than an hour to sequence the poems. This was after years of carrying the book around, and shuffling its pages.

3. How did you hear you’d won the Sillerman prize? What did you do immediately after you’d heard?

Sometimes I avoid checking my email or social media pages, at least until later in the day. One morning, my mother called to ask me why I hadn’t told her I was featured in a popular online Somali newspaper. Then I logged onto Facebook and saw a ridiculous number of notifications. So I guess the first thing I did is explain myself to my parents. I was surprised for days, and wasn’t sure how I wanted to celebrate.

4. What was it like to work with editors and bring the book to press?

A true pleasure. I met Malika Booker in 2012, and she talked about working with Kwame Dawes. In that moment, I wished for an editing experience like the one she described. The editors at the African Poetry Book Fund are attentive and exacting, yet always graceful. I really needed that directness to improve not only my poems but my professional presence, too.

5. What do you wish you’d known about constructing the manuscript then?

I wish I’d known that there were readers ready for my work, readers who would demand my rigor. Many times, I doubted my aesthetic inclinations, and wasn’t sure where the work belonged. If I’d known the APBF would exist, I would’ve had an entity to aim for, a clear community to try and join. That pointed focus would’ve been very encouraging.

6. What’s changed since you’ve won the Sillerman? Do you think of or approach your work differently?

I have a lot more opportunities to share my work, and to read work by emerging writers around the world. I’ve gained confidence in having a book supported by a collective dedicated to bringing contemporary African poets into conversation with each other. I think this has heightened my political sensitivities, and encouraged me to pursue my truest impulses in creative communication. I have a professional family to whom I have a serious responsibility.

7. What are you working on now?

I’m writing new poems and prose, visual work, and collaborating with artists across different disciplines.

Ladan Osman was born in Somalia and raised in Ohio. She earned a BA at Otterbein University and an MFA at the University of Texas at Austin. Her chapbook, Ordinary Heaven, appears in Seven New Generation African Poets (Slapering Hol Press, 2014). The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (University of Nebraska Press, 2015) is the winner of the 2014 Sillerman First Book Prize.

Her work has appeared in Apogee, The Normal School, Prairie Schooner, Transition Magazine, and Waxwing. Osman has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Cave Canem, and the Michener Center for Writers. She is a contributing editor at The Offing and lives in Chicago. You can find her online at ladanosman.com.