Public Readings: An Introvert's Perspective

Quick story from the first day of my first fiction-writing class in college. As if I wasn't already a sorry bundle of self-doubting, identity crisis-worn nerves (e.g., What am I doing here? I haven't written fiction since I was ten", "I'm no good at this", "Am I insane?", etc.), the professor decided to preface the course material with some hardcore advice on the tasks that come with being a writer—aside from, of course, the writing part. It was all good and well-meaning—if tough-loving—and I'm sure he had no intention of instantly incinerating whatever confidence I still had at the moment. But as soon as he brought up self-promotion, I felt doomed:

"Remember," he said (rather cheerfully, I think). "Just because you're a writer doesn't mean you can get away with being a hermit all the time. If you're going to make it as a writer and sell your work, you have to promote yourself in public. Give readings. Go to writers' workshops. Network with other authors and publishers..."

In other words, public speaking. That rocked me to my introverted core. As the class continued, I immediately started pondering if it was too late to drop out and find a major that didn't require conversation skills.

Thankfully, I didn't drop out. And thankfully, as I've gained more confidence and friendships in the writing field, the idea of networking doesn't terrify me as much as it did in undergrad. But public speaking—specifically, readings—that's still complicated for me. I've only done a handful of them (and I'm sure the lack of practice doesn't help), and each time I dread it. It's true that, over the years, I've become better at conversing with strangers (working receptionist-esque jobs does wonders for that); even presentations in classroom settings are comfortable now, thanks to nine years of higher education. Yet the idea of a public reading or speech—of being in the spotlight—doesn't sit well with me. It goes against my introverted instincts of being the observer, the absorber, the quiet support in the background. Being the center of attention is not exactly my idea of fun.

At first glance, it seems counterintuitive that that kind of public interaction unsettles me, when other kinds don't. My day job, as I mentioned, requires me to talk to strangers—a lot—everyday, and while I'm not perfect at it, it doesn't phase me anymore. As a musician who's been singing in choruses since I was eleven, being on a literal stage doesn't bother me, either. But there are some subtle distinctions between these encounters and public speaking that feel significant for a natural introvert. In a customer-oriented job, I'm in a role where I'm not the initiator or focus of an interaction, but a point of reference and assistance—someone people come to with a question or need (plus, the encounter is usually one-on-one). As a chorus member on stage, I'm not isolated as the center of attention; I blend into a warm, protective wall of co-performers. A public reading is a whole different animal. In that setting, I am, for a brief time, the solitary center of everyone's attention. What's more, I'm putting my writing, my heart's work, on display, so the social focus and potential judgement feels far more personal. The sense of exchange is also different. In most cases, instead of presenting to a group of peers or a customer, I'd be performing for an audience of strangers. It's much easier to imagine a crowd of strangers as unforgiving than a cohort of colleagues.

Despite all of this, I do love readings—attending them, anyway. I also recognize their importance, necessity even, in the writing world. They put a face to a literary work, bringing in a human element, a personal element, that's sometimes missed on the written page (powerful as it is). That's not to say the writer's soul (to use a bold term) can't be found privately in the written format; if it couldn't, that person wouldn't be a writer. But I think witnessing an author share their own work aloud, in their own voice (writing is, after all, rooted in spoken language), renews the appreciation of that writing as something organic, something that stirs from within. In some ways, it's like the difference in listening to a recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and seeing a live orchestra perform it: both are beautiful, both can impact us deeply, but nothing reminds us of the miracle of music like a seeing a group of finite, flawed human beings bring it to life. I suspect that's why so much of the history of storytelling is rooted in oral tradition, and why audiobooks are gaining popularity in the 21st century. We like enactment; we like stories that are personally, viscerally shared. When I had the privilege of seeing Chika Unigwe read from On Black Sister Street, it pierced through the fact that her novel isn't just fiction, but the devastating reality of millions of trafficked women, and of women she met face-to-face. We still need the private, quiet, reflective sharing of solitary reading, of course—much more, I'd argue, especially in this loud and busy world. But, along with their marketable strategies of self-promotion, public readings are also good reminders of the communal life of stories.

Diane Ackerman reading at The Universe in Verse (Academy of American Poets)

Of course, my love of readings doesn't make it any easier to participate in one. I've been in two in the last few months: my MFA program's Thesis Reading, and a poetry open mic at my local library. The first I prepared for months, reciting in my living room, even taking voice lessons and some coaching in public speaking. I imagined, maybe, that some minimal training in voice projection would result in a magical, Hollywood-like breakthrough of empowered speaking, à la "The King's Speech." And did it? Nope. When I got in front of my family and peers to read an excerpt of my novel, my voice was still shaky, and my attempts at dramatic reading (voice acting, anyone?) were still awkward. The open mic event I prepared for with the opposite approach—that is, no preparation whatsoever. I didn't even decide which poem to read until five minutes before going up to the podium. (Billy Collins's "Snow Day," by the way—ironic for a scorching June afternoon.) Again: shaky voice, awkward phrasing, and not even a group of familiar faces to reassure me. In short, I'm not emerging as a great orator any time soon.

But here's the thing: even though I suck, and even though all my fears about how those readings would go came true, I don't regret participating. I loved doing them. I had fun doing them. In the moment, I had no qualms about leaping outside my comfort zone or making an idiot of myself in front of dozens of people, because I was too busy enjoying the material, and enjoying the act of sharing it. And that's just plain bizarre, coming from a self-conscious introvert—the girl who, just a few years ago, would have literally rather died than embarrass herself in public. Some of that contrast is from personal growth: it's the result of a long, hard road to embrace my flawed self and not care so much about what others think, even in public situations. (I mean, I still get easily embarrassed, but my self-worth is no longer tied to making a good impression.) But think it also has to do with what I'm presenting during a reading: literature, poetry, stories. Things I love and am passionate about. In her introvert manifesto Quiet, my hero Susan Cain explains why this distinction makes all the difference:

"It's easier to take risks in the service of something or someone you really care about. Professor Brian Little speaks of our 'core personal projects' — the projects and people we place at the center of our lives. What and who are these for you? Once you've identified them, don't even think in terms of risk or not-risk. Just think in terms of how do you accomplish your goals."

Post-Thesis Reading photo with fellow graduates, professors, and MFA colleagues.

I'm not perfect. But I can deal with the awkwardness, even the failure of public readings, because my passion for what I'm reading aloud—be it a story I've worked hard on, or my favorite poem—exceeds my social anxiety about reading it well. It makes a reading feel less about me, and more about this beautiful, soul-stirring art form. Reading, then, becomes an act of sharing, not displaying. And believe it or not, people notice that authenticity. I had not only peers, but complete strangers come up to me after my thesis reading to thank me for sharing such an important and difficult subject matter as mental illness. After the open mic experience, one woman leaned over and asked to hear again Collins's opening line: Today we woke up to a revolution of snow. I think she could hear how much I adored that line, which sent her adoring it, too. It reminded me that readings are conversations—a dialogue over a mutual passion. Reading well or professionally is secondary to reading with love.

I have a long way to go as an orator. But for something as wonderful as writing, I'm willing to undergo the stumbling blocks, and the dozens or hundreds more less-than-stellar readings. So long as I get to share literature with people who cherish it as much as I do.

The Post-Thesis Post

It's absurdly fitting that, as I'm writing this, it's a perfect afternoon. It's sunny and 78-degrees. I have a porch with shade and a view of my favorite trees (yes, I've picked them all out by now). It's Saturday, and I have tea -- Pure Leaf's Black with Vanilla, if you're curious. In the house there are James Dickey poems and "The Nature Lover's Quotation Book" for when I need a quick break in writing. And nothing feels rushed today. It's a good feeling.

I can now happily tell you that, as of last week, I have successfully completed my MFA thesis project and defense -- and, consequently, my MFA degree. I'm sure every MFA graduate has felt this way, but right up until the moment I submitted my novel to my advisors, I thought I'd never see the end of this process. In the throes of a big, personal project like this -- especially one with a deadline -- it's easy to focus only on the unpleasant parts of the experience. For the last several months, there were plenty of despairing moments and embarrassing crying sessions: over writer's block; over deadlines; over the work-writing-sleep-health balance; over the guilt-ridden fear that I'd butchered the story in my head, and that what I'd written didn't do the conflict, the themes, or the characters justice. (Funny how even flat characters can become real like that, deserving of dignity.) It was only once I crossed over to the other, calmer side of that process -- the end of it -- that I could fully appreciate the experience. I can even be proud of what I've done.

Was my self-criticism about my work unwarranted? Definitely not. As a reader, a writer, and a literary scholar of sorts, I know perfectly well that my novel in its current form isn't brilliant or publishable by any means. Its characters are weak and its plot is skeletal. The themes I address -- mental illness, genius, the nature of evil, sibling relationships -- are treated much more simply, more black-and-white, than I'd hoped. I can just hear the mental health advocates criticizing my "stigma-reinforcing" treatment of mentally ill characters. (And as someone who's had brushes with mental illness personally, that was certainly not my intention, but it was what ended up on the drafting pages.) I can't be proud of this thesis as a finished product.

What I can do is give myself credit for the hard task that I accomplished: I wrote a novel. To boot, I did it in one year, and without having ever written a novel before. I did it without the encouraging workshop community of fellow MFA writers. I did it coordinating everything with my advisors long-distance, via Skype and e-mail and phone-calls (HUGE shout-out to the MFA faculty at SCSU for their amazing accommodations). I did it while adjusting to a new life and a new job. The results weren't perfect, and weren't anywhere near what I'd set out to do. But looking back, I realize that they were better, if utterly different, than what I had expected from myself under those circumstances. I set the groundwork for what I, and my advisors, consider a good story. I delved into darker territory than I ever have before, and didn't burn and crash in the process. Despite deadlines and a new area of writing, I managed to keep up my careful, perfectionist attention to the prose.

I didn't produce a complete, publishable novel, but I did complete the first, important step: a strong draft. And that's worth celebrating. (Which I did, by the way, with ahi tuna and B. Nektar cider and poems and an anime binge-watching session. Ahhh.)

Maybe I sound like I'm bragging a little at this point. Trust me, this comes after a process that was 99% self-loathing, so I'm not that full of myself! But in all seriousness, I think it's important for us writers to celebrate our accomplishments. There were many times during the drafting stages that I hated my novel, and planned on abandoning it once the degree was done. But the relief of finishing my manuscript, the little distance I've obtained from it since submitting, and the good feedback I got from my advisors during my defense, were all helpful in revitalizing my love for the story, and making me see the potential in it. And that's vital. Validation is vital. Some writers, more mature ones perhaps, can live and write without validation; I'm not one of them. For me, those moments of celebrating milestones (or stepping stones, maybe) are fuel for future writing: necessary reminders my goals are achievable and worth the effort. We have to like our work, even as we keep a critical eye on it -- or what's the point of it all? I don't have to lie to myself that I'm a genius, but I do have to acknowledge when I've produced something good.

This is all a long, garrulous way of saying: be good to yourself, fellow writer. Yes, set high expectations for yourself, don't call bad writing good writing, and keep a critical eye for self-improvement. But don't forget to celebrate your hard work, either. Cheer yourself on. Be happy.

Congratulations to my fellow MFA students who are also finishing their theses this Spring. I look forward to sharing our work together at the MFA Thesis Reading next month. (More on that when it happens!)

Happy spring, and grace and peace to you.

The New Year's Post (Including a Publication Alert for River River)

Mysterious teaser photo, for ending announcement.

Morning, all. And happy 2018.

My first order of business is to give you all a long overdue publication update. Back in December, my short story "Work Day" appeared in Issue 6 of the Hudson Valley-based journal River River. (Bonus: it's perfectly paired with a moody urban scene by Sharon M. Paster.) Written during my undergrad years, "Work Day" was for many years my favorite fiction project and is probably my most-submitted work to date (or most-rejected, technically), so the fact that it's finally found a home at a place like River River means a lot to me. You only need to read the issue's introduction to see how passionate the staff is about storytelling, and their activeness in promoting local artists makes them a valuable resource for the writing community. It's an honor to be included in their publication, and I hope you'll take a look at all the great things they're doing.

You can read my story "Work Day" here.

Second order of business, a brief summary of life in the South. Besides the adjustment to the climate (actually, not a hard adjustment -- Christmas in New England was -5 degrees, so I've quickly come to embrace the relative warmth), I'm adjusting to the ups and downs of novel-writing, especially where there's a thesis deadline concerned. It's messy, it's hectic, and there are plenty of times when it sucks to the point that it's the LAST thing I'd rather do -- but it's a good learning experience, too. Since my fiction-writing before this consisted exclusively of short stories, the transition to a novel has taught me how differently the drafting process looks. It's not just extending short story drafting into a larger project -- it's an entirely different way of envisioning a story. It's working with a bigger timeline; it's building a larger network of multiple conflicts and subplots; it demands more development of and then more resolution from the characters. And all those things requires more discovery on the writer's part.

When I write a short story, the smaller format means I can usually picture the plot and the characters pretty fully in my head before I start. Yes, there's discovery involved (what comes out on paper is almost never exactly what I originally envisioned), but for the most part I know my protagonists and the basic structure well enough to feel fairly confident where they'll end up. Novel-writing (for me at least) isn't like that. The mere size of the story means there are countless more directions a plot or character could go, and the image of a protagonist that I start with turns out to be barely a skeleton for the flesh-and-bone person they need to be to remain sustainable. So, there's a lot of blindness in novel-writing. That's where the messiness comes in. Discovery happens through experimenting, and in drafting that means pages upon pages of exercises, monologues, shaky chapters, half-formed sections -- making my characters walk around, trying to see what they'll do and where they'll go.

And what happens to a lot of those pages?

They turn out to be unusable, and end up in the trash.

For a perfectionist like me, this has been the most painful part of the novel-writing process. To write anything takes an inordinate amount of time and energy for me, so to go through all those hours and all that effort to write something that I can't use -- utter agony! It felt like such a horrific waste, and in the beginning, I wondered if I was doing something wrong. But I'm fortunate to be working with an insightful advisor, and to have had enough reflective down-time during the project, to figure out that as awful as this looks, it's okay. It's necessary, even. Writers explore their writing through writing, so what looks like countless pages of wasted material is actually the necessary labor of world-building -- or, more appropriately, behind-the-scenes building. If I write a chapter I can't use, the best case scenario is that the chapter helped me understand my characters more so that I can write them better in other chapters; worst case scenario, I've crossed off one more direction my plot cannot go. Even if a lot of drafted material remains "unseen" by the end, they have hopefully served as a reference or building block for what I do want seen in the finished product. That's the beginner's optimism, anyway.

Item 3 on today's post: I kicked off the New Year by starting a new position in a public library, and I'm LOVING it with every fiber of my being. I've been attracted to the library profession for years, but while I have done internships at libraries in the past, doing "the Real Thing" is better than I could've ever dreamed. It feels amazing to be busy in an environment that I'm passionate about -- helping provide an educational, enriching, and safe space for patrons and families free of charge. (Plus, I'm surrounded by books all day, so there's that.) I feel absolutely at home in this line of work, and hope to be in it for a long time.

For those in doubt of what public libraries do, I present this brilliant meme.

More another time. Hope you all enjoyed the holidays.

Grace and peace to you.

Shifting Gears

New Life, New Places, New Projects

Sooo . . . a frickin' lot has changed since we last chatted.

For one, I'm not, by address, a New Englander anymore. I now live in the very hot, fairly southern state of North Carolina with the Loved One (all writers need cheesy nicknames for their spouses, don't they?). We have our own, small house, where -- unemployed, introverted, heat-wary -- I'm currently spending a LOT of afternoons in solitude. We're busy adjusting to cohabitating married life, to adulting, and to my jarring transition from an 8-person household to a 2-person household. We're contemplating getting a dog.

One of many scenic sites from the New England - South East trek.
Location: Blue Ridge Parkway, somewhere in Virginia.

Second, while my marriage has gone from long-distance to full-residency (ha), my MFA adventures have now shifted to entirely to the internet -- a feat made possible by the fact that the only classes I have left are my thesis and one online independent study. You could say that I'm the MFA program's first and only low-residency student! At any rate, my professors' predictions were right: those two years at SCSU went by appallingly fast. I regret not updating the blog more frequently about my time there, as it's hard to summarize everything I've learned and achieved through that experience. Hopefully I can share many of those lessons in future posts, but for now I'll say that I don't regret one moment spent in that program, and I am indebted to SCSU's writing faculty and community for their excellence and constant support.

Third, briefly acknowledged but not emphasized enough in my last post: I finally, finally, FINALLY have a thesis project underway, and I'm so damn EXCITED about it. (*Insert confetti and kazoo-sounds.*) But seriously, after almost two years of agonizing, having absolutely no ideas or spark of inspiration for a novel-sized project, I'm still stunned by how this story came crashing into my life, out of the blue, only six months ago.

Well, not entirely out of the blue, I suppose.

I don't want to spoil the plot or speak too freely on its origin, but suffice to say that this story is inspired by true events, and has hovered over me, blurry and distant, for some years. The possibility of turning it all into a book had crossed my mind, but I never felt like it was my story to tell; it was too big and too dark, and so utterly alien to anything I've ever written. But six months ago, it stopped suggesting itself quietly to me and starting yelling, demanding. Some writers talk about stories that "take on a life of their own," and while I abhor clichés, and like to believe that the artist is ultimately master of his own art and not the other way around, I have to admit: this idea has had a staggering presence. No idea has ever demanded so much of me, pulling me far outside my usual style, ambitions, and comfort zone, almost as though I have no say in the matter.

I've written some chapters for workshop, and as dramatic as it sounds, the project has altered my entire fiction-writing process. A lifelong polish-as-I-go writer, I've found myself now writing first drafts that -- surprise! -- really do look like first drafts. (If that sounds like a bad thing, you may want to check out my previous posts about the downsides of perfectionist writing.) I find myself taking risks I'd normally never take, such as sacrificing compelling prose for compelling plot, at least in the drafting stages. As one of my professors put it, I've gone from writing "neatly" to writing "messily" -- and, lo and behold, the feedback is positive thus far. Is it all a joy-ride? No. Does "messy" mean I'm able to write stress-free and effort-free now? Hell no. But it is flabbergastingly interesting to see a project able to defy my own inhibitions and perfectionism, all because its content is more important than my aesthetic.

At any rate, I'm excited, nervous, and pleasantly confused to see where this novel takes me.

Other news? A lighter school load and temporary unemployment means, I hope, an abundance of writing time, and a new home means I have a new cozy office to write in. (View below. Much proud.) See that cushy wall-to-wall carpet? Perfect for shoe-less pacing, or lying on the floor for a better thinking-position. See those windows? Good for gazing at trees, or spying on neighbors, or at the very least letting in natural light to allay seasonal depression. Also, bookshelves: meticulously arranged with a personalized revision of the Dewey Decimal System, because I'm geeky like that and I can. And the mysterious reflective bench in the left-hand corner belongs to my Baldwin home organ (view subsequent photo). You know, in case I need a break from stressing over just one artistic pursuit.

Muh writer-cave.

Bae.

 Well folks, such are my new digs and happenings. I've designed a weekly schedule of rigorous reading and writing for myself (we'll see how well I enforce it), so with luck blog updates should be more frequent and more interesting now. Thank you to everyone who, God knows why, continues to read my work and support my writing from afar. With the relative solitude of living in a new place, it really helps me to feel connected to people in that way. So, much obliged.

Grace and peace to you.

A Commentary on a Hiatus (which is really just a commentary on other things)

Dear Reader,

Once, I was the type of person who'd roll my eyes at a blog that spent half its posts apologizing for not posting enough.

Now, it seems, I am that eye roll-worthy blogger spending half my posts apologizing for not posting enough. As Boy George says, karma karma karma karma . . .

Yes, I'm still here (no, I didn't move to Canada). But the world has been messy and I have been a mess with it. I wish I could be like Mary Oliver, who has said that she is simply too busy loving the earth to become political about it. Though I suppose as a hopeless empath, it's not really the politics, but all the restless emotions of others that get to me. Anxiety, anger, confusion, suspicion, vainglory, despair -- and how these things knot together to make walls between souls. I'm blessed (though some may call it cursed) to know and love people of all different shades of ideologies. (And no, it is not a one-side-or-other-side fence, it is not even a two-ended spectrum. Did you think humans could be that simple?) I'm blessed for that exposure, because it's given me a glimpse of how complex and un-boxable real people are, and I can say with respect that every person I know and love is good, and is motivated by goodness. So it's the intolerance, the simplifying, the categorization of others -- which I see coming from all branches of political thought -- that bothers me.

"Can [the patriot] hate it enough to change it,
yet love it enough to think it worth changing?"
 ~ G.K. Chesterton

I don't believe in assuming there's hate where there's disagreement, or malice where there's differences (despite sadly knowing that there is so much hate and malice in the world). I don't believe in that any more than I can believe that the mind of a terrorist, or of a man in the Oval Office, defines what every mind within an entire social group looks like. I'm a naïve idealist: I believe in dialogue and open-mindedness; in kindness and giving the benefit of the doubt; in understanding past pain and blame and agenda that the person in front of you isn't a robot of partisanship or ideology, but a complicated human trying to make sense of the world, too. I just wish more people believed in that nowadays.

Well, now that I've gotten all the somber stuff out of the way, I promise not all aspects of my life are so despair-filled. Grad school is still good to me, especially as I'm getting opportunities to branch out of my usual areas of writing and study. Last semester, I worked mostly on non-fiction for workshops; this semester, I again have the haven of the additional workshops in poetry. Note: this is my first experience critiquing and being critiqued by graduate-level poets, and it's terrifying, but enlightening, the way a massive moose that's vague about whether it wants to stand still and be beautiful or run you over is both terrifying and enlightening. (Oh brain, where do you even get these metaphors?) Then there's History of the English Language -- a far jump from my routine literature courses, instead looking at language with a left-brained nerdiness, while the right-brained geekiness in me still exclaims, "The growth of words! The blending of cultures! The metaphorical compounds! What a poetic story." (Did I mention I'm loving the class so far?)

Manuscript of "Caedmon's Hymn"

Oh, and possibly the nicest perk of the Last Full Time MFA Semester -- notwithstanding that, f**k, it really is the LFTMFAS -- is the four-day weekend schedule, consisting of Sleep-Til-Noon Day, Family Day, Unapologetic Writing Day, and S**t-That's-Due-Tomorrow Day. Well, there's also the perk that thesis ideas are finally flooding in, and I suppose that's a bigger deal.

Publications are still happening, albeit at turtle-pace as I've been anxious about searching for new publishers. If you appreciated my announcement about the goddess poems, you'll be interested to know that Bibliotheca Alexandrina recently published another collection with one of my poems, "Ammit Plays with Her Food." You can read about the collection "The Dark Ones: Tales and Poems of the Shadow Gods" here, and purchase a copy here (I'm on page 235). I also received word recently that I'll be getting an academic essay published soon -- more on that later.

The Egyptian goddess Ammit
(in case you want a sneak-peek of the weirdness of my poem)

That's all I can really say for now, folks. I'm hoping that, on a day when seasonal-depression isn't hitting me so hard, I can give the blog a proper revival, complete with literary gushing and philosophizing about the writing process and self-given pep talks. Thanks (assuming you're still there) for your patience, your reading, your interest in what Silly Me is doing.

Happy New Year. Grace and peace to you.

**UPDATE**

A preview of the above-mentioned poem is now available below (image may be clearer on Web Version):

Publication Alert: Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Dear Reader,

First, I should note that I'm in a perpetual state of disbelief these days. (And no, I'm not talking about the election, although that's all pretty surreal lately, too.) In the last two months I've become a home-owner (!!!), been researching post-MFA degrees, and begun my final full-time year at SCSU's MFA program. Pardon the expression, but holy freaking $h*t -- when did this adulthood thing happen, and how is this program almost half over already?? To clarify, I'll probably be working on my thesis for several months after the spring (especially since I'm still figuring out what my thesis is going to be... oops), so I won't be completely graduated for awhile. Still, despite my short time here, it's going to feel bittersweet to leave this great network of writers soon.

But one more happy bit of disbelief: a new set of poems published! (This announcement is actually a month late, so I apologize for that. House-buying an' all.) I am exceptionally excited about this publication, as it has been long in-the-works and features what I consider some of my best work.

No less than three of my poems -- "Guan Yin's Lullaby," "Kuka Mama, Sown," and "Papatūānuku: A Lament" -- have been published in Bibliotheca Alexandrina's newest anthology, "Garland of the Goddess: Tales and Poems of the Feminine Divine." For those of you who haven't uncovered this gem yet, Bibliotheca Alexandrina is the printing company for Neos Alexandria, an online community of Neopagans and anyone interested in the worship or study of polytheistic deities. Now, if you're a staunch monotheist like myself, don't let that description deter you. Neos Alexandria is a beautiful, comprehensive, and fun resource for simply exploring global mythologies and polytheistic cultures. And of course, the creative work in their anthologies is enchanting. In this "Garland" anthology, we see depictions of legendary goddesses as exotic, glorious, tragic, seductive, vulnerable, humanized -- in short, as femininity in all its sublimity. I also had wonderful communications with NA/BA's editorial staff throughout the entire publishing process, so being a part of their publication has been a great pleasure.

You can read more about the "Garland" anthology here, and purchase a copy at their CreateSpace store. My poems are on pages 152, 193, and 228.

About the work:
You can find this information in my author's notes, but each of my poems are based on non-Greco-Roman goddesses that are lesser known to the Western world. I wrote "Papatūānuku: A Lament" first, years ago in a poetry course. It's inspired by a native New Zealand creation story, which I'd fallen in love with for its portrayal of longing and loneliness. After submitting it to NA/BA, I was asked to send more, so after a flurry of research and reader feedback I wrote "Guan Yin's Lullaby" (about a Chinese Buddhist deity) and "Kuka Mama, Sown" (about an Incan goddess). It was amazing how much the mythologies of other cultures fueled my writing. These stories were so powerful, but also had a surprising humanness to them, and I tried to capture that balance by re-imagining the goddess-psyche in an intimate way. I hope you find the results as rewarding as I did, and that you explore the other contributors' marvelous work, too.

Fun fact: I also had a fourth poem accepted by NA/BA for another anthology -- so be on the lookout!

Enjoy and share away! Grace and peace to you.

** UPDATE**

Previews of above-mentioned poems are now available below (images may be clearer on Web Version):

"Lolita" Afterthoughts

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

~ Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Chapter 1

The first time I came across these lines was in 2013, in a creative writing class. As a novice to writing, I was far more naive in my reading of stylistic technique, even those mere three years ago. But reading this excerpt on a small handout -- an analytical exercise in which we treated it as a poem -- I instantly fell in love with the strange playfulness of its imagery: uncomfortably intimate, neurotically shifting verbal mechanics into music and a picture. Despite having never heard of Vladimir Nabokov -- and my professor's description of the novel as "really creepy" -- I knew I had to read Lolita in full one day. This summer, I finally did; in fact, it was the only novel I managed to finish this break. While grad school has conditioned me to read multiple books in an insanely short amount of time, I'm grateful I didn't speed through this work. Like that first excerpt, it deserved to be examined slowly, attentively, lovingly, as any great work of literature does -- not binge-read like it was just another Fifty Shades off the shelf.

The reason I bring up the Fifty Shades contrast, by the way, is to emphasize that Lolita is not the apotheosis of forbidden erotica that everyone thinks it is. (And by the way, Fifty Shades is utter trash, so get over it, America.) Delving into Lolita on the beach, in waiting rooms, at home, I received plenty of bewildered looks from scandalized strangers and friends. My own dad gagged in a horrified tone one day, "Why are you reading that awful, disgusting book?" Most of these scandalized persons, I should mention, had never read the novel. But Lolita's controversial sexual themes have made it famous even among non-literature buffs -- and given it a heinous reputation, apparently.

Nearly everyone knows Lolita is about a pedophile enamored by his step-daughter; what bothers me is that this is all that most people know about it, even within the English field. Yes, pedophilia and semi-incest are central to Nabokov's plot, but that should not obscure the miles of literary worth that exceed and, to an extent, redeem the vileness therein. Most of all, what makes Nabokov's book literature instead of trash is that it always remains a critique -- though not the kind we expect. Nabokov, you see, is completely aware of our silly expectations for a sexualized, "scandalous" novel, and toys with those expectations mercilessly. Those looking for a porno trip will be disappointed, because sex scenes are few and stubbornly abstract. Those looking for a clear-cut villainization (or condonation) of the narrator will be disappointed, because H.H. is more frequently a bumbling idiot than a sinister predator. And those looking for any semblance of a love story will be sorely disappointed -- just as grandiloquent, neoclassical, poetry-spewing H.H. is disappointed. What the reader will find instead is a deformed beauty: philosophical depth, dark humor, and hopeless poetry beneath a sickened voice.

Credit: Lyuba Haleva, via venusfebriculosa.com

It's difficult to defend Lolita without plot spoilers. But what I love about it the most is this: humanity at its best, smothered under humanity at its worst. The humanity Nabokov envisions, in other words, can never be definitively categorized as good or evil. There are surprising moments of shame (though never enough) in which H.H. tries clumsily to reconcile the ideals of a hopeless romantic with disordered desires. H.H. is a sick bastard, yet somewhere beneath all his filth, an infinitesimal part of him can still express profoundly the love and worship of another human being (however deluded that adoration may be). There are many passages in the novel that, had they come from any other narrator, might strike one as the most romantic words in literature. Coming from a pedophile narrator, of course, these words are in effect only a parody of romance; all the more so for idealizing an inamorata who, incidentally, is no Beatrice. (By this I mean only that she is not the naïve, virginal idol that H.H. so patriarchally imagines her to be; not that her sexual knowledge makes her any less deserving of love songs, or at all deserving of abuse.) But clearly, Nabokov has meaningful intentions with such parody. He wants us to view the ideal of human love writhing under mud, with only sparkles of it visible. Lolita's image is the antithesis of that trope that depicts animalistic instincts threatening to break through a civilized exterior. H.H.'s desperate, interior outbursts of love -- or attempted love -- give us glimpses not of primal lust but of a primal tenderness, which wrestles beneath a surface of erotic perversion. Nabokov, you see, is reversing all our black-and-white concepts. He wants us to question, first, whether the ideal and the worst of human nature are truly mutually exclusive; and second, which of the two is the most basic, the most driving, the most subversive to our existence.

Out of H.H.'s vulgarity, beautiful love wants to emerge, even if it can only do so satirically.

Let us make no mistake: Lolita is not for the faint of heart. While its sexual taboos are really only one, small part of a much deeper story, they are significant enough to be disturbing to the most vulnerable of readers, I imagine. (I would not recommend this book to former victims of sexual abuse, for instance.) For everyone else, I encourage you to give this so-called "filthy" book a chance. You will undoubtedly be surprised by what you discover in the richness of even a perverted, fictional mind -- and consequently, you may discover something about your own frail, imperfect self.

Grace and peace to you.

Rambling Reflections on Rhythm

It's become my new favorite, life-describing word. But what exactly do I mean, internally, when I say "rhythm"?

I should know, shouldn't I? I'm a lifelong musician, music-lover (but not a dancer, definitely not a dancer), even a relatively new convert to the reading and writing of poetry -- fields where rhythms abide. But I am kidding myself, really: I have no innate sense of meter, either on a page or in a score; I'm not quickly aware, as the serious artists are, what kind of "foot" a poet has just used, or what sort of mischief Bach is up to with his triplets. I don't count beats when I read, write, or listen, and even when I play the beat must be pounded into me, so to speak.

But "rhythm" is the word I run to, to describe existence. It is entirely the wrong word, I'm sure, but it's the word that I'm in love with, that repeats steadily along my attempts to make sense of the world. What does it mean for me? So many things.

Rhythm is the root of all. So much, Williams might have said, depends upon rhythm, or so I'm convinced. We all begin with a heartbeat. We all survive through the constant if not regular pumping, pumping of blood, the in of air always followed by an out. Biological rhythms, patterns, inevitabilities. And what is the daily life, I wonder, but a broader imitation of that basic beat: a steady pulse carrying us through the predictable pulse of waking and working -- with their frequent flutters. Rhythms need not be regular, after all; only perpetual.

Jackson Pollock

Rhythm is motion, any motion. Musically and poetically, we associate it with sound and its pauses, but start again with the heartbeat, or better yet a drum: isn't it really that vibration you feel, through the body, the little trembling movement down to your core? Sense of touch more than sound. And doesn't motion expand into the fundamentals of physical experience? Rhythm lives in steps; it lives in the mouth, the lift, fall, click of tongues; even, silently, in the inevitable pressing back of one set of lips into another. Everything is fast or slow, steady or fluttering, deep or trickling, isn't it? A flow or tempo of some kind. And move that movement into other senses: a rolling hill is a large sweeping motion; the quick, dotting whistle of a sparrow is a pinprick of motion. So doesn't all art, then -- the solemn bends of Beethoven and the flittering splatters of Pollock -- come back rhythm?

Rhythm, of course, is language. I don't even know how to turn rhythm off -- my addiction to lists is really an amateur's addiction to sentence-structure repetition, I suppose. And again, there is the poet's textbook understanding of rhythm in language: beginning with the natural stresses, pauses, and repetitions, ending with the stylized meters of poetry (iAMbic FEET imPLY an INesCAPaBILity).
But for me "rhythm" wants to describe everything else in language, too -- every blessed, minute detail of speech. There's the small roll, trill, before certain consonants in certain non-American accents. There's also the excited rapidity in an extroverted child's words, a contrast to the slowing and carmelizing of a lover's words. Loudness is a kind of rhythm -- a broad, single burst of timpani -- and so is quietness -- the tip-tap of rain. Pitches, too, are often inescapably tied to rhythm, as seen socially among tonal languages, musically with Africa's mysterious talking drums, which imitate such languages. None of these are an identifiable pattern, like TROchees or amPHIBrachs or pentameters, and are perhaps not patterns at all, since speech defies regularity. But diversity of sound is a kind of rhythm as well -- a wild and strange one.

"Rhythm" is the word I've fallen in love with, and I'm convinced that rhythm is what I need always as a writer. Not just to imitate the musicality of speech on the page, or to describe the flow of the world, but to actually survive as a writer. I need walks, walking to create the little internal bounce that sends the magnificent words of Nabokov bouncing freely in me: "the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." I need the rhythm of steps, or the rhythm of stillness amid the moving world, to unclog or declutter words that need to be written. To be a writer I need to observe rhythm, always, to see the natural world as something never still but active: bodies of water with ever-trembling molecules, grand trees with their creeping cycle of green-aflame-bare. I need to practice rhythm, to make writing, reading, and simply appreciating as much of a natural constancy, bodily necessity, as breathing. We all begin with a heartbeat and we'd die without this biological rhythm; I want that to be so for all intellectual, spiritual rhythms, too.

It all sounds so "zen," so New-Agey and ridiculous coming from Roman Catholic me, to say an artist must rely upon the rhythms of existence. But for me rhythm (whether that is the right word or not) is not a philosophy so much as a hunger, an instinct, the absolutely only way to make sense of the world. Try even for a second to live in total, stagnant stillness, or to see anything as not implying an internal, glowing pulse behind it. I'll bet you can't.

Grace and peace to you.

MFA Life: Not As Scary As I Thought

A Year in Review

Yes, my fellow young writers, take heart from that title. You'd never know it from the stress of applying to MFA programs -- nor from the bedlam of controversy surrounding them, for that matter -- but actually being in the MFA is not nearly as terrifyingly intense as it sounds.

That's been the case for me, anyway, at Southern Connecticut State University's MFA in Creative Writing program, where I recently finished my first year of graduate studies. I feel like I'm being obnoxiously repetitive at this point, but I can't say enough how much I am enjoying the experience and feel that I made the right decision. Coming from a small, close-knit English department in undergrad, it feels perfect being in an environment where workshops (and even literature elective classes) are an intimate size, making it easy to develop meaningful relationships with instructors and fellow writers. One of my last experiences of the semester was attending a night of thesis readings by graduating candidates, including two brilliant women who'd been in my prose classes this year; the amount of love and support (and the lack of enough seats!) I saw in that room was astounding, and it reminded me so much of the family atmosphere I adored at Westfield State. Basically -- clichédly -- it feels pretty great to be part of a talented and passionate writing community.

To properly balance off my enthusiasm, I suppose I should note that it's not all rainbows and butterflies -- nothing is. Graduate school is no cakewalk, but I feel fortunate in that the dedication to excellence I found at Westfield made me well-prepared for the crazy workload and high standards of grad classes. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the surprisingly relaxed atmosphere at the heart of the MFA: the workshop courses.

Relaxed? you say. In the all-intensive, higher-worldly, great-and-powerful graduate MFA? Yup. Relaxed.

I was shocked when I discovered this atmosphere. After all, I'd come from an undergraduate writing concentration that prided itself on challenging students toward their absolute best. I'd taken workshops where we were expected to churn out new stories almost every week of the semester -- and good stories, not the I-wrote-this-the-night-before kind, or even the first-draft kind. In those workshops, there was a tough-loving emphasis on always turning in one's best work and on constantly producing work, for which I'm grateful because it taught me to take writing seriously. I had imagined that an MFA program would be that kind of intensity times ten -- with maybe less personal supportiveness, more objective criticalness from faculty. But here at SCSU, it's been a different vibe altogether. In the fiction workshop, each student submits only three stories throughout the semester, consisting of any length or subject of their choosing. (By grad school, writers are assumed to be producing work independently -- no more hand-holding prompts here!) Sometimes those stories are revisions or rewrites of work from previous semesters; sometimes they are partially-completed chapters; sometimes they come with notes from the author saying they're not sure where to go with the story and are looking for suggestions. While sloppy work is still looked down upon, workshop submissions in the MFA are essentially anything-goes, and workshops themselves tend to be conversational and informal (albeit professional). But what shocked GPA-obsessed me the most, I think, was the lack of emphasis on grading: at least in the fiction workshops, nothing gets individually graded, and as long as writers put good effort into their submissions and critiques, it's not difficult to earn an A for the course.

"The Throes of Creation" by Leonid Pasternak

I'm sure that the mechanics of workshops varies by the college, and certainly things must intensify once students begin working on their theses. Yet speaking to friends who have pursued MFAs and graduate studies elsewhere makes me suspect that this low-key workshop approach is common among MFA programs. When I say I was shocked to discover this, what I mean is that I was initially skeptical -- indignant, even. Grad school was supposed to hard; it was supposed to be challenging and high-strung and make me write more and harder than I'd ever written, wasn't it? But here, the most stress I've experienced has been from my lit electives. How was I supposed to improve in my writing and keep up the motivation to work hard when my graduate professors seemed more laid-back than my undergraduate professors?

But the longer I've been in the MFA, the more I've come to understand the value and thought-process behind all this "chillin'." At the end of the fall semester, I remember asking the fiction instructor some revision questions in full high-stress mode, and he immediately calmed me down by saying something to the effect of: "This program is for you [the MFAers] and is your journey. Whatever you need to do to make the most of it for your writing is what what we want, too." That encouragement to take ownership of my grad studies made me realize that the low-key workshop atmosphere didn't come from an attitude of laziness, or of not taking the field seriously. Quite the opposite -- it comes from a place of respect and an expectation of maturity from student writers. In a graduate writing program, the attitude is that everyone here is an adult: we got into the program because we're good writers and we wouldn't be here if we weren't serious about writing. Thus, how much and how hard we write is not something to be micro-monitored by our instructors, but is entirely dependent on our own work ethic (as it is for any serious writer). The MFA program's function is to simply be a support system for whatever it is we are doing with our writing.

Such a hands-off approach may sound like an invitation for students to slack off -- and I'm sure there has been many an MFAer to do just that -- but in my experience it's been surprisingly liberating and productive. Less submissions means more time to finetune the quality of what I do submit. Seeing how much care my peers put into their writing, even without the grade incentive, motivates me to work hard as well. Most importantly, this is an environment that encourages taking risks. In the past, being obsessed with getting a good grade meant that I was likely to stick to the same kind of writing: I would use "formulas" that had previously received positive feedback, while shying away from experiments that could potentially fail and get me a lower "score." Here in the MFA, writing is seen as a personal process -- full of successes and failures -- which means I can feel comfortable experimenting with new styles for the sake of personal improvement. My last workshop story of the year, in fact, was probably the most experimental piece I've ever written (something I'd have never attempted in undergrad), and as it turns out I got positive feedback for it! But even if the feedback had been negative, the fact that I'm now brave enough to push the boundaries makes me optimistic for the progress of my writing.

I never thought that someone as intense and hardworking as me would ever appreciate a low-stress atmosphere in grad school, but I'm enjoying every minute of it. What's more, my writing is becoming better for it. So, I would call this first year in MFA life one big, crazy, and messy success.

Thanks for reading! Grace and peace to you.

Publication Alert: Barking Sycamores

Dear Reader,

It sounds utterly bonkers, but my first year of the MFA is officially completed! I can honestly say that this past semester has been one of the best I've ever had in my entire college career, and what's more is that I'm humbled and grateful by the growth I've seen in my writing in the past year. Mind you, those are very meager sentences to try to summarize what I've learned -- about writing and about myself -- but I think only a longer post about my MFA experience can do it justice. With a finals-free schedule, such a post shouldn't be too far away.

On to "business" matters (though everything feels like fun these days)... To kick off the celebration of summer, I'm happy to announce the publication of my poem "What You Must (Not) Do" in Issue 9 of Barking Sycamores. Of all the venues that have accepted my work, I must say that I'm particularly enthralled with this one. Barking Sycamores is a part-online, part-print magazine of neurodiversity: it celebrates the works of neurodivergent writers and artists, from the autistic to bipolar patients to those with synesthesia. Dedicating a whole literary magazine to neurodiversity is a beautiful step toward raising awareness about mental illness and neurodevelopmental disorders, but also toward humanizing these experiences. The works in this publication are stunning, and together they are one more reminder that we each have a unique way of looking at the world. Please take the time to look through!

You can find my poem "What You Must (Not) Do" here. (Note: for each new issue, Barking Sycamores posts one piece per every couple of days, until all the works in that issue have been posted. So if you want to explore the other pieces in Issue 9, be sure to check back frequently!)

About the work:
So, what am I doing in a publication for neurodivergent writers? Well, like all things in this world, it's complicated.

I may someday explore this more in my creative writing, I may not, but I've always been fascinated by the fact that mental illness runs in both sides of my family. Fascinated (haunted?), because while I have gone through life unofficially diagnosed, there is plenty of evidence that this mental illness runs a little in me. Since my late teens -- and most potently as an 18-year-old -- there has been a sadness and a spaciness for which only the words "depression" (minor, seasonal?) and "ADD" (mild, moderate?) makes sense. Living unmedicated and therapy-less means dealing with the raw forms of these in a strange combination; it means perceiving the world as fragmented, frayed, and with a dark cloud over it. I may someday explore the whole story of my mental struggles with readers, I may not. But for now I will simply say that I've come to appreciate my depressed-inattentive life most most strongly (albeit inexplicitly) through my writing, which allows me to make something productive out of this messy, melancholy daydream.

"What You Must (Not) Do" is one small, quiet way of being productive, I suppose. It's possibly among my most honest poems. I wrote this last summer on my own, not for a class assignment, not with the aim to write anything earth-shattering; I wrote it for me, as a way of appreciating beauty amid sad memories. I hope you're able to take something meaningful from it.

Enjoy and share away. Grace and peace to you.

Strategizing the Mess

MFA Semester 2 and Adapting to My Flawed Process

March already. Halfway into my second semester as an MFA student. Strange, the only suitable response that comes to mind is an arms-outstretched, juvenile yell of "Craziness!" (In my mind, of course.)

What I will say, here, is that it's been a great semester so far. I'm in two workshops this spring -- graduate-level prose and undergraduate-level poetry -- and LORD is it fun! I've sorely missed writing and learning about poetry in an academic setting. There's something very freeing about poems, maybe because they allow my overcrowded mind to tackle the world in bite-size; moreover, the attention to language, to moments, never fails to reinvigorate my enthusiasm for sentence-level writing. The prose workshop this semester ain't shabby either: I'm impressed by the quality of work, response, and support from this group, and the over-observer in me also revels in the experience of silently cheering my classmates on when I see their craft developing. I'm also happy to be taking a third class at my old stomping grounds this semester -- a cross-cultural lit course at my undergrad alma mater. In addition to the great reading, it's always uplifting to be back at the place I still call "home."

Clearly "somebody up there likes me," because my weekly schedule also has its major perks. During the week, I'm fortunate to have writers as coworkers: we've made a ritual of devoting 15-20 minutes semi-weekly to creative writing, sometimes sharing what we've written when we're done. Talk about Nerd Heaven! I also somehow ended up with a four-day weekend in my schedule -- which translates to ample hours to develop some new productive habits. Working out, for instance (a nice way to reverse some of those sitting-at-a-desk-all-day effects), but more importantly, an Unapologetic Writing Day (yes, it's capitalized). One full day to put all other work aside, close the door, and focus exclusively on my writing.

Or drinking tea.

Or pacing around my room.

Or despairing over writer's block.

From adultaddadhd.org

Well, Unapologetic Writing Day has its issues. Mainly, this has to do with the convoluted mess that is my mind and, consequently, my writing process. I've mentioned before on this blog that I sometimes deal with ADD-esque symptoms, something I've always attributed to my introversion and easily-stimulated brain. Lately, though, the presence of these symptoms when I write is downright disheartening. Sometimes I think I have the attention span of a squirrel. (See what I did there? Oh nevermind.) My mind wanders, or freezes up, or feels like its grasp on words has dissipated like smoke. Not being officially diagnosed, I suppose I have no right to call these symptoms straight-up ADD. It may simply be subliminal stress, self-doubt, damned procrastination -- nothing that any other writer has not experienced as well. But the results are disturbing. I'm lucky if I can get one paragraph in four hours on some days.

I think one of the scariest things on the planet is not understanding your own mind. I could spend all day coming up with theories for why my writing stamina feels like it's deteriorating. Perhaps the size of a prose/fiction project scares me, because unlike a poem, there's no way to predict how long a story might become; perhaps I'm paralyzed by my own reservation, afraid of accidentally writing about myself; perhaps I've just become too comfortable, lazier. But at the end of the day, there's no way to really know. All I know is I have this problem, this mind-wandering mess, and it could ruin my writing.

My process, my natural writing inclinations, are flawed beyond question. But I learned a long time ago that I can't always eliminate my weaknesses, I just have to work around them. I believe that self-improvement often has little to do with changing who you are as it does with applying your natural self strategically. So how does one strategize one's writing flaws?

Step 1, I can observe and acknowledge my weakness. Be this a temporary or permanent issue, I know now that unless I'm writing a really short story, I can no longer write a story in a day. I can't -- or at least, any attempts to makes me miserable, and misery makes work harder. So, step 2, I work around that flaw: I break up the drafting process. Against all inner voices yelling for perfect completion ASAP, I've forced myself into a system of working on a story's dialogue one day, action another day, description on another. Sometimes, the only type of "writing" I can get done for a story is the thought behind it -- the brainstorming, the planning, and not a lick of it on paper -- and I tell myself consciously (despite sulking emotions) that it's absolutely fine. That brings me to Step 3, I guess: doing what works right, not what feels right, in a writing crisis. There will be many times in writing where our heads and emotions disagree: my emotions want to say that adapting my process shouldn't be necessary, that I used to write whole stories in a day, that one-sitting writing is the only way to get the "flow" right, dammit. But if that's what my current situation isn't letting me do, if that's what's not productive right now, I have to ignore those feelings. I have to adapt to the problem at hand, and that means being comfortable with one part of me being at odds with the other (at least temporarily).

If I've learned anything this semester, it's that my writing will never be consistent, neither in quality nor productivity nor method. There will be periods where it comes easily, others where it will struggle, still others where previous joy-inducing exercises will become painful as hell. There is no sure-fire formula to writing, simply because I am a fickle, moody, ever-changing human being. My writing flaws will always evolve as I do, so I have to make my process evolve with them.


Thanks for enduring the long and rambling update, which I will conclude with one belated bit of news about change, in the words of my favorite literary heroine:

Reader, I married him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte)