Friday, November 12, 2010

Author Insides - Interview with Julie Riso

Writer JD Riso's non-fiction piece "Empty Spaces" appears in the current issue of The Battered Suitcase.

Her short fiction and travel writing have appeared in many exotic locations, including Slush Pile, Avatar Review, and Superstition Review. Her novel, Blue (Murphy's Law Press), was published in 2006. She leads a nomadic life and currently resides in Budapest, Hungary with a Frenchman and a big brown rabbit. You can find her online at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/790945.J_D_Riso

 
So Julie, When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?


In high school, when my English comp teacher gave me a “D” because, in his own words, “Even though your work is technically correct, I don't like your style.” It was interesting that something I wrote upset an adult that much.

Why do you write?

Because I've got some stories to tell. I'm trying to I finish them so I can stop writing.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?

Given my rather unconventional start as a writer (see first question), it's exactly like I thought it would be.

What do you think makes a good story?

Originality in both subject and style, but without being pretentious.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?

I'll Let You Go by Bruce Wagner and Skin by Kathe Koja are two books that really inspire me. I read them both once a year.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?

Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda. I don't care if he was a charlatan.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?

Dreams.

What does your family think of your writing?

My mother is my biggest fan.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?

Writing work schedule. Haha.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?

Does obsessively checking to see if my latest draft has saved count?

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

Motivation.

What are your current projects?

I'm working on a memoir entitled Wish I Were Here, which is about growing up with a schizophrenic father and about how I've tried to run away from my depression by traveling the planet. Dromomania (travel mania) is a real affliction and not as romantic as one might think.

What are you planning for future projects?

I've also started writing a historical novel, The Divine, which is about the Countess de Castiglione.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

I don't feel qualified to give advice to other writers.

Where can we find your work?

My first novel, Blue, can be found at Amazon.com and through the publisher, Murphy's Law Press. An internet search will direct you to my stories and travel pieces that have been appeared in online journals over the past few years.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Author Insides - Helen R. Peterson

Helen R. Peterson's poem, "When Even The Neighbor's Cat Feels Sorry For Me", appears in the Autumn 2010 issue of The Battered Suitcase.


Helen R. Peterson is the managing editor of Chopper Poetry Journal out of New London, CT. Currently she has work in Girls With Insurance, Moronic Ox, Maintenant Quatre, and will have work in the upcoming issues of Southword Journal, Bull Spec, Foundling Review, Literary Tonic, The View From Here, and poeticdiversity. Her work was also featured in The Work Book, an anthology put out by Poet Plant Press in 2007.


Helen, when did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write. In high school I would write silly little poems in birthday cards, giving hints to what I’d given my friends.


Why do you write?
Because I have to. There comes a point, if I haven’t written anything in awhile, that things start boiling over, and I can’t concentrate on anything else. At that point, it’s either write it out, or go to work without my pants on.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?
It’s a lot less glamorous. I always imagined at this point I’d be lunching at the Algonquin, taking calls from my publisher in between puffing on an extra long cigarette holder.

What do you think makes a good story?
An old story, told with a new slant, always works best for me, as a writer and a reader.

What's your favorite genre to read?
I read pretty much everything. Working in libraries will do that to you.

Who is your favorite author or poet?
I have a soft spot for Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and C.S. Lewis as writers. For poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sylvia Plath; dead women I couldn’t live without.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?
I get a lot of inspiration from the Bible, which I read daily. I’m always finding words or phrases that are particularly lovely or odd, and I’ll write them down and spin something around it. I do the same with folk tales and fairy tales, I love messing with archetypes.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?
I find the same goes for me as a writer and a person. Bible and folk tales, not so much the fairy tales though.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?
I am constantly surrounded by the most amazing people, especially my children. I happen to be blessed with a very full and interesting life. In this past year alone, my job was eliminated and my husband left. That was two huge blows, two things I loved and identified myself with gone in a matter of months. A lot of the zombie stuff I wrote this year came from this feeling of losing control of my life. But there’s a lot of joy in my life as well. My kids are amazing. I have a huge and quirky family. Life is one big writing prompt, and I’m never without a notebook and pen.

What does your family think of your writing?
They enjoy it, especially now that I’m publishing a lot. I think they’ll love it more when I finally have a book out, or the New Yorker starts calling.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
Between a full time job and three kids, I write whenever I can snatch a moment, usually five to ten minutes a night if I’m lucky and the dog doesn't run away.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?
Not really. I tend to write down notes, freewrite, whenever I feel or see something, and then when I get home organize those notes into a poem or story. There’s usually music playing. When I can’t find anything to write about, I put music on, and write about that.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Finding the time to write, edit, send things out. The waiting is the hardest part. I have two manuscripts out there, a chapbook and a full length book of poetry, and I think about them all the time. Hoping someone offers to publish them. Hoping all that time I put into them pays off.

What are your current projects?
Like I said, there are two completed manuscripts I’m trying to find a home for. The chapbook is poetry and flash fiction inspired by music and the anonymous people I write about on the street, making up little lives for them. The full length book is poetry and flash inspired by my life growing up as a navy brat during the end of the Cold War, and then raising kids of my own Post 9/11. I’m also working on a book of poetry inspired by David Foster Wallace’s dictionary. After Wallace died, Salon.com wrote an article about a dictionary he owned, and the words he underlined. I’ve been using some of those words, and then researching some unusual and arcane words of my own to wrap poems around.

What are you planning for future projects?
I have a novella started, about the Biblical Cain, wandering Midwest America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I haven’t worked on it for awhile, a project like that needs more focus than I can give it at the moment. I’d also like to put together a book of flash fiction based on female fairy tale characters. I’ve written one on Little Red Riding Hood, which Moronic Ox published at the beginning of the year, and one on Snow White, which was published by Tales from the Velvet Rope. I have an idea for Goldilocks next, and then, who knows?

Do you have any advice for other writers?
Grow a thick skin. Know your markets. Submit a lot, especially in the beginning when no one knows you. Don’t expect the big high paying journals and presses to accept your work without a decent publishing history behind you. Small presses and non paying journals are your friends.

Where can we find your work?
My blog, http://mspetersonexplains.wordpress.com/ , has an updated list of my publishing history, as well as some other cool stuff about me.

 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Author Insides - David Landrum

David Landrum's poem, "Passion," is featured in the current issue of The Battered Suitcase.

David teaches Literature at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. His poetry has appeared widely and he edits the online poetry journal, Lucid Rhythms, at http://www.lucidrhythms.com/.


David, when did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I began writing when I about nine or ten. I wrote a satiric “Letter to my Barber,” in fifth grade, which my teacher thought was funny and read to the whole class. I always wrote after that.

Why do you write?

I write because I love to live in the world of my imagination and to express my ideas not through essays but through fiction and poetry.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?

It’s a lot of work—I guess I didn’t think it would require so much work and such big segments of time, writing and proofing and rewriting. But the joy of creating works of fiction and poetry rewards me as much as I imagined it would.

What do you think makes a good story?

A good story creates a world that can relate to the world in which we live. It touches on issues people find themselves in without being preachy or prescriptive about ethical or moral choices.

What's your favorite genre to read?

Poetry—I love reading poetry. Second would be good fiction.

Who is your favorite author or poet?

James Joyce. He set the style for how modern fiction is written. I never get tired of Dubliners. It is my all-time favorite book and a model for good fiction.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?

Besides Dubliners, Hemingway’s short stories and novels. “Cat in the Rain” had a big influence on how I write. “Fat” by Raymond Carver is my favorite all-time story, followed by W. Somerset Maugham’s “Mr. Know-All,” and Ann Beatie’s “Janus.” I have these stories in my mind as models for good writing and for how I hope to write.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?

Among the Believers by V. S. Naipaul helped me think my way out of toxic religion. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn showed me the unbreakable nature of human dignity. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles demonstrated how fiction could convey intellectual and philosophical constructs, which are very important to me.


Where/how do you find the most inspiration?

Always in reading. My ideas and my inspiration for stories come from reading the works of other writers.

What does your family think of your writing?

They don’t pay much attention to it, to be honest. I am the only one in my family interested in literature. If I ask a relative to read one of my stories, they will, but otherwise they don’t show any interest in my writing at all.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?

I like to write in the mornings (I’m a morning person) and edit at night. That kind of rhythm is good for me creatively.


Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?

Not really. Writing is business to a certain extent, just like killing is business for a hit man. I look at it as a job—a creative job, yes, and an adventure, but still a day’s work.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

It is hard for me not to sound preachy or corny. My stories usually deal with some sort of personal issue, ethical question, or question of right and wrong. It’s hard to not come across as a preacher, even though my stories do not follow the lines of religious or traditional morality. So it’s challenging to try to convey an idea of right and wrong without overdoing it a bit. Also, my stories are traditional and have, as Aristotle prescribed, a beginning, middle, and an end. So much of fiction now is what I call “verbal constructs,” not stories. They are not traditional in how they are constructed, and editors seem to like this sort of story, so I have trouble sometimes marketing my stuff for this reason.


What are your current projects?

I am finishing up (proofreading, actually) a fantasy novella called ShadowCity and starting to market it. I have a novel I am marketing, but in this economy it is tough, tough going. I always write poetry and fiction so I always have a couple of short fiction pieces and poetry projects on the burner.

What are you planning for future projects?

I have several ideas and rough drafts for an on-going character series of novels. I will probably explore that as time goes on.

Do you have any advice for other writers?


Read. Stephen King said, “If you do not have the time to read, you do not have the time, or the

tools to write. It’s as simple as that.” Reading teaches you how to write, what good writing sounds like, and teaches you words and structure. I would say, like Mr. King, reading is vital for any writer. It also “primes the pump,” if you will—it causes creative ideas to start to flow, as water poured down a dry pump will, through osmosis, start the water in the bottom of well rising upwards.

Where can we find your work?

My novelette, The Gallery, is available from Amazon. My short stories and poetry are all over the internet.