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Interview with David Ebenbach

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reprinted with permission from Work in Progress

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

A loner teen accidentally unlocks a social life with his sense of humor—but can he unlock meaningful happiness that way, too, or will he first have to face and understand himself?

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

The book is told from the point of view of Jacob—that loner teen from the elevator pitch—and I really enjoyed spending time with him. He’s based (very loosely) on a teenaged me (and the book is set back in the late 80s, when I was a teenager), and so it was like hanging out with a version of my younger self, getting to observe all of the hopeful foolishness and chaotic earnestness—but from a semi-safe distance this time around.

His friends were harder to write, because of the particular nuance I was trying to capture: that these characters could be perfectly great people, and yet still struggle to supply whatever it was that Jacob ultimately needed. In that way, folks can be disappointing without actually being at fault.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

Well, the lowest low was when my agent told me that the book wasn’t to his taste and didn’t feel like he was the right person to submit it to presses. Yeah—that was a low point. He said it nicely, though—he’s still my agent—and he told me it was okay if I wanted to take it out to presses myself. He’s not a possessive guy. And so I did take it out myself, and luckily found people who connected with the book more than my agent did.

In particular, Regal House Publishing got excited. So one big high was them sending the contract, and me signing it. After that, there were the usual rounds of editing and proofreading and finalizing a cover and so on, all of which were smooth. And then, finally—I started working on this book back in 2016—Regal House sent me a physical copy of the book. That’s a very high point right there. As Salman Rushdie writes in his excellent new memoir, Knife, “the best moment of the whole process of book publication is this one, the moment when you hold your printed book in your hand for the first time, and you feel its reality, its life.”

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Don’t write what other people want you to write; write what you have to write.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

This is such an interesting question, and a hard one for me to answer. In a certain sense, everything surprises me when I write a book—I never know how it’s going to play out before I get to the page. Or at least I never know that I know. Because, in another sense, nothing about the process surprises me. In fact, I typically write not toward surprise but instead toward whatever is most emotionally difficult for me to get into. The hard stuff that’s already there and that maybe I’m somewhat aware of, the way that you’re aware of shadows in the room, but that I haven’t been willing to look at directly. And so, a lot of the time my writing process is more about uncovering than about discovering. Maybe the surprise, each time, is that I’m able to go there—and come back out unharmed.

How did you find the title of your book?

Coming up with Possible Happiness, the title of this book, was a process. Oy. For a long time I called it Fern Rock, after the Philadelphia Broad Street Subway stop—but that made it sound like the novel was happening in some rural paradise instead of in one of the grittiest cities in America. So I lost faith in that option and just called the book “that high school novel” for a long time. It remained “that high school novel” through failed experiments with titles like Where Do the Children Go (based on a song from the time), Subway-Surface (based on public transportation), and We’re Getting There (the actual, I’m-not-making-it-up slogan of SEPTA, Philly’s public transportation organization, for many years). None of it really suited this particular high school novel.

And then I thought about the scene where protagonist Jacob goes into a kind of occult shop on South Street where all of the purported potions have anti-lawsuit hedges in their names like “so-called” or “alleged,” and he sees something called Possible Happiness Syrup. I thought: that’s what my guy needs. He needs a possible happiness. He needs to stop fighting for some generic kind of happiness that works for everyone else or some magical kind of happiness that only works in the movies. He needs to turn his effort toward getting a real happiness, one that’s possible for him.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

Well, the main character is a teenager, and not so great in the kitchen, so he’s not the kind of person who produces recipes. When he’s home alone, his single mother working yet another double-shift, he just heats up some frozen mac’n’cheese. So maybe that could make for a good book club treat? Though, if you want to be true to the time period (late 80s), you’ll have to find the Stouffer’s frozen mac that comes in a foil tray, and you’ll have to heat it up in a conventional oven. It takes a while, but it’s worth it.

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.davidebenbach.com/

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://regal-house-publishing.mybigcommerce.com/possible-happiness/

Interview with Maribeth Fischer

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Reprinted with permission from Work in Progress


Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

Ten years before A Season of Perfect Happiness begins, Claire had a life she loved:  She lived in a beautiful beach town, was close to her family, had great friends, and was married to her high school sweetheart. When a tragedy upends it all, she understands that her only chance to have “a normal life” is to start over in a new town. Now, after nearly a decade in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, she’s finally ready to find love, even happiness. But what of her past does she owe her new friends or the man with whom she falls in love? This is the question at the heart of the novel: What is our most authentic self? The one we try to hide or the one we strive each day to be?  

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

I loved writing Annabelle, the ex-wife of the man Claire falls in love with, and Claire’s closest friend.  Right there, you have a complicated, tangled relationship. In an early draft, a reader told me she didn’t find it believable that an ex would get so friendly with the new woman. But I’d grown up in a family where my dad and stepfather became close friends, and I knew it was possible. I loved the challenge of making Annabelle and Claire’s friendship believable. Annabelle was fun too because she herself is fun, and funny, smart and generous. But she is also damaged and insecure and so ends up causing enormous damage to the people she loves. So far readers have loved and hated her all at once, which thrills me!

The most difficult character was Claire’s former best friend, Kelly, who didn’t want Claire in her life after the tragedy (which was connected to Kelly). I didn’t always understand why Kelly would be so unforgiving and I had to work hard to figure her out…

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

The highs

·       Getting the first email from my editor at Dutton, which began, “welcome home.” Dutton had published my first book 20 years earlier. It felt like a homecoming.

·       Seeing the cover for the first time,

·       My dad, who was the first one to read the galley, calling in tears to tell me he’d finished it in two days—and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

·       A similar call from my older brother and my mom

·       Seven months before the release date, having the event coordinator at my local library (Lewes Public Library) and the owner of my local independent bookstore (Browseabout Books) telling my publicist that they wanted to host a launch party for me. Arrangements were made and the event was ready for RSVP’s in a less than an hour. I felt so lucky and grateful to live in the community I do.

The lows

·       Redoing a major piece of the plot—and having to do it in ten days. So, basically rewriting the novel in little more than a week. I didn’t, sleep, eat, bathe! But also in this, my husband, when I said, “I can’t do this. It’s not possible,” looked at me and responded, “What do you mean? This is what you do, Maribeth. This is who you are. Of course you can do it.” His saying that, his unequivocable belief in me? That’s another high.  

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Write big and messy; write way more than you’ll ever need and then edit. Along with this is my favorite quote, by Elie Wisel. “There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages, which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred pages are there. Only you don’t see them.” 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

Near the end of A Season of Perfect Happiness a minor character suddenly sort of stepped out of the pages and came alive in a way that allowed me to see a whole other aspect of him. I didn’t need him to do this 40 pages from the end of the book, but the novel is so much better because he did.  

How do you approach revision?

I love revision. It’s part of my “write big and messy.” I meet with poet and novelist, Anne Colwell every week to review our writing (and we’ve been doing this for twenty years) and every place she says, “I could stay here awhile,” meaning, “I want more,” I dive in and see how far I can take the scene she’s questioning or the backstory or the thoughts she wants my character to consider. I write into the story as long and as deeply as I can. I have never not discovered something important that I needed to know in doing this.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

Alas, no…but the book mostly takes place in Wisconsin, so there’s always bratwurst…

****

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.maribethfischer.com/

ORDER A COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://browseaboutbooks.com/book/9780593474679

Interview with Merrill Oliver Douglas by Mary Beth Hines

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Merrill Oliver Douglas has kept a journal since the 11th grade, and her poetry reflects the careful and compassionate attention she’s paid to the world for decades. In her new collection, Persephone Heads for the Gate, winner of the 2022 Gerald Cable Book Award, Douglas resurrects people and places past, interrogates the present, and peers with both curiosity and apprehension into the future. When I spoke with her by phone recently, she had just come off a day of kayaking with friends. And indeed, kayaking and friends show up in the collection along with trains and planes, God, love, New York City, mortality, marshmallows, and more.

Tell me about your journey as a poet. After reading Persephone Heads for the Gate (Silverfish Review Press, 2024), and your chapbook Parking Meters into Mermaids (Finishing Line Press, 2020), I admire how skillfully you bring a lifetime of experience to bear on your poems. How long you have been writing poetry?

I started writing verses in the second grade. They rhymed and scanned because that kind of thing was in the air back then—popular songs and commercials. I picked up on rhythm and musicality early.

I always figured I would be a writer, though I assumed I’d write novels. At some point, I realized I didn’t have the concentration or maybe the knowledge of life you need to create real characters and full stories, so I focused on poetry.

In high school, a teacher told me to go home and write sonnets because that was good practice. I did, and found it was exciting—the way the form forces you not to accept the first thing you write. You must come up with new words or change how you are saying things. That’s where I started gaining a sense of craft.

I kept at it through college. I went to Sarah Lawrence which had a great creative writing program. I took classes and was convinced I was going to be a poet with a capital P.

However, as happens with many of us, competing events took over. I had a child, and held a job that became more and more demanding, so I didn’t write much during those years. When my son left home, and I had more time, I started again.

You are a master of time travel in this collection. Your speakers and narrators observe places, people, events, and objects with a keen eye to past, present, and future. In a way, Time itself is a character. Is that something you did purposefully?

Thank you for that insight! That never occurred to me. I couldn’t have come up with it myself—Time as an important theme. The past is a rich natural resource for most writers. We all have so many stories. It may be a factor that I have kept a journal since the 11th grade. I have volumes of close observations recorded throughout my life which give me access to memories I might otherwise have lost.

How did you arrive at the book’s structure? Many poets struggle with organizing a collection.

I consulted some of the same books and resources many poets do, though I found much of the advice to be contradictory, sometimes even within the same essay!

I did try one recommended system. First, I weeded out the weakest poems. With the remaining poems, I jotted down major themes and arranged them to speak to each other. I also thought about the physical shapes of the poems, things like putting shorter poems next to longer ones to vary the reading experience.

My poetry workshop group, the Grapevine Poets, with whom I meet twice a month, held a manuscript party once I had a draft. They provided helpful feedback. For instance, they advised that poems about the physical body be spread throughout the collection rather than located together. Still, much of that feedback was also contradictory so I had to go back and figure it out myself.

Ultimately, there’s no magic formula. A lot of it comes down to trusting your gut.

Can you talk about the long poems in Section II? Located in the center of the collection, in some ways they seem its very heart. To start, talk about “Where I Live.” That poem deals with place, place over time, and place from various perspectives— something woven throughout that comes to a crescendo there. What prompted you to write it? Did you write all six parts all around the same time?

That poem began in 2019 in an online Fine Arts Work Center workshop with Ed Skoog. It was a workshop on writing a long poem which is way out of my comfort zone. I discovered in this workshop, that if I was going to write a long poem, I’d have to do it in a series of shorter sections that would speak to each other.

I wrote four of the six sections in the workshop. Ed liked three but advised me to drop one and to write a new one, or to find an old poem on a similar theme and rework it to fit. I ended up taking two preexisting poems that were also on the theme of place, and home, and sense of home shifting, and I fit them in. But I also felt devoted to the section he saw as weak. I improved it, and it’s now the poem’s last section.

 “Body Songs” in Section II deals with a speaker’s body from childhood to young adulthood. That exploration of physicality (expanded to include birth, aging, illness, death) is evident throughout the book. Several poems such as “Prepping for the Colonoscopy,” “It’s Not Like I Need it Anymore,” “Thirst,” and “Another Poem about Menstruation,” speak truth about the body, especially the female body, with a wry sense of humor, all while examining existential concerns. Can you choose a body poem and tell me about writing it, what it means to you, and what you hope readers will take away from it?

I’ll talk about “Prepping for the Colonoscopy.” The “bodyness” of this poem is not about the colonoscopy itself but about the yuckiness of the liquid you have to drink in order to clear out your system. I literally had to put drops on my tongue and fling them back one at a time to get it down.

From there, it became a meditation on living in the moment. I began thinking about how we’re always thinking about the future. All the things we do when we’re counting: How many hours till we get where we’re going? How many more days until vacation? How many steps to the top of the hill? How many years till I can retire? There’s all this concentration on the agony of longing for the future, and I began thinking that one way to not worry about the future thing is to concentrate on the thing you must do this minute, no matter how distasteful. Maybe this is a mind-versus-body poem.

Because Persephone won an award (the 2022 Gerald Cable Book Award), I believe readers would like to learn about its journey from submission to selection to publication. Can you tell us how this worked? And how you chose the gorgeous cover art?

I sent the manuscript to 14 contests or open readings. I received five rejections before I learned of the award. I then withdrew it from the remaining eight places.

I submitted it for the contest in 2022 and got the good news in June 2023. That was a faster submit-to-acceptance timeframe than my chapbook had.

Upon selection, I worked on all the business things associated with publishing such as signing contracts. I am grateful to Rodger Moody who runs Silverfish Review Press as he consulted with me on every aspect of the book. He takes pride in what he publishes. He’s taken an active role in publicizing the book too. He sends it out for review, sends publicity emails and helps me approach people about readings.  I’m still in the midst of that.

He published the manuscript as it was, without any editing, though he said he sometimes does make suggestions. He also sent me the previous four winners’ books. That was generous and it gave me confidence in the final product. I liked the work of the poets Rodger had chosen and the books were beautiful, so I knew I was with a good publisher.

The story of the cover art is a fun and gratifying one. I didn’t have any idea of how to find something appropriate. My son did the artwork for my chapbook but he’s an illustrator and his style didn’t fit this book. Rodger and I went back and forth a bit before finding the right piece. When I saw a childhood friend’s artwork on her Facebook page (Robbyn Zimmerman Tilleman), I thought it might be suitable and Rodger agreed. We chose a piece, and I asked Robbyn, whom I hadn’t seen since the 1970’s, if we could use it. Happily, she said yes.

Some of my favorite poems are:

  • “Thirst” because it includes all you do so well. It travels through time, and deals with the body over time, and place over time. It captures the relationship of women to each other, women to children. It’s filled with color, taste, and texture, which serve as springboards to epiphany. And genuine emotion is at its core.
  • “High” because it’s short, compressed, and highlights the humor that’s an integral part of the collection.
  • “As if We Could Step Through Someone Else’s Dream” because its range and perspective is ambitious. It highlights the speaker’s desire, and ability, to see the world through others’ eyes, to look at herself from outside herself. It also weaves in art and pop culture.

Can you choose one and talk about your impetus and process for writing it?

I’ll talk about “Thirst.” This is another poem that came out of a Fine Arts Work Center workshop. This one was with Erin Adair-Hodges. The prompt was to take a line from a recent draft that hadn’t worked out and use it in something else.

The line I chose appears in the poem’s second part. I formed the rest of the poem around this idea, this awareness that our bodies age and change, yet in our minds we always feel the same age. My aunt, who was failing and in the hospital at that time, became the poem’s focus. I wanted to convey how it’s both tragic and absurd to be a consciousness in a mortal body. You are yourself, yet your body is breaking down.

The poem’s closing section was sparked by childhood home movies of me, my cousins, our families and neighbors at a hotel in the Catskills. There was a little swimming pool, and the parents were all in their twenties and thirties. They are all gone now, though when I wrote this, my mother and aunt were still alive.

As I prepared for this interview, I realized that some of Persephone’s other poems also came out Adair-Hodges’ workshop, including the title poem, “Persephone Heads for the Gate.” That prompt was to put someone from myth or folklore into a modern setting. I chose an airport because when I’m traveling by myself, it’s one of the times I feel most myself, independent in the world.

Do you have any last thoughts to share, or any advice to give poets aspiring to put a collection together?

Read a lot of poetry.  And write good poems!  I think of poems like soup. It’s important to let them simmer. Dashing things down and free associating can be a good start, but you need to revisit the draft later, and try different things. Get it to surprise you and do more work than a first draft does. I also want to thank South 85 for giving us this opportunity to introduce Persephone Heads for the Gate to their readers, and for publishing two of the poems that appear in the collection!

ABOUT

Merrill Oliver Douglas’s first full length collection, Persephone Heads For the Gate, won the 2022 Gerald Cable Book Award from Silverfish Review Press. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook Parking Meters into Mermaids (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Baltimore Review, Barrow Street, South 85 Journal, Tar River Poetry, Stone Canoe, Little Patuxent Review andWhale Road Review,among others. She lives near Binghamton, New York.

Mary Beth Hines is a poet, writer, and reviewer. Kelsay Books published her debut poetry collection, Winter at a Summer House in 2021. Her chapbook, After Making Love, was a finalist in Fool for Poetry’s 2023 International Chapbook Competition. Her work appears, or will soon appear, in Slant, Tar River, The Inflectionist Review, Valparaiso and elsewhere. Visit her at www.marybethhines.com

MORE INFORMATION:

Silverfish Review Press: https://silverfishreviewpress.com

Direct link to order the book: https://silverfishreviewpress.com/2022-gcba-winner-1

Merrill Oliver Douglas: https://www.facebook.com/merrill.o.douglas/  

Robbyn Tilleman (cover artist): https://www.instagram.com/tillemanart/ 

Mary Beth Hines: www.marybethhines.com

Interview with Andrew Bertaina

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Reprinted with permission from www.workinprogressinprogress.com

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

It’s a bit of a roundabout memoir in essays. The essays take place over about eight years of my life when I went through a lot of upheaval. Elevator pitch, it’s a mid-life crisis novel about parenting, divorce, identity and faith or lack thereof.

Which essay did you most enjoy writing? Why? And which essay gave you the most trouble, and why?

I had the most fun writing my essay “On Trains.” [See below for link.]  I think it was the first essay where I hit on the idea of just riffing on a subject matter. Thus, it’s about wedding trains, how Einstein used trains to prove his special theory of relativity, a guide to trying to make love on a train etc, all mixed with intersections with trains from my own life. It felt very freeing. At the same time, it was a kind of challenge to scour my memories for train related content. 

As for the hardest, I’d probably say the essay “On Baths.” I was closing in on the nadir of my mid-life crisis, deeply floundering, and I think that essay deals directly with the beginning of that fallout. I honestly don’t like to say any essay is too hard to write. It feels disingenuous when I’ve written the damn thing. Technically then, I’d say the essay “A Field of White,” because I had to find an internal structure to make it work. Otherwise, it was just too scattered. I like digressions; they mirror thought. However, internal structure is still useful, and I borrowed my structural device from John McPhee’s essay, “The Search for Marvin Gardens.”  In my essay, the mooring point is a tea party I’m having with my three-year-old and her stuffed bear.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

Risking honesty, I wound up as notable in Best American Essays three out of the last four years. I know notable isn’t in the book, but I thought it might mean people would be clamoring for a collection. As always, my inbox was empty, so I had to figure out how I wanted to proceed.

My editor at Autofocus, Michael Wheaton, is an absolute gem, and he worked with me on finding a cohesive collection of essays. He was generous with his time and editing, and I’m deeply thankful to have worked with him. It ended up all right, but, as always in writing, I discovered the appetite for reading just isn’t that wide. But I have a beautiful book and a great set of essays that I’m proud of. They hold up.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

I don’t own a single craft book volitionally. However, I think consistent writing is useful. Once you have a basic set of skills, it’s getting your butt in the chair. I often don’t, but I tend to feel better when I do. I tell my students who are struggling with it to just set a timer and do thirty minutes a day. That’s it. You can up it to four hours or whatever, but you should start small and build up. My paraphrase is, editing is writing, but you can’t edit nothing.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

I think I was surprised, mostly on a reread, with how much I was mentally suffering during the writing of these essays. In a way, it’s almost painful to go back and see so much wild energy and confusion without much purpose. I think it certainly captures something, and it’s not as though I have things figured it out now, but I was surprised at the kind of desperation I was giving off during those years, this mad desire to figure out life.

How did you find the title of your book?

The title of my book came to me in a dream. Okay. That’s a lie. But I like that lie. The title just seemed right. I meditate a bit. I don’t think the self is particularly real, and I think it’s even less solid for some of us, myself included. I have a hard time projecting myself into the future or feeling connected to my past. I have an essay that talks about it. Also, I think about death a bit. That life is temporary can be terrifying or beautiful. Choose wisely.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

I have an essay called “Eating Animals” in the book, but it includes several things that no reader would actually want to cook, including one’s spouse.

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://andrewbertaina.com/

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:  https://www.autofocuslit.com/store/p/the-body-is-a?fbclid=IwAR0xmIb08R6M7sXuZAAeNVv8P9rOpO5nR4sLpVtUpSZcyUy3v2QyF_KiZQ0_aem_Afb-FrxmnqNxojEQPW9ZOlCiA2xorxK8ktsNmdS3FV4yg7FMRBCbueRuRTeTxq-6oCTAJHaNvutOLKDJk0TjjZYr

LINK TO AN ESSAY FROM THIS BOOK, “On Trains”:  https://greenmountainsreview.com/on-trains/

Interview with Johanna Copeland

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[This interview is reprinted with permission from www.workinprogressinprogress.com.]

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

I first described the book as, “It’s about women who do bad things to violent men,” which always got an “Oooh!” My team at Harpers softened it to “A book that asks what it means for a woman to be in control of her own life.”

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

Paula, Paula, Paula! She was, by far, the most difficult character to write because her voice is so particular. With limited formal education and an undiagnosed learning disorder, her voice is less educated, but I needed readers to trust and respect her intelligence. It was a difficult balance, but with each subsequent draft she became my favorite character because Paula functions as the moral center of the book.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

The road to publishing this book has been ridiculously fun. Like the Anne Hathaway movie about a woman who gets a book published. In brief, this book was pre-empted by my favorite editor of the group who made offers. Since that time, my team has been amazing. However, this experience comes after starring in no less than three horror movies filmed over the previous decade, where a woman questions her life choices after going out on endless rounds of fruitless submission.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Persevere, but be kind to yourself. I’m good at the first part of that advice and terrible at the second part. I always forget that writing is actually hard work. As though plot, setting and dialogue should just flow, right?!? When they don’t, I assume the problem is me. This is when I have to take a step back and remind myself that writing is actually a difficult job and I shouldn’t be so mean to the writer.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

So many of the twists in this book revealed themselves as I was writing it. That’s something that always happens, but still catches me by surprise. I wish I wrote from an outline so I could avoid the stress of not knowing how outstanding threads will weave into the plot, but I’m just not that person. In this book, there’s a twist/reveal in the last chapter that didn’t come until the fourth revision. It was hanging out there unresolved, then suddenly it clicked. For me, those moments are the most surprising and satisfying parts of novel writing.

Who is your ideal reader?

Our Kind of Game is marketed as a domestic thriller or women’s fiction, which makes it a little weird that my ideal reader is men in heterosexual relationships. While it’s a cathartic read for women, the men who’ve read it tell me it challenged their perceptions around the way they think about their partner’s domestic labor. I can’t imagine a better outcome for a reader than a book that challenges preconceived notions and entertains.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

Ahahaha, I have a great recipe for canned cherries! I can’t say anything else without it being a spoiler, but after people read this book, they’ll understand why that question made me laugh out loud.

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/our-kind-of-game-johanna-copeland?variant=41141589966882

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK: https://bookshop.org/p/books/our-kind-of-game-johanna-copeland/21024793

Interview with poet Frederick Joseph, author of WE ALIVE, BELOVED

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[reprinted with permission from Work-in-Progress, a literary blog: www.workinprogressinprogress.com]

We don’t expect an elevator pitch from a poet, but can you tell us about your work in 2-3 sentences?

I consider myself a storyteller above all else, weaving tales of resilience and hope from the heart of Yonkers to the shelves of the world. My words live across genres, from poetry’s intimate embrace in “We Alive, Beloved” to the calls for justice and understanding in “Patriarchy Blues” and “The Black Friend.” Each sentence I write is meant to help us all become a bit freer, whether that’s in the body, mind, or soul.

Which poem/s did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which poem/s gave you the most trouble, and why?

I most enjoyed writing many of the poems in “We Alive, Beloved” because each one allowed me to explore different facets of the Black experience and celebrate resilience, joy, and love. However, the poem that gave me the most trouble was “The Odyssey.” This poem is very personal, reflecting on a Black life from birth onward. It attempts to be speculative while also playing on some of the prose found in Homer’s “Odyssey” and other epic poems. Balancing these elements and doing justice to such a profound subject made it a challenging piece to write.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

The journey of bringing “We Alive, Beloved” to life has been filled with highs and lows. One of the lows is that, as I write this, the collection is delayed a week due to printing logistics. Additionally, getting more people to engage with poetry, especially those who are more familiar with my essays and fiction, has been a mountain to climb. Still, the joy of seeing my poetic expressions take shape and the anticipation of sharing these deeply personal pieces with the world.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

As a writer, the advice I can offer is to embrace the power of your authentic voice. Write from the depths of your soul, unfiltered and unapologetic. Authenticity resonates; it has the power to move mountains and touch hearts. Don’t shy away from the raw, the real, and the vulnerable. Let your words reflect the truth of your experiences, the richness of your heritage, and the unique perspective only you can bring.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

What surprised me, deeply and profoundly, was how much certain moments from my past still sit with me. Writing this book unearthed memories long buried, reminding me that our past is never truly behind us; it sits in the marrow of who we are and what we create.

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

I want readers to know that I cried after finishing most of the poems in the collection. Each verse is a reflection of our shared struggles, our triumphs, and the silent battles fought in the depths of our souls. Those tears weren’t just mine; they belong to the history, the present, and the future of a people who continue to rise.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

I love that question! This book is so tied to my grandmother that I would have to say the book reads best with a slice of sweet potato pie. Which was her specialty.

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.frederickjoseph.com

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK:  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Alive-Beloved/Frederick-Joseph/9781955905640

2023 Contest Winners

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South 85 Journal is honored to announce the winners of the 2023 Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction and Poetry Literary Award winners:

2023 Flash Fiction Award Winner

Winning story: “As To Your Comment That It Could Have Been Worse” by Caridad Moro-Gronlier.

Moro-Gronlier is the author of Tortillera (TRP 2021), winner of The TRP Southern Poetry Breakthrough Series and the chapbook Visionware (FLP 2009). She is a Contributing Editor for Grabbed: Poets and Writers Respond to Sexual Assault (Beacon Press, 2020) and Associate Editor for SWWIM Every Day an online daily poetry journal.

Judge’s comments: This piece is both technically sophisticated and emotionally resonant. The author creates an inner rhythm with spare, lyric language and the repetition of the word “worse.” Then, as the story progresses, the unfolding events become progressively worse. What begins as a bad date becomes a violent assault. The narrator’s revelation at the end saddens me, but also enlightens me. The narrator feels anger after 30 years, yet she directs that anger at herself. This surprised me at first, but it reinforces the guilt and self-blame that victims of sexual assault never truly get over. The narrator turns the blame and anger inward, as if sparing the reader of her feelings, which makes me feel even more for the narrator. She’s spent her whole adult life sparing others of the feelings she’s kept bottled up, and that is the saddest repercussion of all.

~ Susan Tekulve, Flash Fiction Judge

Flash Fiction Finalists

First Runner Up: “Incident at Shady Acres” by Luanne Castle
Second: “Devil Child” by Sahil Mehta
Third: “Alley Brats” by Kristian O’Hare

2023 Poetry Award Winner

Winning Poem: “A Black Poet Looks Back at his Boyhood” by Oak Morse.

Morse lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches creative writing and theater and leads a youth poetry troop, the Phoenix Fire-Spitters. He was the winner of the 2017 Magpie Award for Poetry in Pulp Literature, a Finalist for the 2023 Honeybee Poetry Award and a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. A Warren Wilson MFA graduate, Oak has received Pushcart Prize nominations, fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, Twelve Literary Arts, Cave Canem’s Starshine and Clay as well as a Stars in the Classroom honor from the Houston Texans. His work appears in Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Tupelo, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nimrod, Terrain.org, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, among others.

Judge’s Comments: This poem proves the immense power of plain language honed and polished, built for conveying complexity and nuance. This well-sustained narrative of the teacher’s past and students’ present pleases both ear and brain, not to mention the heart. This is a love poem to, somehow, every person in it.”

~ Suzanne Cleary, Poetry Judge

Poetry Finalists

First Runner Up: “The Baby Cure” by Emma Bolden
Second: “Restoration” by J. A. Lagana
Third: “Cleveland School Fire” by Ann Chaldwell Humphries
Honorable Mention: “Peonies in Winter” by Lisa Higgs

The winning selections for this year’s contest will be published in the winter issue of South 85 Journal published in mid-December.

Summer Literary Contest Now Open

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The 2023 Julia Peterkin Literary Award is currently open for submissions.

The winning selection in each category (poetry and flash fiction) will receive $500 and publication in the Fall / Winter issue of South 85 Journal.

Contest finalists will also be published.

This year’s poetry judge is the award-winning poet Suzanne Cleary.

Suzanne Cleary’s Crude Angel, her fourth full-length poetry collection, was published in November 2018 by BkMk Press (U of Missouri-Kansas City). Beauty Mark (BkMk 2013) won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, and also received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize and the Patterson Award for Literary Excellence. Keeping Time (2002) and Trick Pear (2007) were published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Poets Marilyn Nelson and Robert Cording selected her collection Blue Cloth as winner of the 2004 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival chapbook competition.

Our flash fiction judge for this year is the award-winning prose writer Susan Tekluve.

Susan Tekulve is author of Second Shift: Essays and In the Garden of Stone, winner of the 2012 South Carolina First Novel Prize and a 2014 Gold IPPY Award. She’s also published a short story collection, Savage Pilgrims, and two fiction chapbooks, Washday and My Mother’s War Stories. Her work appears in  Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, The Georgia Review, Connecticut Review, The Louisville Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, and Shenandoah.

SUBMIT HERE

Spring / Summer Issue, 2023

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Fiction

Awful Big, Awful Good by Matt Izzi
Dead Cats by Patrick Strickland
Living with Wolves by Christie Marra
Revisionist History 101 by Mike Herndon
The Loneliness Cure by Mark Brazaitis

Creative Nonficiton

I Remember by Linda Briskin
Marking Time and Place by Alice Lowe
Person. Place. Prey. Anyone. Anywhere. Anytime. by Honey Rand
To the South are Banana Plantations by Harris Walker

Poetry

a different sort of blues by Dana Tenille Weekes
biographies by David Galloway
Charisma came to me like a rubber doll by Susan Michele Coronel
How to Pick a Padlock by Patrick Wilcox
Most people have only one skeleton by Nadine Ellsworth-Moran
Magnolia by Greg Nelson
Mapping by Ellen Roberts Young
Roswell Mills: July 5, 1864 by Ann Malaspina
The Seagull that Melted by Kevin Pilkington
Uncle Bob Told Me by Christina Baumis
Yes, Fallen by Gordon W. Mennenga
Essays
The Dollmaker: Why You Should Have Read This Book Long Before Now by Jody Hobbs Hesler
Book Reviews
Fiction: The Woods of Fannin County by Janisse Ray, Review by John Krieg
Nonficton: Benjamin Banneker and Us by Rachel Webster, Review by Olivia Fishwick
Poetry: Through Our Water Like Fingers, a Review of Millicent Borges Accardi’s Quarantine Highway by Robert Manaster
Summer Issue Featured Image: SkyOceanBirds by Linda Briskin

Linda Briskin is a writer and photographer. She is intrigued by the permeability between the remembered and the imagined, and the ambiguities in what we choose to see. The fluidity between the natural and the constructed fascinates her. Her focus, then, is on inventing images rather than capturing them. Her photographs have been exhibited and published widely. https://www.lindabriskinphotography.com/