The amazing Mary Biddinger tagged me for The Next Big Thing interview series. Thank you Mary!
Here are my responses about my book which is forthcoming from The National
Poetry Review Press.
What is the working title of the book?
Inappropriate Sleepover
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I didn’t realize I had
written a book until it was pointed out to me by mentors and friends. I had
been publishing poems in various magazines and journals since late spring 2009.
It’s not that I wasn’t thinking about a full length collection in the future,
but my focus was on writing and publishing a few poems at a time. I feel that
writing and publishing is like performing on the page and I’ve really enjoyed
having my work in print and online publications. I guess a book is like a
one-woman show which is exciting.
What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry.
What actors would you choose to play the part
of your characters in a movie rendition?
A quirky twenty-something
brunette actress would be needed as well as some actors and actresses of
different ages.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your
book?
A
coming-of-age poetry collection where the speaker encounters and overthrows a
variety of societal barriers.
How long did it take you to write the first
draft of the manuscript?
The poems were written
over the past four years. A couple of poems go back as far as fall 2008. Many
of the poems were written in the last year and a half.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The material in the
book came from my own life and imagination, but I was influenced by many
artists including Chelsey Minnis, Frank O’Hara, Gilda Radner, Denise Duhamel,
Matthew Guenette, Robbie Q. Telfer, and Bob Fosse.
What else about your book might pique the
reader’s interest?
Some of the poems are
funny, or so I’ve been told. Some of the poems play with conventions of
femininity. The clash of innocence and experience comes up, and ultimately these
coexist within the speaker. Some of the poems are fairly racy, I suppose.
Will your book be self-published or
represented by an agency?
The book is
forthcoming from The National Poetry Review Press. The editor of the press is C.J.
Sage.
My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:
Tenaya Darlington (Tenaya is currently out of the country and will post her interview
when she can. Her forthcoming book comes out in May.)
Austin
Smith (Interview site TBA.)
