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Rebecca Foust and the writing life…

VAH: Are you a full time writer?

RF: Yes.

VAH: Is writing vocation, occupation, or profession?

RF: Vocation because I do it for love, not money.

VAH: When the page is blank what gets you writing?

RF: Writing—anything—gets me writing.

VAH: What is your “process” when working on a new piece of writing?

RF: Right drunk and revise sober. Let it all out in the first draft and then pare back and revise.

VAH: Do you have a submission system or plan?

RF: Yes, three times a year: fall, spring, summer.

VAH: What does your typical writing day include?

RF: Unfortunately it begins with answering  a ton of emails—the main reason I go on writing retreats is to get away from emails and social media.

VAH: That immersion into writing and the ability to turn off the tech is quite inviting.

Bonus:

VAH: If you had a super power, what would it be and why?

RF: Never have to sleep because I hate to sleep.

VAH: What is a little known fact about you that will amaze and/or amuse?

RF: I used to collect rocks.

VAH: How fun! I used to collect rocks too. In fact, I occasionally can’t resist picking up and stashing one away in my pocket.

Three random, non-writing facts about you?

RF: I love to cook. Have 3 kids. Am a pretty good snowboarder. Once was proficient on the stationary trapeze.

VAH: Who is your biggest fan?

RF: My sister Sandy Geimer.

Thank you Rebecca Foust, for taking the time to talk about your writing life.

Rebecca Foust Sampler:

Southern Indiana Review Spring 4014 Issue, “the fire is falling,” Jan 2014:

“Dynamic Response of Multi-Layered Soil Media in the Frequency Domain,” featured on Poetry Daily, 2/1/15

“Biography,” “But What Can Wake You,” and “Eulogy,” published in OmniVerse, Fall 2014

“Dream of the Rood” featured on Poetry Daily, 10/2/14

“Prodigal,” Valparaiso Poetry Review, Volume XIV, Number 2 (Spring 2013)

Rebecca Foust was the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence and is the recipient of fellowships from the Frost Place and the MacDowell Colony. Her fifth book, Paradise Drive won the 2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry.  Molly Peacock calls it “jagged” and “fresh” and Thomas Lux says “There is great music in these poems, and sonnet after sonnet is masterful. Not si

nce Berryman’s Henry have I been so engaged by a persona.”

Foust’s poems are widely published and appear in current or next issues of the Hudson Review, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals. Her book reviews and essays have published in American Book Review, Calyx, Chautauqua, Prairie Schooner, and Rumpus, and her essay, “Venn Diagram” won the 2014 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Award and appears in the current issue of Malahat Review.

Find Rebecca Foust on the web and social media: Website. Twitter. Facebook.

Paradise Drive

April’s conversation with Poet Rebecca Foust continues. 

Part III with Poet Rebecca Foust

VAH: What words of wisdom do you have for the emerging writer?

RF: Learn to accept rejection and to reject acceptance (Ray Bradbury). The writers who succeed are the ones who don’t give up. Do it for love, not money or fame because those things are not gonna happen. Enjoy the process. As Isak Dineson said, write every day with hope but without specific expectation.

VAH: What choices have you made regards to traditional or independent publishing and why?

RF: Traditional because with 5000 books of poetry a year getting published now, a writer has to do all she can to distinguish her work in the great wash.

VAH: What part does social media play in your writing career?

RF: Lately, more and more. FB is vastly more efficient than email for spreading the word. I am just learning twitter and the jury is out on whether this will be effective in helping to distribute my work.

VAH: Both can be useful marketing tools and just as effective time sucks.

Do you belong to writing or author organizations and what benefit have you found in doing so?

RF: Left Coast Writers at Book Passage in Marin is great. AWP conferences are great, too. And I love Marin Poetry Center, which offers so much for $25 a year: monthly readings by high profile poets, a monthly roundtable workshop, the chance to contribute to an annual anthology, and the opportunity to read in the summer traveling shows.

VAH: I’ll need to look into the Marin Poetry Center. Do you have any favorite online sites or blogs that you find useful or interesting?

RF: Narrative, Cortland Review, and the Best American Poetry and the North American and Mid-American Review Blogs.

More with Poet Rebecca Foust posting here on days that end in three (or occasionally begin with 3).

In the meantime, enjoy a sampling of her work:

Southern Indiana Review Spring 4014 Issue, “the fire is falling,” Jan 2014:

“Dynamic Response of Multi-Layered Soil Media in the Frequency Domain,” featured on Poetry Daily, 2/1/15

“Biography,” “But What Can Wake You,” and “Eulogy,” published in OmniVerse, Fall 2014

“Dream of the Rood” featured on Poetry Daily, 10/2/14

“Prodigal,” Valparaiso Poetry Review, Volume XIV, Number 2 (Spring 2013)

Rebecca Foust was the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence and is the recipient of fellowships from the Frost Place and the MacDowell Colony. Her fifth book, Paradise Drive won the 2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry.  Molly Peacock calls it “jagged” and “fresh” and Thomas Lux says “There is great music in these poems, and sonnet after sonnet is masterful. Not si

nce Berryman’s Henry have I been so engaged by a persona.”

Foust’s poems are widely published and appear in current or next issues of the Hudson Review, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals. Her book reviews and essays have published in American Book Review, Calyx, Chautauqua, Prairie Schooner, and Rumpus, and her essay, “Venn Diagram” won the 2014 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Award and appears in the current issue of Malahat Review.

Find Rebecca Foust on the web and social media: Website. Twitter. Facebook.

Paradise Drive

April’s conversation with Poet Rebecca Foust continues. Today’s installment looks at what the writer reads.

VAH: Rebecca, Do you have a favorite literary character?

RF: Boo Radley

VAH: Harper Lee’s characters are often mentioned in response to that question. First time for Boo Radley though.

Any favorite authors?

RF: No, I love so many.

VAH: You’re stranded in a snowstorm, stuck on a deserted island. What books would you hope to have with you or find?

RF: Shakespeare and the bible.

VAH: The gamut of emotion there. Love, pain, joy, anger, revenge, hope, redemption, drama, comedy… and would last a while.

What is the most memorable book, story or poem you’ve read?

RF: Well, I just wrote a piece for Poetry Daily on Yeats’s “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” and that is the only poem I have ever truly memorized, so let’s say that one.

VAH: I find hope that you’ve only memorized one poem, since I can’t memorize anything.

Do you have a favorite book, poem, or story?

RF: I love the poems of George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Donne. My favorite book of poems is probably Ariel by Sylvia Plath, The House on the Marshland by Louise Gluck or Winter Stars by Larry Levis.

VAH: What author or books keep you up at night because you can’t put them down?

RF:  I recently loved The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and Donna Tart’s The Goldfinch and The Secret History. I really loved The Old American by Ernest Hebert. Anything by Tobias Wolff is great. I love reading short stories too. Poems take more attention and work and it is hard for me to read them at night with the focus they require.

VAH: Reading poetry at night before bed would probably keep my mind awake, churning the images around. Which reader are you – always finish what you started or put it down and move on if you don’t like it?

RF: Always finish because I am stubborn and not a quitter.

More with Poet Rebecca Foust posting here on days that end in three (or occasionally begin with 3).

In the meantime, enjoy a sampling of her work:

“Dynamic Response of Multi-Layered Soil Media in the Frequency Domain,” featured on Poetry Daily, 2/1/15

“Biography,” “But What Can Wake You,” and “Eulogy,” published in OmniVerse, Fall 2014

“Dream of the Rood” featured on Poetry Daily, 10/2/14

“Prodigal,” Valparaiso Poetry Review, Volume XIV, Number 2 (Spring 2013)

Rebecca Foust was the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence and is the recipient of fellowships from the Frost Place and the MacDowell Colony. Her fifth book, Paradise Drive won the 2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry.  Molly Peacock calls it “jagged” and “fresh” and Thomas Lux says “There is great music in these poems, and sonnet after sonnet is masterful. Not si

nce Berryman’s Henry have I been so engaged by a persona.”

Foust’s poems are widely published and appear in current or next issues of the Hudson Review, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals. Her book reviews and essays have published in American Book Review, Calyx, Chautauqua, Prairie Schooner, and Rumpus, and her essay, “Venn Diagram” won the 2014 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Award and appears in the current issue of Malahat Review.

Find Rebecca Foust on the web and social media:

Website. Twitter. Facebook. Paradise Drive

Three by Five welcomes Poet Rebecca Foust. This installment focuses on writer beginnings.

VAH: Welcome Rebecca Foust to Three by Five! The first question is always – why do you write?

RF: I am impelled to by a pressure from within.

VAH: Why writing and what led you to identify as a writer?

RF: I’ve always been a writer but did not know it till the year I turned 50 and published my first poem and book.

VAH: That certainly gives the many older, emerging writers hope. Any influences with your development as a writer?

RF: So many—women writers like Sharon Olds, Molly Peacock Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Gluck, and Gwendolyn were all important because in college we studied only Dead White Men and I needed role models to convince me that I could write, too. James Cummins’s book of hilarious and smart linked sestinas based on the Perry Mason TV series was a big source of inspiration for Paradise Drive.

VAH: I think that question is one of my favorites because it so often gives some back story to what the author is doing. For any difficult profession – seeing someone that looks like you that is successful makes such a huge contribution towards successful individual effort. Role models give hope.

What do you remember about your first story or poem?

RF: Don’t recall my first poem but “Mom’s Canoe,” my most widely anthologized poem was the first poem I published, in 2007 the year I turned 50.

VAH: I love the rhythm and music in that poem. Fifty is a milestone and Mom’s Canoe seems to have gotten you off to a fine beginning.

Do you have a favorite piece you’ve written to date?

RF: A very short poem called “Only” written for my son who has Aspergers.

VAH: That poem must be particularly close to your heart.

More with Poet Rebecca Foust posting here on days that end in three.

In the meantime, enjoy a sampling of her work:

“Dream of the Rood” featured on Poetry Daily, 10/2/14

“Prodigal,” Valparaiso Poetry Review, Volume XIV, Number 2 (Spring 2013)

Rebecca Foust was the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence and is the recipient of fellowships from the Frost Place and the MacDowell Colony. Her fifth book, Paradise Drive won the 2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry.  Molly Peacock calls it “jagged” and “fresh” and Thomas Lux says “There is great music in these poems, and sonnet after sonnet is masterful. Not si

nce Berryman’s Henry have I been so engaged by a persona.”

Foust’s poems are widely published and appear in current or next issues of the Hudson Review, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals. Her book reviews and essays have published in American Book Review, Calyx, Chautauqua, Prairie Schooner, and Rumpus, and her essay, “Venn Diagram” won the 2014 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Award and appears in the current issue of Malahat Review.

Find Rebecca Foust on the web and social media:

Website. Twitter. Facebook. Paradise Drive

Rebecca Foust was the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence and is the recipient of fellowships from the Frost Place and the MacDowell Colony. Her fifth book, Paradise Drive won the 2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry.  Molly Peacock calls it “jagged” and “fresh” and Thomas Lux says “There is great music in these poems, and sonnet after sonnet is masterful. Not since Berryman’s Henry have I been so engaged by a persona.”

Foust’s poems are widely published and appear in current or next issues of the Hudson Review, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals. Her book reviews and essays have published in American Book Review, Calyx, Chautauqua, Prairie Schooner, and Rumpus, and her essay, “Venn Diagram” won the 2014 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Award and appears in the current issue of Malahat Review.

Find Rebecca Foust on the web and social media:

Website. Twitter. Facebook. Paradise Drive