Recently I responded to a follow-up from Paul Dorset who interviewed me back in May for his Indie Author Interview series. Paul asked if the writing life had been good to me this year. This got me thinking about the zigzag of writing. According to Duotrope, I have a 22.2% acceptance rate, which the site tells me is better than average for users submitting to the same type of markets. I’ve submitted to about twenty markets and about a quarter of what I sent out published. Metrics are useful, and metrics need definition. If the metric is solely published or rejected – straight and narrow rubric of assessment – 22.2% doesn’t seem all that good when 100% is far at the other end. However, if the metric definition is writing produced, revised, drafted as well as submitted, published, and rejected plus craft study in a writing group, online course, or attending a conference, writing related marketing – Hills and Valleys of writing related activities – that one out of five pieces published seems a pretty good accomplishment in context of 20% of my time with the family, 20% of my time volunteering with community organizations, 20% of the time with self-development and craft related work, 20% of my time at the grindstone of production with 10% for submitting and marketing and 10% for whatever distraction that is all about me that I want. (World of Warcraft, catching up with TIVO, mindless surfing on the net, rugby) Looking at my writing life this way makes September, where I was home from traveling maybe 5 days the entire month and thus accomplished no actual production done – balanced with May through August where I attended not one, but two writing conferences, wrote and revised a dozen or so new poems, and sent out a slew of work – means September was a in the valley of writing month while the summer I was scaling the hills. Those acceptances that came periodically? Those are the standing at the crest of the hill and marveling at the scenery surrounding, the victory after the toil.
So, keep your writing life in perspective. Define the metric that you are measuring your life and work with and keep it all in context.
This month Three by Five hosted Poet Linda Simone. Linda lives in New York City with her husband. She predominantly writes poetry, but has also published essays. She is working on a novel in the Southern Gothic tradition. Her essays have appeared in Cezanne’s Carrot, Italian Americana, Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning, The Journal News, The New York Times, and on pursestories.com. Valparaiso Review published her review of poet Kevin Pilkington’s work. Her poems appear in numerous journals including Assisi, Cyclamens and Swords, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has been published in a number of anthologies, including: the award-winning, Cradle Songs: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood; Lavanderia; and Wait a Minute: I Have to Take Off My Bra. Her chapbook, Cow Tippers, won the Shadow Poetry Chapbook Competition.
Two bonus questions with Linda VAH: Three random non-writing related facts about you? LS: I’m an amateur watercolor painter…still trying to find my visual voice.
I had a childhood imaginary friend—Anne of Green Gables.
I love bluegrass and rock-a-billy music. VAH: If about to have your last meal, what would that be and why? LS: Last meal: Cavatelli with Broccoli, a bottle of red, followed by Red Velvet Cake, vanilla ice cream, and a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk—and it better be Twinnings!
Why? Because in my next life, I may come back as a dog, hopefully a well-loved one, so I’ll probably be eating Kibble and Bits.
VAH: Linda, there are two kinds of readers – The finish-the-book-once-you’ve-started kind and the leave-it and move on-if-don’t-like-the-book sort – which kind are you?
LS: My Catholic school background (and Ms. Nora Claire Sharkey) taught me to give the author the courtesy of reading the whole book. However, I’ve rebelled over the past few years. If the book doesn’t grab me in 50 pages, you lose me…so many books, and so little time.
VAH: Every writer faces this at some time or another – the blank page stares back at you, what gets you over writers block?
LS: Reading to those who don’t usually get the chance to connect to poetry – their reactions are fresh, honest, and often inspiring. Also, writing in a journal – I used to do it almost every day…I’m afraid it is now only sporadic. I always seem to unearth things that sound like they could blossom into an idea for a poem or essay. Another source for inspiration: reading titles of articles in women’s magazines –they form rich prompts. And finally, viewing a painting or other piece of art and choosing a point of view from inside the tableau.
VAH: An example prompted by an article in a magazine?
LS: I wrote a poem called “Simple Storage Solutions” that was instigated from an article in Family Circle).
VAH: Brass tacks of the writing life – what do you do in order to keep up with what you send out and results of your submissions?
LS: This is hard. I used to keep paper copies in a manila folder. Then I created a spreadsheet. But really, I wish someone would do it for me. Every year on the 31st of December, I spend time sending out work so that there is always hope and possibility for the New Year.
VAH: Totally get that! Sometimes December is my most productive month of the whole year! What is an interesting little known fact about you?
LS: My middle name is Ann Ann. No, that’s not a typo. The reason is that Linda is not a saint’s name, so my parents had to select a middle name that was. I was Christened Linda Ann. Being the feisty, stubborn 4th grader that I was, when it came time to choose a Confirmation name, I decided that I didn’t want 4 names – I wanted to stick with a trinity of names. So I picked Ann again. Linda Ann squared.
VAH: What is your favorite, inspiring quote?
LS: I like this by Leonard Cohen, because it says it’s okay to make mistakes, in fact, maybe it’s preferable:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything–
That’s how the light gets in.
VAH: Thanks Linda! That’s a good concept to end upon – that it’s okay to make mistakes.
The second installment of this month’s Three by Five interview with Linda Simone
VAH: Linda, what’s your best advice for emerging writers?
LS: I was lucky to be nurtured along the way, so nurturing writers and passing it forward is one of my favorite things. This is want I did for over four years, as Assistant Director of the Masters of Arts in Writing program at Manhattanville College. Students were always tenuous in their confidence as writers. Whenever I advised or taught students, I’d ask them to trust me and to trust themselves because their writing was always better than they thought. So to emerging writers I say: self-doubt is your own worst enemy. You need to go with your gut and trust your ear. Be honest. Be brave. Read it out loud. You’ll know when a line or a paragraph rings true and the real you shines through. That’s your tuning fork.
VAH: That is a terrific validation – “You’ll know when a line or a paragraph rings true…” When did you know you were a writer and how did that manifest for you?
LS: I realized that I wasn’t a Major Medical contract writer (actually I was but was dying a small slow death from lack of a creative outlet). When the job was downsized and I got a generous bonus and severance, it was a blessing in disguise. I used that money to start my own freelance editorial business to earn a living, and then joined the National Writers Union to nourish my more creative, personal writing. In the mid-1980s, the Writers Union gave me the community of writers I needed.
I came to the Writers Union member via my first Writers’ Conference sponsored by the Union’s Westchester Chapter. I was so pumped by what I learned from the teaching writers, and so enthused by the collegiality I felt from fellow attendees, that I felt like Columbus discovering America. I had no idea what was out there—a sea of writers struggling with the same things I was struggling with. It was the beginning of learning the “how tos” of improving my writing, and marketing it.
I eventually joined the Chapter and formed friendships that I cherish to this day. It’s where I met my Sapphires. From Sarah, the Chapter’s charismatic President, I learned more about real leadership than from any corporate job I’ve ever held. For the past dozen or so years, we venture to Ann’s Vermont home for an annual “writing and acting silly” retreat. Before we leave, we discuss each other’s writing and what our plans and dreams are for the coming months.
VAH: And formal writing education, such as the MFA? Is it worthwhile?
LS: I have a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College. The school has since gone to an MFA, but my work schedule and a move to Manhattan made it impossible to take advantage of upgrading my degree. Has it helped my career or development? I’d have to say it has in these ways: it connects you with teachers of writing, some better than others, but you learn from both. It provides a community of writers—who see your work develop and whose work you see develop. Perhaps its biggest value to me is validation– it validated me in my own mind as a writer. This, of course, is not necessary, but a lot of people, like me, need the diploma to feel “legitimate.” Do I think the degree is necessary? Absolutely, if you want to teach. Relatively, if you think it is. But really, to be a writer doesn’t require a degree. It requires writing, reading, rewriting, and interacting with your own community of writers—even if that is just one other person you trust who also writes and with whom you can share your work and give and get constructive critique.
For me, it’s been a worthwhile experience. I’m glad I did it. It energized my work and exposed me to writers and poets I probably never would have read. It helped in recognizing my voice. And let’s not forget the benefit of a deadline – when you have an assignment due, you sit your butt down and write. No procrastination allowed.
VAH: That structure of the formal academic setting and demand of weekly workshop certainly teaches skills for keeping procrastination at bay. Your statement though that “to be a writer doesn’t require a degree” I think is vitally important. The community of writers is there be that in formal study or not. With community of writers in mind, do you have a favorite conference or writing retreat or seminar?
LS: I do love Manhattanville College’s Summer Writer’s Week. I’ve always found it to be a wonderfully energizing, soul-feeding and exhausting 4-1/2-day immersion into writing. I went as a writer and I also ran it for four years as an administrator and loved it from both perspectives.
VAH: Writing as occupation – how is that for you? And if you weren’t writing, what would your work be instead?
LS: I am a full-time writer of corporate communications. It’s hectic, but I love it because it allows me to make sure that our 2500+ employees at all levels within our organization–as well as external stakeholders–get the messages and news they need. I take this job very seriously. When the message is clear and engaging, there’s more action, less dissatisfaction, and less time wasted. That said, if I had to choose any occupation other than a writer, I’d want to be a visual artist. I guess I’m just destined to a life of rejection and starvation.
VAH: Linda welcome to Three by Five. Let’s start with what was your first story?
LS: I wrote a science fiction story as a kid, and all I can remember is that the main character was named Jason Ramses and my English teacher said it was very good. Later, in my twenties, I worked on an autobiographical (of course) non-fiction manuscript about my love/hate relationship with nuns. Immersed in Catholic Schools throughout the 50s and 60s, I experienced all those crazy things you may have read about, but can’t imagine to be true. I assure you, being told not to wear patent leather shoes because they can reflect your underwear happened to me – and it wasn’t the worst of it. The manuscript, which patiently awaits my return from its hallowed spot in my file cabinet, was titled Class Trips.
The branch of Catholicism I subscribe to is “lapsed.” But my Catholic school experiences remain to this day a recurring theme in both my prose and poetry.
VAH: Let’s expand on that a bit with the question why do you write?
LS: Ah, that’s the question I’ve been trying to figure out longer than I want to admit. To simply say, because I have to, while it’s true, seems trite and clichéd. I’ve spent scores of years trying to sort out who I am and writing, particularly poetry, figures in that quest in a big way.
As a 9-year-old, I discovered that poetry, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, blew off the top of my head. I remember the experience well–The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell. It captured my attention like nothing had ever done before. From the first stanza–The snow had begun in the gloaming / and busily through the night / had been heaping field and highway / with a silence deep and white – to the last line, I was hooked. The rhythm, rhyme, and diction blew me away. And ever since, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered: a writer. But, it’s been a circuitous road
Writing in general, and poetry in particular, was my golden fleece throughout grammar school (poems by Frost, Dickinson, Lear, Yeats; also the usual Nancy Drew & Bobsey Twins fare). I loved having a summer reading list for school.
In high school, I learned by reading Ferlinghetti, Ginsburg, Kunitz, and others. Enter Shakespeare and the discovery that one could use poetry to tell a long, complex story within a play.
Through those years I wrote (pretty bad) poetry and (mediocre) stories that I would not share with anyone, because to me, writing was personal, like a diary.
So why do I write? Because I love words. Because writing is the way I think and work out problems. Because writing is the way I get in touch with feelings, and it’s how I explore possibilities that I might never actualize. I write because writing is in my DNA. It’s what I do best.
VAH: Do you have a favorite literary character?
LS: As an adult, I’ve utterly fallen in love with the unlikely anti-hero, Ignatius J. Riley, from John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces. Which brings up the other recurring theme in my prose and poetry—misfits, particularly those portrayed in the Southern Gothic tradition. I’m obsessed with them, perhaps because like me, “everyman” is in them. It’s impossible not to rattle off a long list, but some of my favorites include: any character from Carson McCullers’ body of work including Ms. Amelia Evans and Cousin Lymon in The Ballad of the Sad Café; Flannery O’Connor’s Enoch Emery in Wise Blood; and Nathaniel West’s Lemuel Pitkin in A Cool Million as well as the title character in Miss Lonelyhearts. I can read these books tirelessly because of the rich character-driven stories, eccentricities, and incredibly poetic language.
Melba McIntyre, the main character in my novel-in-progress (tentatively titled Preacher Girl), is a humble attempt at characterization in that tradition.
VAH: Linda, what would you say has been the biggest influence on your development as a writer?
LS: I’ve learned different things from a wide range of people, so it’s impossible to name one person. If you really pushed, I’d have to say Thomas Lux, who made me understand that a good poem has to morph through 25 drafts. A summer session I took with him was writing-life-changing. Others who influenced me: Eamon Grennan, who taught me a poem’s opening is often just scaffolding and needs to be knocked down; Kevin Pilkington, who showed me that beauty worthy of a poem can come not only from the bucolic countryside, but also from gritty, cityscapes and experiences. Emily Dickinson’s poetry is a master class in rhythm, music, and brevity. And from Robert Frost, I learned that nature is like a bible from which the poet can cite chapter and verse.
I also learned from three friends. Together call ourselves The Sapphires. Ann Cefola, Terry Dugan, and Sarah Bracey White generously offer laser critique, and demonstrate bravery and fearlessness in their writing – and infinite patience. (Sarah’s memoir, Primary Lessons, is coming out in September 2013 from CavanKerry Press—let’s just say she’s paid her dues).
And having a supportive family is really a blessing. My son, Justin, has a poet’s sensibilities and always helps me make my poems better. My daughter-in-law, Nicole, who’s an avid reader and an artist, has included my writing in her paintings. And my toughest, most honest critic is my husband, Joe. Like El Exigente, when Joe says a poem is good, I do a happy dance because his opinion holds weight.
VAH: You spread the credit around. I enjoy this question as it almost always generates authors to investigate that I’m not familiar with and have influenced the writers interviewed here at Three by Five. Sarah Bracey White was here July and is a terrific storyteller.
Now let’s take you away and strand you on a deserted island. What would you be reading that you just happened to be able to take with you?
LS: Since I live in a tight NYC apartment, my bookshelf is already “bare essentials” and holds: poetry collections by Thomas Lux, Kevin Pilkington, Mary Oliver, Eamon Grennan, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson; Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon; a 50-page gem about translation called 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger and Octavio Paz; and my friend, Ann Cefola’s chapbook, Sugaring. Would this deserted island have WiFi by any chance? Then I’d have a ton of ebooks.
VAH: (Laugh) And there you have it – Linda Simone thanks for the visit with Three by Five. More Linda coming over this month, on days that have a three in them.
Linda Simone is a poet who also writes essay and is working on a novel in the Southern Gothic tradition. Her essays have appeared in Cezanne’s Carrot, Italian Americana, Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning, The Journal News, The New York Times, and on Purse Stories. Valparaiso Review published her review of poet Kevin Pilkington’s work. Find her poems in numerous journals including Assisi, Cyclamens and Swords. Her work is in a number of anthologies, including: the award-winning, Cradle Songs: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood; Lavanderia; and Wait a Minute: I Have to Take Off My Bra. Her chapbook, Cow Tippers, won the Shadow Poetry Chapbook Competition. Linda’s 15-poem sequence, “The Stations of the Cross,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Martin Willitts, Jr., editor of the 2007 anthology, Alternatives to Surrender. The anthology included works by 61 poets from around the globe, dealing with cancer, survival from cancer, death from cancer, and with loss and recovery. Linda and her husband live in New York City.
Welcome back for the final installment of this month’s Three by Five. Earlier, the discussion has been focused on writing, let’s explore beyond the writer a bit.
VAH: Jerome, if you had a super power, what and why that one?
JJG: Flight, no question, because the view’s spectacular from here. Sorry, I meant, from there.
What about this, what is your favorite, inspiring quote and why it works for you?
JJG: “The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong.” Philip Roth, American Pastoral
When I found this quote in context, it meant a lot to me, as I’d been trying to get some people I knew “right” for a piece of writing I was working on, and was failing. And I was failing to understand why I was failing. Reading these lines from Roth, and reading them in context, freed me to get them “wrong” and ultimately discard the entire project, one of most liberating actions I’ve ever taken as a writer.
I’d add this: my life in North Berkeley gives me many views of the body of water historically known as San Francisco Bay. For most of its long, geological existence, that body of water was not known by that particular name. In fact, the contours we now “know” so well, thanks to Google Maps and so forth, were not known by anyone, not even by the original inhabitants of the area. They hadn’t been explored. No one had gone out to see them, to look at them, to ponder them. But those contours existed, because that body of water exists and has existed a long time. It is already more enduring than anything we humans will ever make, any bridge, any boat, any software program. Getting that body of water “right,” therefore, is not the point, because we need darkness and fog and obscurity and the unknown to cross through or to wait out, however patiently or impatiently. In order to arrive, or fail to arrive. The body of water is utterly indifferent to all our efforts on its or our own behalf.
VAH: Tell me, what little known fact about you will amaze and or amuse Three by Five readers?
JJG: I’ve met and spoken with both Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston, the former at some length, and someone I once dated has worked professionally with both Justin Theroux and Angelina Jolie, so it’s just a matter of time before Brad Pitt, Chris Martin and I are best buds.
VAH: Ahh, fact with future aspiration.
Okay, how about three random non-writing related facts about you?
JJG: I am a great cook. I have a killer backhand. I live very, very modestly.
VAH: A great cook? Maybe I should fact check that. . What would your last meal be?
JJG: Kumamoto oysters on the half shell with mignonette sauce. The chilled golden tomato soup I once had at Zuni Café in San Francisco. A perfectly-done ribeye steak with top-quality French fries and truffle butter. An iceberg wedge with some ripe heirloom tomatoes and blue cheese dressing. And fresh pineapple sorbet. And I would prep and cook all of these things myself as part of their lastness.
These particular foods [for] my last meal, because these are the simple but delicious flavors, foods and textures that I loved in late adolescence and early adulthood. The circumstances that would make this my last meal? Because I have lived a life rich in love, laughter, learning, and joy and in experiences that generate those, a life that has been perfectly seasoned with other emotions and the experiences that generate them, like regret, grief, unfulfilled desire, and so forth. I would be eating that meal because I had accepted the fact that I was expected somewhere soon, somewhere unknown, and didn’t want to be late or hungry when I got there.
VAH: “I was expected somewhere soon, somewhere unknown, and didn’t want to be late or hungry when I got there.”
Welcome back to the August installment of Three by Five. This month, poet and playwright Jerome Joseph Gentes is the subject.
VAH: Jerome, what’s a page turner for you that keeps you up at night because you just can’t put it away?
JJG: This is going to sound pretentious, but Robert Fagles version of The Odyssey was the most recent page turner for me. Of course, it’s all about the desire to move and obstacles to movement. I’m trying to find out if his Iliad has the same or its own corollary qualities. I couldn’t read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials fast enough, and feel the same way about George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. There are also many books I like to re-read again and again, like Pride and Prejudice and Brideshead Revisited and Dancer from the Dance, books that are great comforts, like textual teddy bears, for when I can’t sleep. And then there are books whose mere existence is likely to keep me up at night, like those “written” by Fox News anchors and such.
VAH: “Textual teddy bears,” I really like that concept! I’ve had a similar experience as you describe with George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, with Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Some books just call out for re-experiencing.
If there was a movie about your life and times, who would play you? Whataobut the theme song?
JJG: I’ve been told I look like Tim Curry, Jon Cryer, Johnny Depp, and Fabio Viviani from Top Chef. Depp is way, way cooler than I will ever be, but because he’s so good at playing uncool, I’d have to go with him. The theme song would be “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George, because it’s begins with the words “I’ve nothing to say…” and ends with connecting to another through saying that, and not through saying something. And since Depp’s sung Sondheim before, it’s a perfect fit!
VAH: Maybe an independent will green light that!
When you read a book, must you finish once started or will you leave it if you don’t love (or like) it?
JJG: I am a finish-it-if-started guy, and am trying to break that habit, but sometimes finishing a book is just not worth it. For example, I think Life of Pi has, like other books and many other cultural artifacts and phenomenon, for that matter, been successful largely because it was published post-9/11. I probably should have read it when “everyone else was reading it” but I didn’t, because I’m also stubbornly iconoclastic. That window closed. The movie, which I actually enjoyed, didn’t help matters, because it was good enough to deliver Yann Mantel’s story in an entertaining way, and strong enough to make me realize I no longer wanted or needed to read it. It’s why I’m not watchingGame of Thrones, incidentally. When I abandon a book I try not to feel guilty. I do think, “Oh, if I could return this, I would do so, and just pretend I never bought it.” Erase the purchase and the attempt Maybe an e-reader makes that possible. “Didn’t even start that one! Buh-bye!” Click, delete, done.
VAH: Gone! Here’s a riff on gone – The blank page stares back at you, what gets you over writer’s block?
JJG: Blank pages are not my problem; it’s the ones already filled with writing that are the problem—pulling them apart and trusting that doing so is in the best interest of the words therein.
VAH: That’s a great lead in for the final question for this installment given revision is the hard work most wanna be writers don’t consider. Let’s look at a brass tacks of the writing life question – what do you do in order to keep up with what you send out and results of your submissions?
JJG: Nothing. I either have so much out there I can’t track it, or so little I can’t track it.
VAH: There’s symmetry in that.
The final installment for Three by Five with Jerome Joseph Gentes is on the final day of the month. Till then, here is another sampling of Jerome’s work:
– Upon this Stone via Divinity School at the University of Chicago.
Linda Simone is a poet who also writes essay and is working on a novel in the Southern Gothic tradition. Her essays have appeared in Cezanne’s Carrot, Italian Americana, Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning, The Journal News, The New York Times, and on Purse Stories. Valparaiso Review published her review of poet Kevin Pilkington’s work. Find her poems in numerous journals including Assisi, Cyclamens and Swords. Her work is in a number of anthologies, including: the award-winning, Cradle Songs: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood; Lavanderia; and Wait a Minute: I Have to Take Off My Bra. Her chapbook, Cow Tippers, won the Shadow Poetry Chapbook Competition. Linda’s 15-poem sequence, “The Stations of the Cross,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Martin Willitts, Jr., editor of the 2007 anthology, Alternatives to Surrender. The anthology included works by 61 poets from around the globe, dealing with cancer, survival from cancer, death from cancer, and with loss and recovery. Linda and her husband live in New York City.
Recently while perusing markets via Duotrope, I found the Canadian journal Ditch. I’m happy to report that they selected two of the poems I submitted and have published them today. Ditch also is promoting women poets with a section called Girls Night Out. I hope you’ll take a look around Ditch, the poetry that matters site.
VAH: Welcome back to Three by Five and Part II with Jerome Joseph Gentes.
Jerome, you talked about your first story earlier and a poem and story “sealing your fate” in college. Would you expand a bit on when you knew you were a writer and how you came to that understanding?
JJG: The year of the spaghetti story, my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, also encouraged me to write my earliest poems. In fourth grade I’d done some imitations of Frost, in a unit on poetry that I remember mostly for my first encounter with Poe’s “Eldorado” and Frost’s “Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening.” But Mrs. Sullivan went out of her way to get me to write more, to write longer, and write….oh, I guess I would say bigger. To write more honestly. The scale of what I wrote in response to her encouragements and her attentions evolved, and I’d like to think it deepened. I remember writing my first love poem, a generic one, to no one in particular, and yet somehow actually meaning everything I put down on the paper. Mrs. Sullivan was married to an English professor at San Jose State, and showed him my poems, and got some actual feedback for me. I don’t remember any of it, and sadly, no longer have access to that juvenilia, except in memory. That year I also wrote more plays—playlets, really, not full-length pieces—than in any other year I can remember.
VAH: Your experience echoes my own – including long ago first feedback. So many times I’ve wished I still had access to those early pages and the feedback.
What would be your best advice for emerging writers?
JJG: Don’t do The Artist’s Way. Forge your own! And keep your juvenilia! Seriously, if you’re truly sincere about writing, you have to see and hear. Do and be and play. And read. Read, read, read. Keep reading. Then, only then, in whatever time is left when you’re not doing all of those things, should you start to create and make. If you’ve done those other things before you start to create and make, what you create and make may actually be worth keeping, and tending to, and perhaps by then it will be more than mere juvenilia. I’m of the ilk that believes that not everyone who wants to be a writer can be. I also don’t think that you’re a writer just because you say you are, or that because you write, you’re a writer. That may sound harsh, but it’s because I’ve seen so many would-be writers or writers who wanted to be worthy of the identity or the calling abandon their desire to write or had that desire abandon them. I’ve known good, even great and published writers, who’ve had this happen.
VAH: Writing is more than the muse…
Jerome – The MFA? You have one, has that helped your career development or progress and do you recommend the MFA as worthwhile?
JJG: I have an MFA in writing from Columbia, which I’m frankly still paying for, in actual as well as figurative ways. The experience I gained while I was there, the personal and professional connections forged, however, while costly in terms of dollars and time, have been invaluable in terms of life and living. I continue to benefit from my connection to my mentors and peers from Dodge Hall. I feel lucky that I got my MFA when it was a relatively uncommon thing to do. For anyone considering an MFA now, however, I recommend careful, extensive consideration. There are so many more MFA programs now that I often equate it to a culinary degree: anyone can get a culinary degree, but not everyone who can or does will use it, and not everyone needs one in order to cook. They just need to cook. And eat. And so on.
VAH: I might be borrowing that comparison next time I’m asked about the MFA!
Do you have a favorite conference or writing retreat/seminar and what made it worthwhile for?
JJG: Vermont Studio Center in Johnson was a synergetic experience for me, largely because there were visual artists as well as writers of all genres there. I’d never been so close to the making of visual art before, and it energized me more than I can say. Not to mention that I was there in August, which, in contrast to the heat and humidity of New York City, was the perfect month to be there.
VAH: If you weren’t writing, what would you be doing?
JJG: I’d probably be a photographer. Or a visual artist.
VAH: Makes me wonder what a hybrid visual/poetic Gentes piece would look like.
Return for more in August with poet, playwright and perhaps photographer Jerome Joseph Gentes on days with a three in the date.
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Author First Look
First look provides a read of an emerging writer or indie author’s work in progress via a link to their posted first chapter. These are works in progress – so don’t expect perfection. Check the Author’s Bio for how to connect with the writer and if the writer wants feedback or comment. Enjoy the story, essay or poem. Perhaps it will whet your desire for a future book purchase so you can find out what happens next!
Do please comment here on this site, on my facebook page or on Twitter, especially if you enjoy this series once it gets going. Please use hashtag #AuthorFirstLook. Thanks for reading.
Authors retain all rights.
How to get your own first chapter posted:
Your chapter or series of 3-5 poems should be posted on your website. Send an email with the permalink and I will link back to your site. Include your short Bio (no more than about 100 words) and any comment about the work or a series synopsis for posting on First Look Pages. If the book is part of a series, give a spoiler warning if warranted.The link to your site will be embedded in your Bio. If you want reader input, be sure to write that in your comments. Once your book is published, make sure to send me the news and I’ll update your Bio.
Located via the link in the menu at the top of the page. Enjoy your First Look.
Three by Five
Free Literary Magazines aka Recycle Reading
I read a ton of literary magazines. Tossing them in the recycle bin seems so….wrong. Would you like one? Just send me a message on twitter @Vickigeist with snail mail information and I’ll send you one. If so inclined, you can snail a buck or two for the postage. P.O. Box 387, Hayward, CA 94543. You can also just snail a request in if you’d rather with or without that buck or two.
Recently I responded to a follow-up from Paul Dorset who interviewed me back in May for his Indie Author Interview series. Paul asked if the writing life had been good to me this year. This got me thinking about the zigzag of writing. According to Duotrope, I have a 22.2% acceptance rate, which the site tells me is better than average for users submitting to the same type of markets. I’ve submitted to about twenty markets and about a quarter of what I sent out published. Metrics are useful, and metrics need definition. If the metric is solely published or rejected – straight and narrow rubric of assessment – 22.2% doesn’t seem all that good when 100% is far at the other end. However, if the metric definition is writing produced, revised, drafted as well as submitted, published, and rejected plus craft study in a writing group, online course, or attending a conference, writing related marketing – Hills and Valleys of writing related activities – that one out of five pieces published seems a pretty good accomplishment in context of 20% of my time with the family, 20% of my time volunteering with community organizations, 20% of the time with self-development and craft related work, 20% of my time at the grindstone of production with 10% for submitting and marketing and 10% for whatever distraction that is all about me that I want. (World of Warcraft, catching up with TIVO, mindless surfing on the net, rugby) Looking at my writing life this way makes September, where I was home from traveling maybe 5 days the entire month and thus accomplished no actual production done – balanced with May through August where I attended not one, but two writing conferences, wrote and revised a dozen or so new poems, and sent out a slew of work – means September was a in the valley of writing month while the summer I was scaling the hills. Those acceptances that came periodically? Those are the standing at the crest of the hill and marveling at the scenery surrounding, the victory after the toil.
Vicki Hudson 