Martha Silano chats with our PNW Contributors

This Thursday, November 19, at 7:oo pm, West Seattle’s C & P Coffee House (5612 California Ave SW) (http://www.candpcoffee.com) hosts a Northwest Release Reading of LAR Issue #6.

I had a chance to interview a few of the contributors who will read Thursday; namely, Anne Liu Kellor, Hannah Notess, and Michael Schmeltzer. Here’s what they had to say about chocolate, writing rituals, early influences, and the like:

Born and raised in Seattle, Anne Liu Kellor received an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and a 2009 Individual Artist Projects grant from 4Culture. Recently, she’s completed a memoir, Searching for the Heart Radical: A Journey Between East and West, which explores her inner and outer migrations between China and America, and themes of love, language, longing, cultural identity, compassion, and relationships. Her essays/memoirs have appeared in the anthology Waking Up American: Bicultural Women on Identity, Thoughts Out of School, Stone Table Review, and other places. A former Jack Straw writer-in-residence, she enjoys leading writing workshops in schools, community centers, prisons, colleges, and senior centers; working one-on-one with writers as a mentor/editor; and volunteering with youth at 826 Seattle.

Her website: http://www.anneliukellor.com

Her co-authored blog: http://www.heartradical.blogspot.com

1.) Pool, beach, or lake swimming: which is best and why? Beach, if it’s in the warm tropics and not the cold Washington coast. Lakes are nice, too.

2.) What writers are making you envious these days? I just discovered and love Eula Biss’s collection of essays, Notes from No Man’s Land. Also recently enjoyed Kate Braverman’s Frantic Transmissions to and From L.A.  Both were Graywolf Press nonfiction prize winners.

3.) Dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Dark, of course.

4.) Do you write on a computer, long-hand, a combo of both? Both. I usually journal by hand in the morning, then move to the computer to edit specific pieces. I used to always write initial drafts by hand, but increasingly, especially with blog posts, I’ve been formulating my first thoughts on the computer.

5.) What’s your favorite part about living in Seattle/PNW? Least favorite? I love the trees, the abundant green, and being near old friends and family. Least favorite would have to be the traffic and the lack of cultural diversity compared to a place like L.A. Our neighborhoods are pretty segregated.

6.) Name 2-3 poets who had an influence on your early writing. Influences on my early writing/life (not necessarily poets) include Natalie Goldberg, Rumi, and Thich Nhat Hanh.

7.) Name of the first magazine you published in, year of publication, and your fav or least fav lines from the poem (or just the title if you can’t recall). The Evergreen State College’s 1998 anthology, Exposed Wounds, Concealed Weapons. Two essays: “Unconscious Roadside Hum” and “What Goes Unsaid” and a poem, “Patience.”

8.) Facebook or face-to-face? Face to face, of course. But I still love Facebook– in phases.

9.) What are you currently working on? A book-length lyric memoir tracing my relationship to a couple I grew up next door to, and the story of how I inherited their house, letters, artifacts, and legacy.

10.) Any quirky writing rituals (incense? Scooby-doo re-runs? etc.) I almost always start with some free-writing and a cup of tea or coffee by my side. Sometimes I also must first check email and Facebook– but this is just a bad habit, not a quirky ritual.

Hannah Faith Notess is the creative writing editor of The Other Journal and the editor of Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical (Cascade Books, 2009), a collection of personal essays. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, Slate, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, and Mid-American Review among other journals. She lives in Seattle.

Her website: http://theotherjournal.com

Her book’s website:  http://wipfandstock.com/store/Jesus_Girls_True_Tales_of_Growing_Up_Female_and_Evangelical

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/jesusgirls

1.) Pool, beach, or lake swimming: which is best and why? A beach under the following conditions: (1) the ocean is warm and (2) the sand is soft. That way, you have the excitement of risk, in that you could get stung by a jellyfish or eaten by a shark, but the experience is still physically quite pleasant.

2.) What writers are making you envious these days? When I read something really great, it doesn’t make me envious, it makes me feel excited about the possibility of discovering more good writing. I’m more envious of people who get reviewed in the New York Times and have really sexy author photos.

3.) Dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Dark chocolate, especially Theo chocolate! Did you know you can go to their factory in Fremont (in Seattle), and sample all the different kinds they have? There’s just piles and piles of chocolate laying around. This is dangerous knowledge: use it wisely.

4.) Do you write on a computer, long-hand, a combo of both? I often start a poem writing longhand and then move into doing drafts on the computer. If I get stuck, sometimes I’ll go back to drafting in longhand. Whatever works.

5.) What’s your favorite part about living in Seattle/PNW? Least favorite? I love living here – the hills and water everywhere. My least favorite part is the darkness.

6.) Name 2-3 poets who had an influence on your early writing. I started reading Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti in junior high, even though I didn’t really understand what I was reading. Then I got into Sylvia Plath. You might deduce from this that I had some funny ideas about what a poet’s life should be like. You would be correct.

7.) Name of the first magazine you published in, year of publication, and your fav or least fav lines from the poem (or just the title if you can’t recall). The first poem I published was in The Christian Century. The poem was called “Learning by Heart” and the front cover of the magazine had pictures of churches that had been ruined by Hurricane Katrina.

8.) What are you currently working on? Lately I’ve been working on getting the word out about a collection of essays I edited, Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical. A poetry manuscript is in the works but it’s been taking the back burner lately.

9.) Any quirky writing rituals (incense? Scooby-doo re-runs? etc.) Not really.

Michael Schmeltzer earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. He helps with A River & Sound Review and was a finalist for the Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest, Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, and Richard Hugo House New Works Competition. His work appears or is forthcoming in New York Quarterly, New Delta Review, Water~Stone Review, Rosebud, and Main Street Rag, among others. He lives in Seattle.

Website: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/michaelschmeltzer

1.) Pool, beach, or lake swimming: which is best and why? I prefer the beach on any given day. It feels dynamic, alive. The ocean breathes, the shore shifts. It forces you to pay attention. The salt water helps you remain buoyant, but the waves knock you down. It feels a lot like life.

2.) What writers are making you envious these days? Many of the writers I envy work in film or music. Other poets write better than I do, no doubt, but I can fool myself into believing if I studied hard enough, read and revised enough, I could create something as beautiful, too. But film or music? Never. The recent screen adaptation of “Where the Wild Things Are” shattered me (kudos to Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers for the screenplay).

3.) Dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Dark chocolate. It needs time; it needs to be savored. Milk chocolate I can gobble up by the handful. Dark chocolate, even one piece, requires a good cup of coffee and patience. Plus, it makes me feel sophisticated and noir.

4.) Do you write on a computer, long-hand, a combo of both? I begin on the laptop and do the fine-tuning by hand if a printed version is available. I think of it like sculpting or construction. The laptop does the heavy work, the ungraceful spewing forth. It’s all dust and noise. Then the long-hand does the details, the smoothing.

5.) What’s your favorite part about living in Seattle/PNW? Least favorite? What don’t I love about Seattle? Seriously: the all-poetry bookstore “Open Books;” the hilarious “Lusty Lady” marquee; Inga Ingenue – the little blonde bomb; the guy constantly yelling “Seattle police is COMMUNIST!” and the vibrant sub-cultures that thrive in Seattle’s underbelly…love it all. And a special hello to the staff of Noc Noc – their drinks got me through my MFA program. Least favorite: Picketers near Westlake Center. They unnerve me.

6.) Name 2-3 poets who had an influence on your early writing. Li-Young Lee has been an early favorite and still produces work that baffles me in the loveliest of ways. Louise Glück also has been an influence for a very long time now. William Matthews made an impression on me, too. How can you read “The Search Party” and not be stunned by that last line? Marvin Bell says you learn just as much from reading poets you like as the ones you don’t like; I agree. In a way every poet I read (even fellow undergraduate poets) influenced me…though maybe they influenced me to write something other than what they were writing.

7.) Name of the first magazine you published in, year of publication, and your fav or least fav lines from the poem (or just the title if you can’t recall). My first publication was in Water~Stone Review in 2003 for a poem entitled “Walking Around Creation.” I can’t recall any particular line as favorite or least favorite, but I do remember looking at it a while back and thinking “what is wrong with my lines? They are out of control!”

8.) Facebook or face-to-face? Face-to-face, hands down. It leaves more room for chemistry and spontaneity. And I’m less likely to get solicited to donate here or vote this way or that if I talk to someone face-to-face.

9.) What are you currently working on? I wish I had something interesting to say (joined a burlesque troupe, started a band), but my projects are the same old suspects: reading, writing, revising. Currently I’m working on prettying up my manuscript(s) and studying the use of whitespace in poetry.

10.) Any quirky writing rituals (incense? Scooby-doo re-runs? etc.) As a full-time worker, father, and husband, I have very little time to read and/or write. I tend to do all my writing after my wife and toddler go to sleep. Then I creep around our apartment with the lights off as not to disturb my family. If you consider me skulking around in the middle of night eating Cocoa Pebbles, typing out a few lines, and listening to music a “quirky writing ritual,” then sure, that’s mine.

Hope to see you all down at the C & P for a wonderful night of literary splendor!

–Martha Silano

Of all the pizza in Seattle’s Mount Baker neighborhood, Martha Silano prefers Flying Squirrel, with Tutta Bella coming in at a close second. Writing in her journal quite regularly since 1970, her interests include galaxies, origin myths, and bird calls. Martha blogs at http://bluepositive.blogspot.com and will be guest blogging for the Best American Poetry website during the week of November 22. Her book Blue Positive may be purchased at Open Books: A Poem Emporium or online at the Steel Toe Books website (http://www.steeltoebooks.com). Martha’s poems are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Puerto de Sol, The Southeast Review, Prairie Schooner, The Journal, and Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days (University of Iowa Press, 2010). She teaches at Bellevue College.

We always encourage readers to buy books directly from the author or from independent booksellers whenever possible. But here’s an Amazon link for those other times: Blue Positive, Martha Silano.