understanding that you discover rather than calculate. I feel very connected to a universal mind in these instances, and it’s just such a source of amazement for me — and, yes, strength, too.
Congratulations on the new book! Is there an aspect of the publishing experience you’ve loved or has a strong reaction to?
It’s a beautiful thing, knowing that my book is in the hands of readers. Just this morning a friend wrote me an appreciative Facebook message, and I’ve been glowing all day long. Writing is what it is, and publishing in magazines helps to complete the loop a bit — we find readers and then the poem is done. But a poetry collection is a holistic organism; it’s much more than a bunch of poems, but rather it’s a system where all parts work together. It’s both daunting and extremely gratifying when the work is encountered by a whole different consciousness. The book is me; any reader who takes it in is by extension taking me in, too. I feel such a connection to my readers. My readers! I just said that. I have readers. Absolutely everything is worth it now.
What comes next?
My second book, "Passing Through Humansville", is forthcoming from ELJ Publications in April 2017, and I’m actually circulating a third manuscript at the moment, Ode to the Mediated World. Two chapbooks are forthcoming — one very soon (Escaped Housewife Tries Hard to Blend In, forthcoming from Hermeneutic Chaos). It’s an embarrassment of riches! Meanwhile, I continue to write poems, and I also write essays and stories. Some of my blog posts are going to be published by Sundress Publications as a publishing textbook, so I’m polishing those, too. In 2015, I made writing a priority (I actually declared it “The Year of the Book”), and “the book” happened, and then the next and the next and the next. Funny thing — sometimes when you tell the universe exactly what you want, it delivers in remarkable ways.