Category: Interview

By Melanie Quezada

Melanie Quezada: You have just graduated from your MFA in Fiction. What is your advice to students entering the field?

Colleen Mayo: My advice to students who want to pursue writing is: do it! Treat yourself and your writing with respect. This means be disciplined, curious, supportive of yourself and others. Writing sounds and looks and feels many different ways. Try to expose yourself to a wide variety of work. If what you write is totally different from anything else, that’s probably a very good thing. Also, celebrate and participate in writing communities, MFA or otherwise.

MQ: When did you know that writing was for you?

CM: I have no idea! Always? Always.

MQ: If you had a time machine and could meet any author living or dead, who would they be and why?

CM: Well even the fantasy of meeting these people makes me so nervous… I know I’d just explode or drool or be an absolute nincompoop, but the three names that first come to mind are: Toni Morrison, Denis Johnson, and George Saunders. Also, Anthony Bourdain.

MQ: How many hours a day do you write?

CM: I try to write 75 or so minutes every morning before I go to work. It’s tough for me to make big headway with just an hourish, so I like to work for 2 or 3 hours during the weekend.

MQ: Do you believe in writer’s block? What do you recommend for those who have it?

CM: I don’t believe in it for me… because I know I use it as an excuse. I’ll tell myself I have writer’s block because it’s easier than going to sit in the chair and actually deal with something that’s stumping or frustrating me about a story. I usually write myself into stories and characters, which is not a quick process, so for me “writer’s block” usually means I haven’t done enough work yet. All of this is a way of saying that I recommend we all write through our block. Butt in chair. That’s the only way to do it.

MQ: What are you working on now? What do you hope to work on in the future?

CM: I’m working on revising a story collection and getting back into a novel! Two very different projects in different stages, which is fun. My 2019 goal is to finish the damn novel. I’d also like to get to work on some essay ideas knocking around my head but…I try not to get too excited about ideas. We all have ideas, you know? They’re not worth much without the words on paper.

Read Colleen Mayo’s story “Preventative Maintenance.”

About the Author:

Colleen Mayo’s writing has appeared in Crazyhorse, The Sun Magazine, The Rumpus and others. She was a 2017 winner of the FSU Creative Writing Spotlight Award for Nonfiction. Born in Texas, Colleen now lives in Tallahassee where she recently graduated with her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University.

About the Interviewer:

Melanie Quezada is a Creative Writing major at Ringling College of Art and Design. She currently resides in Sarasota, Florida. She is getting her bachelor’s in Creative Writing.

by Sydney Nicole

The Visiting Writers Forum (www.visitingwritersforum.com) at Ringling College of Art and Design has been a way for young writers like myself to hear from seasoned writing professionals such as Pulitzer-winner Robert Olen Butler and Cuban-American poet Virgil Suarez, among others. Children’s book superstar Jane Yolen kicked off the spring 2018 series, but before she took the main event, she joined me for a quick chat.

Sydney Nicole: 300+ published books is an impressive number. What’s your motivation to keep writing?

Jane Yolen: Well, possibly because at almost eighty, I don’t know anything else. I love to write. I love to find out what I’m thinking and the way I can find out what I’m thinking is to write. I also come from a family of writers. My father was a writer. My brother’s a writer, my mother was a failed writer – she sold only one short story in her entire life. But she made crossword puzzles and my great-grandfather in a small shtetl – which is a Jewish community in the old country – had an inn and he use to tell stories around the fire to people. So we are a long line of liars.

SN: Your picture book Stranded Whale deals with death. How important is it to incorporate serious topics into children’s books?

JY: I do some lightweight stuff and I do some funny stuff like Commander Toad in Space and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? But I also do serious things in picture book form. I’ve also written three Holocaust novels – my latest comes out this year – so I write everything. It’s the story that I want to tell that dictates in which sub-genre it’s going to be and how dark it’s going to be; how light it’s going be. If I start writing something in bouncing rhyme, I’m sure not going to make it into a Holocaust novel. So there are limits to the number of changes you can make in something. But when I’m writing, in the beginning, I’m not always sure what it’s going be. Sometimes I am, but most of the time I try to get my ideas down and see where they take me.

SN: A few of your books have made it onto banned books lists. What advice do you have for writers who want to write for a younger audience, but fear they may be banned?

JY: If it’s banned, you’ll sell more copies. You’ll get a lot of press and people will want to see what they’re missing. But I think if there’s a serious issue that you want to write about, you write about it. If you want to write about it because you think it’s going to make money? That’s a bad reason. You want to write with your heart. Not with your pocketbook.

SN: How has today’s current climate affected your writing?

JY: I’ve been thinking about writing a Women’s March picture book, though I have a friend who’s doing it, so I probably won’t. But I’ve been certainly writing poems about that. I think that if you look at my body of work, you’ll find a lot of feminist stuff. In fact, a book of mine that just came out last week is about the women and girls in the Hebrew Bible, a feminist take on their stories. It liberates them out of the men’s stories and lets them live on their own. So I’m always thinking of women topics.

SN: So we can expect to see more of that in your work?

JY: Yes, absolutely.

SN: I’m writing a musical about the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s going to be about a black girl who is adopted, both her parents are white and her dad is a cop and how she perceives race in today’s history.

JY: Interesting, good take. I wrote a musical – two musicals for kids. One was performed in Boston and performed again in Massachusetts. And the other one was performed in North Hampton, Massachusetts and it is that kind of cooperative venture that picture books are too.

SN: How are picture books cooperative?

JY: Your first cooperation is not only between an author and his or her words. Instead of how is that story? You say to the story, “Come on, cooperate with me.” But then you’re cooperating with an editor, then you’re cooperating with the illustrator. Then you’re cooperating with a copy editor. You’re cooperating with all the promotion people 10 who want to sell your book to teachers and librarians who want to know what you really meant in your book. Most arts are cooperative – even though we think of ourselves as this lone wolf sitting there day in and day out putting down these magnificent words on the page. But in the end—like the musical—it’s very cooperative.

SN: I’m also working with a documentary group as the writer. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the documentary film 13th, about mass incarceration in the U.S. A local elementary school showed it to a bunch of fifth graders and the students wrote spoken word poetry based off what they saw. Our goal is to capture both how they felt about the subject matter and their experience with writing poetry.

JY: So where do you want to go? Do you want to do all these things or do you want to narrow it and go after one?

SN: I kind of like everything, but right now I’m more focused on screenwriting. I’m taking a lot of screenwriting class because I like film and television, but I also want to write a musical and I like books. I’m a little all over the place.

JY: Don’t think of it as being all over the place. Think of it as being easily bored, so you want to follow your passion and never narrow yourself because you don’t know right now what you are capable of. I still don’t know now what I can’t do. I want to be able to write anything I want. Maybe excluding porn. Who knew forty years ago that I could write graphic novels – which I have. Who knew fifty years ago that I could write fiction? I thought I was a nonfiction writer and a picture book writer and suddenly I became a fiction writer as well. Who knew I could write musicals? Who knew I could write movie scripts? All of those things I did because I didn’t tell myself I couldn’t. If somebody says, “Can you do this?” my answer is always, “Yes, I can.” Maybe I can’t, but I have to find that out for myself. Don’t narrow yourself before you know what you can’t do. Let every moment be a can-do instead of a can’t-do.

About the Author:

Jane Yolen is an author of children’s books, fantasy, and science fiction, including Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? She is also a poet, a teacher of writing
and literature, and a reviewer of children’s literature.

About the Interviewer:

Sydney Nichole was born in Columbus, Ohio where she originally went to school for engineering. Instead of doing her engineering homework she found herself writing stories. Switching paths, she found herself at Ringling College of Art + Design for Creative Writing focusing on screenwriting. In her free time, she likes to do puzzles and pretend that she’s a late-night TV Show host.  

By Megan Cooke

Megan Cooke: Do you have any influences in your life that have really helped with your poetry? Teachers, friends, or family?

Avanti Tulpule: I am unbelievably grateful for the support that my family has shown for my poetry. In a time when more technical fields are prioritized, it is rare to see parents who are genuinely happy that their child is pursuing a less predictable future.

My teachers, especially my English teacher last year and my current English teacher (who is also the supervisor for the literary magazine I contribute to), both exposed me to writing that influenced my own. They taught me how to read to see the soul.

Additionally, my friends are limitless sources of inspiration and encouragement. I believe that poetry is communal. One cannot write poetry in isolation. I would not be the writer that I am today without their presence in my life.  

I love my family, friends, and teachers wholeheartedly. I cannot thank them enough.

MC: In your bio, you mentioned that you’re a child of immigrants. Do you think poetry has been a vital method for helping people to understand your experiences? Do you turn to poetry as a way to communicate complex topics?

AT: Poetry has been key to helping myself understand my own experiences. My writing asks questions that I would not dare to speak aloud. Reality is complex and subjective. I am afraid I rewrite my history to contextualize my present existence. I turn to poetry in order to isolate these experiences and make sense of them individually, before examining them as a whole. I want to give my past self the breathing room she deserves, so that she is not defined by who I am today.

I would hope that my writing helps other people understand my story, but that it also helps them understand their own. Although everybody has their own unique life story, the underlying emotions we feel are universal. I hope that my poetry can help others identify similar emotions they have felt, and subsequently identify themselves within me, so that we can both see each other as fully-formed people.

Poetry is able to break through our self-imposed isolation.

MC: How has your poetry evolved from your childhood to today? Have your topical choices or your style changed over time?

AT: In seventh grade, my English teacher taught that rain always symbolized grief. I had written a poem about the world on the brink of monsoon season, when the sky trembled with breathless anticipation. She told me to rewrite it so that it would be more symbolically accurate. For a long time afterwards, I internalized the lesson that poetry was meant to convey a palatable, predetermined message.  

Until recently, my poetry was not dishonest, but not true to myself, either. I hid the complicated emotions surrounding my experiences in favor of easily digestible generalizations. I hid my sexual orientation and my race for fear of being “too political.” Although my writing might have been “good,” it was apparent that I was absent from my work.

Once I began unlearning this self-inflicted invisibility, I truly began writing. I started writing about my own experiences and ideas instead of writing what I thought the audience wanted to read. I started playing with structure and syntax, so as to emphasize ideas based on a line break or rhyme scheme, or the shape of the stanzas.

Over time, my poetry has become more truthful. I believe that this has greatly improved both its quality and my self-esteem.

MC: Your poem “Seabird” has some very evocative lines about the desire to move from place to place, and the desire to return (or not return) to where you’re from. Do you think of yourself as somebody who isn’t tied down to any one place? Are you more grounded instead?

AT: Like my parents, I am grounded in my values. Above all, I center my life around compassion towards myself and others. I assume that a majority of immigrants view “home” as a physical place; I believe that my home lies within me. I am grounded within myself.

I think that one’s physical location matters very much. I am trying to find where I will fit in the grand scheme of things. Once I find out where I am most free, I believe I will be tied down to that place.

MC: Is there anything else you want to say about your poetry now, or how you want to grow as a writer in the future?

AT: I would like to make one point clear: the modern narrative of immigrants with rags-to-riches backstories, who are cruel, or at the very least emotionally standoffish, parents is untrue and harmful. First, this narrative normalizes the trauma that these parents and their children endure. Secondly, it erases the humanity from the story.  

I fear that those who might read my poetry will not see my parents as people but rather as faceless, generic immigrants. “Immigrant” is not a dirty word. My parents do not represent every immigrant – they are amazing individuals with their own rich stories. I do not represent every brown lesbian – I am my own person, and I speak for myself.

Click here to read Avanti Tulpule’s poem “seabird.”

About the Author:

Avanti Tulpule is a high school senior. She would like to thank her family and friends for their support.

About the Interviewer:

Megan Cooke is a senior at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. She’s majoring in Computer Animation and minoring in Creative Writing. She was born and raised in Minnesota for twelve years until she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived before moving to Saint Louis after graduation. Her hobbies are playing violin, reading, and having existential crises. She enjoys getting caught in hurricanes and feeding her pet shrimp named Salmon. You can get in contact with Megan by writing your message backwards on a piece of paper and feeding it to the nearest pigeon.

By Sandra Shim

Sandra Shim: What kind of mindset were you in when you wrote the poem in this issue, “The Executioner is Drunk and The Ropes Are Too Wet for Strangulation”?

Mike McHone: Stoned. (laughs) To be honest, I was in a sarcastic mindset. I came up with the title first, which is something I never do in any of my writing, fiction, poetry, or otherwise. The piece was an outgrowth of the title. And I wanted to write something that could find a home in a literary journal or genre magazine like the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; a mainstream publication or an independent one; something that couldn’t quite fit snugly in either fraction.

SS: Who does the executioner symbolize?

MM: An unqualified fool in a position of authority, power- drunk, and too stupid to do anything but destroy people’s lives. Thank (insert chosen deity here, or lack thereof) we don’t have that problem in the United States. I guess I’m still in a sarcastic mindset.  

SS: Who is the poem directed at?

MM: As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  The irony is it’s an old quote, obviously from the past, and people can’t really remember it accurately and repeatedly misquote it. There have been instances in civilizations past that have delved into scenarios akin to what’s being described in the poem. And if you don’t know what I might be talking about, then this poem was written just for you!

SS: How did you decide to use a flight attendant-sounding tone?

MM: I thought if I balanced something as menacing or horrific as a large group of people committing suicide because a government, authority figure, or anyone wielding power over them instructed them to do so with a very proper, professional, business-as-usual, by the book tone, it would enhance the horror. When you take weird imagery or uncomfortable wording and make them excessively normal, the horrific, satiric, or fantastical elements are embellished, at least in my opinion. Plus, when it’s blended with the image of a hangman being far too drunk to do his job, it adds a bit of gallows humor to the piece quite literally.

SS: The last line implies that the audience is the problem. What emotions were you hoping to initiate with this poem?

MM: As far as the emotions go, I wanted a mixed bag. In all, the piece could be taken as a dystopic poem, or an allegory, or a warning, a satire, a bad joke, or a good one, or something that Rod Serling and TS Eliot would talk about over drinks at Bukowski’s apartment.

And, yes, the last line… “We apologize for any inconvenience you may have caused.” You don’t have to look that far into our past or present to see that more than a few politicians or religious leaders think of most of us in this regard. We’re causing inconvenience because we have the audacity to want clean air, or clean water, or want to get married to the people we love even if they have the same genitals that we do, or want to go to school without running the risk of being gunned down like a soldier at Passchendaele, or want student loan reformation so we don’t slip back into indentured servitude, or want to be treated equal in the workplace and in life, or make a living wage, or not be thrown into prison for smoking a plant, or not to be beaten by police because of skin color, or have some left wing idiot try to ban a book because the subject matter or word choice might offend their precious little ears or cause their already-weak stomachs to bubble with nausea, or have a right wing moron try to ban a movie because it might upset their almighty god that probably doesn’t exist in the first place, or because we just generally want to left the fuck alone. The fact that these problems persist, and the fact that an overweight jackass from Detroit had to write a goofy little poem drawing attention to them, shows that it’s just too much of an inconvenience for the power people to do anything about it.

Apologies, folks. I didn’t realize how big this soapbox was before I got on top of it. I think it’s best I stop here and let you get back to your regularly scheduled program called life.

Click here to read Mike McHone’s poem “The Executioner is Drunk and The Ropes Are Too Wet for Strangulation.”

Mike McHone’s work has previously appeared in The Onion, The AV Club, Playboy, The Detroit News, Neo-Opsis Science Fiction, and numerous independent and online publications. He lives in Detroit with his wife, two cats, a nephew, and a beta fish named Trevor.

Sandra Shim currently studies computer animation and creative writing at the Ringling College of Art and Design. After graduation, she hopes to enter the animation industry and write her own stories. Her favorite animated films are The Lion King and Zootopia.