Saturday, March 7, 2009

Magic Tricks and Interviews

On her blog, Leslie Pietrzyk writes about a trick that kept her writing when she came to a stuck place in her novel writing: "So I told myself to come up with three things that could happen, just really quickly: “You don’t have to use them,” I assured myself. “Just type three things really fast even if they sound ridiculous. Then you can go off to lunch.”

And it worked! Go here to read more.

And Deborah Ager reports here that it's a trick that works for writing poetry too.

While you're at the 32 Poems blogsite, scroll down for a great interview with Mary Biddinger (or go here directly, if you don't like scrolling. I love her discussion of wearing her administrator hat and her poetry hat, hats which struggle to control my own life on a daily basis (I worry I might end up wearing the hat of the nearest insane asylum on some days! oh, it's probably not politically correct to call them that anymore, is it?). She also talks about her ideal writing space, which might involve a wrinkle in the universe. The interview, conducted by Serena Agusto-Cox, is full of gems.

I think I've posted about other interviews conducted on the 32 Poems blogsite, and I suspect my favorites have been done by Serena Agusto-Cox. I've established in earlier blogposts on my site (based on my very unscientific survey of my bookshelves), there are very few book-length collections of interviews with poets, when compared to interviews with other types of artists. If Agusto-Cox ever collects all her interviews that she's conducted into one single volume (or 2 or 3), I hope she'll let me know!

4 comments:

Serena said...

I'd be happy to let you know. I wonder if there is a market for it.

Kristin Berkey-Abbott said...

There's certainly a shortage of books of interviews with poets. Is it a market to be tapped or indicative that not many people would buy such books?

In any case, I'd love such a book. I love how you get people to talk about their writing spaces. I'm visualizing a book with photos . . .

Should it ever come into being, let me know. I'll be at least one person who buys it--for myself and all my friends!

Serena said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Serena said...

I will definitely let you know if it comes into being.

I would have to get permissions from Deborah and the interviewees I think...and if they are willing to provide photos...:) Not really sure about this yet!