Compass Rose editors sat down with writers Robert Crawford, Perry Glasser, Peggy Rambauch, Frederick Reiken, Daniel Asa Rose, Heather Skyler, Parker A Towle, & Tim Weed to learn about their influences, writerly vices and rituals, thoughts on the business of writing, and more.

Compass Rose:
     What/who are your influences?

Robert Crawford:
     I used to listen to Simon & Garfunkel, a lot of folk music (Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan) when I was growing up. I think song lyrics strongly influenced me in the direction of meter and rhyme. Yet, when I first started writing poetry again in 1996 (I wrote poetry in high school and college--hopefully, all safely burned--but stopped during my years working around the Pentagon), I wrote free verse. My father read some of it and said “Why don’t you try to make it rhyme?” and I said something along the lines of “Forget about it. Nobody writes in rhyme anymore.” But what he said bothered me--mainly because I knew I was being ignorant--and I started to teach myself rhyme and meter. It was during this learning stage that I came across Robert Frost. Of course, I’d read “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” but I really hadn’t read much more than that and “Out, Out” in high school. Though I came to know and love his poetry, my first poems--poems that everyone says sound so much like Frost-- where actually written in complete ignorance of his body of work.

Perry Glasser:
     Everything, really. Comic books and science-fiction to start. Lewis Carroll.

Peggy Rambauch:
     As a young writer I was influenced by Flannery O’Conner because she was bold and direct, she wasn’t afraid of violence. She taught me that women writers didn’t always have to be pretty, and in my own writing I am not afraid of being direct or harsh. Hemingway and Faulkner also in my youth taught me to write well. When I began writing my novel I would read a lot of Tim O’Brien because of his direct writing, he took a lot of untraditional risks with voice. When I was writing I would often begin censoring myself which has always been my problem as a writer. I would read O’Brien to give myself courage and tell myself, “Why Can’t I?” These authors were used to inspire me, not to intimidate, and I continue to be influenced by them. I’ve always looked to music for inspiration, I’d listen to Joni Mitchell because my sentiment is reflective of her music. I’d listen to a West Side Story instrumental for energy. When I am not writing I listen to Bach and I feel stronger, like I could do anything. Thinking to myself that this is all that matters, the epitome of perfect and beautiful art, to cleanse me of my own ego that’s damaged by annoying reviews. It brought me back to my creative
energy.

Frederick Reiken:
     Most writers would tell you that certain authors have influenced them. I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t been influenced by other authors. I guess for me James Joyce and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’d also throw Hemingway and Faulkner in there as well. I find that my generation, I was born in sixties, has a hard time not being influenced by the mass media. So I definitely was affected by some of the popular groups in the eighties, Yes and Pink Floyd, also I was into The Beatles. I was influenced by groups that had more of a literary sensibility about them. For me though it’s a pretty even mix, from my love of nature right down to my love of Saturday morning cartoons.

Daniel Asa Rose:
     Faulkner, Brecht, D. H. Lawrence, Nabokov, John Lennon.

Heather Skyler:
     I love a lot of different writers. Some of my favorites are Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides (I loved The Virgin Suicides), and Michael Ondaatje (English Patient). My favorite old-timers are Virginia Woolf and Tolstoy.

Parker A Towle:
     A friend recommended a book to me, Straw For The Fire, a compilation of journal entries of Theodore Roethke edited by David Waggoner. These journals occupy 18 feet of shelf space at the University of Washington library. I was hooked on Roethke. I’ve read everything he wrote, and most of what has been written about him. I then got into Stanley Kunitz, his good friend, who will be 100 in 2005. I found certain anthologized poems of Edward Field very original in thought and approach, and did my Masters paper on him at Vermont College.
     He has been a helpful correspondent. One of my MFA tutors suggested Frank O’Hara whom I found exhilarating. You don’t imitate him but he gets you inspired to write. Richard Hugo followed Roethke teaching at University of Washington and too was a great pedagogue of poetry like Roethke. James Wright studied with Roethke. They’re all great.

Tim Weed:
     Not necessarily in this order: Tolkien, Homer, Tolstoy, Melville, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Ursula K. Leguin, C.S. Lewis, Cormac McCarthy, John Fowles, Robert Stone, Paul Bowles, Patrick O’Brian, Dorothy Dunnett, Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, James Welch, Joseph Campbell, Black Elk, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Joaquin Sorolla, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
     Actually, it’s a tougher question than it looks. I believe that everything you read is like raw vegetation tamped down into the soil of your unconscious. Underground it’s transformed into the kind of crude oil that bubbles up in first drafts. So who can say what one’s influences really are? The majority of mine seem to be novelists, as opposed to poets or story writers, but I’ve thrown in a visual artist, two wise elders, and three musicians, just to make the point that writing is an art form whose sources are mysterious and based deep within the spirit. The writers I’ve learned the most from technicall --that is, the ones from whom I’ve drawn the most explicit analytical lessons--are probably Hemingway, McCarthy, Fowles, and Stone.

CR:
     How do you approach a new piece? What is your routine?

Crawford:
     I usually don’t approach a new piece. It approaches me--hits me over the head even. The image, feeling, of a poem can come upon me at any time. I use the early morning hours (from 5-8 a.m.) to try and write it down. I wake up, get myself a cup of coffee, put on a tape (for some reason I can write to Mary Chapin Carpenter :) and go to it. During the warmer months, I also try and set aside an hour after I get home from work to read poetry and scribble out at “Poetry Corner” in my backyard.

Glasser:
     Pieces approach me. Composing, I like to write in the morning when I am closest to dream states; editing and rewriting takes place in the afternoon and late at night.

Rambauch:
     I have no particular ritual. I’m not the kind of writer who always has a million new ideas. I commit myself to one thing at a time, not consciously thinking about what I want to write next. I have to come to something new without actually knowing it, my novel worked when I stopped thinking. Being on my own for fifteen years and raising two children I can’t be precious with my time, write when I can and be flexible about where and how I write. I used to write late at night when my children were asleep, but I find in the morning after coffee, is the best time. I am thankful for this luxury. After my novel I had to sculpt a life around my writing and I feel blessed. Time is the only ritual I need.

Reiken:
     I normally have some idea of what I’m going to be doing when I sit down. I’ve usually had an idea in my head before just sitting down and writing. I write long hand. I have formulated an opening in my head, and basically, I’ll keep writing to see if I develop a flow and want to keep going. If I don’t and want to stop, I’ll spend a couple days thinking about that piece and what I want to do with it and I’ll come back to it once I’ve given it some time.

CR:
     Why do you write out first drafts long hand?

Reiken: (Continued)
     If I start on a typewriter or a computer, I run into a few impediments. First of all I can’t keep up. I think much faster than I can type. I think also that I want to revise as I’m going and won’t spend as much time actually writing. I was also a journalist and got in the habit of banging out stories on a deadline. I used to bang out stories five minutes before deadline for some of my editors. So, when I sit at a computer, sometimes I feel like I might be just banging something out.

Rose:
     I deal best with encouragement. Try not to harp on negative voices, within and without.

Skyler:
     It definitely varies. When I started the Perfect Age I was interested in writing a novel about beauty and sexuality in our society. The novel I’m writing now is about a murder that happened in my family before I was born inspired by love letters I found from my grandfather (who was murdered) to my grandmother. Another novel I have banging around in my brain is a modern retelling of the Icarus myth. I suppose with all of them I begin with an idea, then try and map out a plot that will help illustrate the idea and make for a gripping, I hope, story. I usually plan my novels, but things change as I write and then I have to reassess and re-plot. Also, I like to start at the beginning and move through the novel in a straight line. I’m not a writer who writes scenes for later on in the book. Writing is probably the only area of my life where I think in a very linear fashion.

Towle:
     We all have moments of the physical manifestations of emotion which hit us by surprise, unawares. The heart may race, the nares flare. We may choke with tears. I remember these moments, I speculate where they may have come from. I write everything down that I can associate with them. Like Roethke I write down aphorisms and fragments that touch me especially in a mysterious or ambiguous way. I may read them in books or magazines. I don’t hesitate to steal but try to put these in quotes or italics. If they really stay fresh for me I may carry them from one journal to the next, like this from Zorba the Greek, “I’ve done this, I’ve done that, I’ve done very little. Men like me should live for a thousand years.” So far it’s resisted expansion into a poem, I’m patient. In the daytime I see patients, at night I write, but, of course, it’s mostly revision.

Weed:
     Usually it starts with a specific place, or an image I find arresting, like “minnows thudding against my shins like fleshy machine-gun bullets,” or “sunlight glinting off a snorkel mask in the turquoise water beneath the rusting hulk of a shipwreck.” I start writing, often in longhand, and try to keep writing until the story’s down on the page. I want to capture that vital narrative energy before it skitters away. The first draft’s a mess, barely legible, full of nonsense and misdirection. But the story’s usually there, like a skein of rough wool that needs to be carded, cleaned, spun into usable yarn, and eventually woven into something worth reading. The time I spend on the first draft is miniscule compared to the time I spend on rewrites and revision.

CR:
     Explain how you deal with criticism.

Crawford:
     It depends. I’m human. My first response is not always my best, but I’ve learned that criticism can be extremely useful. You have to let it go into the big world and that can be harsh, but if your serious about your art you have to let it go. You also have to learn who is, and who isn’t, a good critic for you. Just because you admire a poet’s work/career doesn’t mean that they are good critics of your work. One of my best critics does not write poetry at all.

Glasser:
     I am not important enough to get any, but if you mean from colleagues, it’s not something to “deal” with. You listen (or read) consider and then act. At the day’s end, it’s my name on the manuscript.

Rambauch:
     I’m pretty good about critics and I often dismiss them. Bad reviews tend to be the superficial ones, they already know what they are going to say before they read it. When you publish a book it’s not yours anymore, if you know everything that went into the book, then everything people say should rub off. One critic said I had a prophetic voice, and I thought to myself, “that’s the only way the story could be told you idiot.” I was happy with the people who read the book closely. When its friends who are the critics it's hard but it would be foolish not to listen. My twenty two year old daughter read it and loved it, but didn’t understand it thematically. She gave me more specific advice as to where to insert more information, as far as characters reactions to things. I was trying to not be too precious about the writing because for me its perfect because I’m so close to it. I try to keep a prospective.

Reiken:
     I try not to get too obsessed about critics. Obviously, everyone wants to get good reviews. Fortunately for me, about 90% of my reviews, give me positive reviews. Not that they all think the book they’re reviewing is great, but you know, they at least have good feedback. Maybe 10% of all the reviewers are negative. And to be honest, there have only been one or two people that really wrote bad stuff about my books, and I didn’t really feel like they were making a lot of intelligent points so much as they were ranting. I know the bad reviewers names. I sometimes have wondered what I would do if I ran into them on the street, but luckily that hasn’t happened yet. That’s not so bad though, I’ve known people who have written back to reviewers. So, I’m not that bad. I think that’s the advantage to not being 23 and published. If you’re older you can accept it. You have a better concept of who you are and this stuff can flow off you a bit more. If you know what you’re doing the critics won’t bother you so much. If you have and understanding of your own work, what you’re accomplishing and why you’re doing it they can’t bother you as much.

Rose:
     Courage!

Skyler:
     I don’t like hearing criticisms, of course, but I try to listen and figure out if there’s some truth to them, something that can help me make the novel better. I’m in a writing group in Madison, and it’s really helpful to bounce my work off of other writers who I trust. I think taking a second look at what you’ve written is never a bad thing.

Towle:
     I court it, I’m grateful for it. We learn very little from praise and what we do learn is probably wrong. Criticism is educational, and quite often true and valuable. We often get killed with kindness.

Weed:
     Because my books are still to be published I haven’t heard much from professional literary critics; they tend to ignore the literary magazines, which is probably a good thing, although I have received a great deal of criticism in workshops and exchanges. The most important thing is to listen. The second most important thing is to know when not to listen. Eventually you develop the capacity to incorporate whatever criticism you can use, and ignore the rest. After awhile, incidentally, I think workshops are of diminishing value to a writer. They can be helpful in the early years, although you have to guard against the kind of devastating criticism that can turn a sensitive young writer away from writing for good. As far as literary criticism goes, I’ve watched some of the recent battles with fascination and horror. When my turn comes I hope to be strong enough to ignore the gratuitous negative stuff and not take the raves too much to heart either. Criticism is powerful medicine; it sells books and it destroys reputations. Generally, I think it’s hazardous for writers to moonlight as professional literary critics. If you don’t believe me, I direct you to two wonderful cautionary tales: Tobias Wolff’s short story, “Bullet in the Brain,” and John Fowles’s novella, “The Ebony Tower.”

CR:
     Do you have any advice for young writers?

Crawford:
     Get a life. No, seriously, I want young poets to follow Frost’s advice and “plow it under.” Let it sit for a while before putting it on the page, show some reticence.

Glasser:
     Write. Don’t discount your personal experience. Write some more. Use your imagination. Then write.

Rambauch:
     It is balancing act. A published writer needs a good strong ego. You have to have something important to say and want people to read it. It’s most frustrating as a teacher to have a student whose a really fine writer but doesn’t send it out to enrich the lives of other people. At the same time you cannot let the desire to publish be your driving point because you lose integrity and start writing for the market. You cannot rush your work as a young writer because you often don’t come into your mature voice until you’re older. Accept yourself as an apprentice. Rejection needs perseverance, keep your focus on what matters most. If you can’t live without writing you shouldn’t be a writer. Write and read as much as you can, and if when you're writing the words aren’t coming, then don’t force it.

Reiken:
     Maybe the most useful piece of advice I can give is this: Despite the cultural obsession with young stars, you know rock stars making it big at nineteen, writing does not work the same way. The one truly great thing about writing is that you have time. Most famous writers make it big when they’re in their thirties or forties. Most writers that have novels published will have written two or three entire novels before that-that never have been published.

Skyler:
     Read, read, read, and study what you read. If you want to write novels, study how novels are put together. Map out the plots of your favorite books. Study other books as if they’re blueprints, so that you have a guide when you begin. Also, just keep trying. It took me about 15 years to get my first publication.

Towle:
     Expose your stuff to other people. I worship at the feet of education. Read, read, read; William Matthews’ three pieces of advice for the young writer. Read what you love, don’t make a chore of it but definitely include poetry. Memorize poems -- your favorites. Do it in the car to and from work. Listen to poets on tapes. Try Donald Hall, Robert Lowell, Galway Kinnell, Gwendolyn Brooks. You’re going to have to give up some things, especially, like me, as you get older, like television, spectator sports. Read aloud, to yourself, to audiences. Don’t sweat it.

Weed:
     Plenty. The most important thing is to write. The second most important thing, indispensable in fact, is to read. Read widely and eclectically; haunt used bookstores and libraries. Steer clear of literary trends and orthodoxies; identify and hold to your own personal set of aesthetic values, as opposed to a received set. Live life to the fullest,
and follow your bliss wherever it takes you.

CR:
     Do you have any writerly vices or rituals?

Crawford:
     Not really. Compared to other poets, I’m boring.

Glasser:
     None I know of? I stopped smoking long ago. I think the cult of alcohol that surrounds American letters is a pernicious load of crap that seduced young writers into thinking that if they write, they can be just like Hemingway, or Pearl Buck, or Fitzgerald, or Steinbeck...but that fact is that when they were drunk, they wrote crap, and they are first to admit it. Leave drugs and alcohol alone.

Rambauch:
     I’m such a good girl. I don’t have to smoke a joint to write. I don’t need to be stimulated, I need a clear head and a calm, predictable life. Instead I work out like a maniac, lift weights for fun because getting physical relieves frustration.

Reiken:
     In terms of while I write? Not really. I do have a lot of procrastination techniques. I play guitar, and I do find that I’m playing a lot more guitar when I should be writing. I know that about myself. Sometimes I need to get motivated. I guess that’s something then. I find myself going places to write. I’ll get in my car and drive down to this lot by the river with a notebook. I know that I can’t go to my office first thing in the morning, because I won’t get anything done. Sometimes I’ll go to get gas and I’ll stay at the gas station with my notebook and write.

Skyler:
     I can’t seem to write at home anymore. There’s a great cafe called Toad Hill a few blocks away from my house, and that’s where I now do all of my writing. I have two little kids and I can’t focus at home even when I’m alone because there’s always something that needs doing. So, I take my laptop and go to my office down the block.

Weed:
     Nope, I’m absolutely perfect. Actually, I’m as prone to procrastination as the next person. And procrastination is the mother of all literary vices, is it not?

CR:
     Is there a specific goal you’re trying to achieve with your writing?

Crawford:
     I write because it feels right and good. I feel so clearly alive when I’m writing. My goal is be there as much as possible. And yes I would like to be able to give up fixing computers and concentrate on poetry without losing my house, family etc.

Glasser:
     Honesty and truth. I say that without blushing.

Reiken:
     The problem of absence seems to keep popping up when I write. I guess I’m philosophically bound to that concept. I’m not sure. It’s something that interests me, this idea of absences and how they relate to us.

Rose:
     To refresh our sense of wonder.

Skyler:
     I really want to engage the reader and have them forget about everything else but what’s going on inside my book. I have grand ideas regarding what the novel is about, but in the end I just want people to be immersed in the lives of these characters I’ve created.

Towle:
     To create fresh, original poems that are lively and celebrate our incredible language and our amazing existence and capacities; and that stay that way, like Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” or Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”

Weed:
     I suppose there are several. John Fowles talks about the “domaine perdu,” the lost world of idyllic perfection to which all of us, and especially artists, are constantly trying to return. On a slightly more conscious level, I’m interested in creating the kind of vivid physical and sensory landscapes that invite the reader to abandon herself as much as possible to the dream of the story, and at the same time celebrate the holiness of the natural world that humanity seems determined to trample and defile. Short stories have been indispensable to my development as a writer and I plan to continue writing them, but I think most of my energies from now on will be directed to novels. The main reason for this is that novels have been important to me from a very early age, and the intensity of my involvement with them is probably what motivated me to become a writer in the first place.

CR:
     Would you talk about the revision process? How do you decide when your work is done?

Crawford:
     I revise a lot, but I know when the poem is done enough to send it to the outside world.; it’s just a feeling, a gut instinct. Sometimes I’ve messed up a perfectly good poem through revision, but in every case I’ve come to my senses (usually through criticism of a trusted reader that rolled their eyes at me--see above) and gone back. Most of my poems go through 30-50 revisions, some a lot more than that, and some, the fun ones, very little at all (there are those rare poems that just appear on the page--a revelation--and I wish there were more of those!)

Glasser:
     I type like a hippo on morphine, so when I think a work is done, I find lots of typos. Usually, I have to put a piece to sleep for weeks to reread it again, cold. I read all my work out loud: when my tongue is tangled up, I am sure the problem is in the sentence. When I can read a work from one end to the other and like what I read, it’s done.

Rambauch:
     I believe works can be done and not be revised forever. I read aloud to myself and revise as I go. It is finished when the rhythm is right, when the sentences have energy and connectedness, when the scene reveals something thematic to me, then it’s done. When each scene is finished I’ll stick a few lines here and there but ultimately they stay the same. At the end of a book, I realize I have nothing left to say, if I write anymore it will be redundant. At the end there should be a sense of uncertainty, if you feel a surge of emotion and then become unsure you are at the end. It’s a let down. I guess that’s it. I guess I better show it to someone and see if they say that’s it too. Then I send it to my agent.

Reiken:
     It’s a combination of things really. I have certain people whose judgment I trust. I’m pretty good at gauging when someone is just saying "yeah this works," and when someone is saying "I think this is great." So I end up using my intuitive side a bit as well. Even after people have told me that it’s great or that they think it is done, I’ll give it a few months to think about. I’ll kick it around in my head and see if I think of anything else that I would put in or change. If after a couple months I haven’t really thought that I need to do anything to it, then it’s done. Really you can revise forever. Who was it that said ‘a novel is never really finished, only abandoned?’ Oh well. There are things about my first two novels I’d go back and change now if I could. There is a point though, where you just have to put it down.

Rose:
     I’m from a family of diamond polishers. I try to put at least 58 glittering facets on each piece.

Skyler:
     I used to write by hand then type in what I’d written and revise as I typed. After baby number two, my husband told me to “cut out the middle man” and get a damn laptop, so I did. Now I just type straight in and haven’t figured out the revision part yet! I usually read over what I last wrote, when I sit down to write, and make some changes as I go. When I finish a major section I usually look back and figure out what needs fixing too. Figuring out when I’m done is sometimes difficult to gauge by myself. I have readers who help me figure that out. My sister. My friend Tenaya Darlington, whose first novel also just came out. The rest of my writing group. I’m lucky to have these great readers on hand.

Towle:
     Ellen Voigt is quoted as responding to this last as follows, “Honey, when you stop revising, you’re dead,” or words to that effect. Richard Tillinghast, to paraphrase, “revision is sacred.” It’s slow and it’s imperative. I don’t give up on my crummy poems soon enough. I keep trying to improve them. It usually doesn’t work.

Weed:
     When I’m so sick of a piece I can’t look at it any more I usually put it away in a drawer. I don’t look at it again for a few months, to let the batteries charge up. After that I read it fresh and attack it with renewed vigor, then put it away again to simmer. When this has gone on for a year or two or several, and if I’ve gotten some positive feedback on the piece, I may send it away. When it’s published, or when I’ve decided to consign it to the ash heap, it’s done. Most of my finished stories have gone through at least ten drafts. My novel has undergone three major rewrites and countless revisions and sub-drafts.

CR:
     How do you feel about conferences and workshops?

Crawford:
     I belong to the Powow River Poets of Newburyport MA, a group of committed, published poets who meet once a month to go over new work. It has been a fantastic experience, introducing me to new opportunities and other poets who are serious about their craft. But I think it’s a hit or miss proposition. I’ve gone to workshops and attended conferences that were a waste of time and money. I really dislike paying to go to a workshop that is more like a baby shower: someone unwraps a poem and everyone goes “Awwwwww” “Ohhhhhhhhhh” and that’s it--all very supportive, but also utterly useless.

Glasser:
     They have more value for beginners than older writers. The point to ask is whether you need to spend $1,000 for a week of elbow-rubbing with “names” just for inspiration. Instructional conferences are a little better, but not much.

Rambauch:
     I think workshops are critical. They allow people to learn to write and mature as a writer faster. Writers have to have a certain instinct that cant be taught. Workshops bring that quality out to make them a solid writer. The point of writing is to communicate, your writing for an audience, you want people to become enriched by what you say. It can help your work and your skills develop. As a teacher I do interfere with students work. Workshops need a leader, someone with years of experience, to help students improve and monitor their comments and make sure their productive and not harmful. The leader has a serious role of responsibility. Their goal is to nurture young writers and help them better express who they are.

Reiken:
     You have to take workshops and MFA programs with a grain of salt. There are lots of MFA’s that go out into the world and become ‘writers,’ when ninety percent of them are horrible. People get put off because they can feel like this is a writing factory, you know? Really it’s good for getting people off the ground. You need to have talent to be a writer. This setting is good for nurturing this aspect of the process.

CR:
     Do you have any groups like this you work in even as a published author?

Reiken:
     I have close writer friends that I show my work to. I show my wife. They give me feedback. Really, I work close with my editor now. Now I do things like sit down with him or the publisher or my agent and work things out.

Rose:
     Avoid 'em.

Skyler:
     I think getting a bunch of writers together to share their work is usually a good thing. I don’t think meanness and harsh criticism is very productive. If the feedback is too negative, even if what’s said is true, I think it can stunt creativity. Writers are delicate flowers who need to be nurtured, for the most part.

Towle:
     Fun. Not terribly efficient. I’ve taken them and I’ve taught them. Expose your work as diligently as possible. Do not decline to read aloud. You can’t go wrong with instructors who have devoted their whole life to the craft like Tate or Wormser.

Weed:
      I attend conferences sporadically, and as I mentioned I’ve participated in many workshops. I think such writerly comings-together are a good thing, generally. Writing is such a solitary occupation. It’s nice every once in awhile to touch base with other writers, to give and receive encouragement and moral support, and to feel that one is part of a larger community. That said, I do think there’s a danger of becoming too dependent on conferences. I know people who are addicted to them. If you’re spending all your time communing and none of your time writing, it’s a problem, unless you’re content to be a literary groupie. And you should beware of the echo-chamber effect. Conformity is death to a writer. It’s important to maintain a fiercely independent voice, not beholden to any socially imposed school, aesthetic, or literary ideology.

CR:
     How do you feel about the publishing climate these days? Do you feel more comfortable with a certain venue? (Internet, magazines, large/small presses, etc.)

Crawford:
     I think there are plenty of opportunities to get poetry published out there. There are tons of small journals and new Internet sites appear almost daily. Getting it read by anybody is another matter entirely. Very few journals accept formal, metrical poetry. I keep hoping that will change.

Glasser:
     I think there are far too many magazines in far too many venues, all creating a lot of white noise. Quality is hard to find, and what generally gets labeled as “terrific” is merely competent.

Rambauch:
     I’m not a fan of the internet. I like both large and small press, book forms, any kind of press. I think their equally important. Its best to sell your book to a publisher, get it out there on the shelves. Be familiar and realistic about the publishing world.

Reiken:
     I’m a purist. I fear the internet and what it is doing, not just to the publishing industry, but just what it does for peoples’ willingness to read. I’m afraid that the internet just does more for pushing people away from activities like reading. I think there will always be people that read though, that want to take part in that. At least, I hope so.

Rose:
     It is unspeakably crass.

Skyler:
     Feel good about it now that I’ve finally gotten published! But it’s so difficult to break in, and during the process I was told that my novel might be hard to place because it didn’t fit neatly into a niche. It’s not just a “coming of age” novel, so it seemed to lack a category, but it made it and is doing fairly well, so that’s a good thing. I love being published by a large press because it guarantees the novel will be more widely distributed, but I think small presses are on the rise and that’s fabulous. It helps to guarantee more diversity of subject and style.

Towle:
     Some good things are getting out there. Some of it’s a hoax, too. The labor and delivery is not without some distress. The baby is not always fit for the label on a pureed food jar. Don’t spend your last dollar on contests. I’ve published on the internet but I like it better on the page. Do some volunteer editorial work, it’s educational.

Weed:
     For short fiction, as anyone can tell you, it’s a tough climate. There are thousands of writers sending out stories on a regular basis, and the awful fact is that there just isn’t a proportionate of readers. The good news is that there’s been a fluorescence of literary magazines in recent years, both in print and on the web, so if you’re a writer who wants to get published, and you’ve worked hard on your craft, you eventually will. Getting published on the internet may not be as satisfying as print, but there’s something to be said for the exposure it can get your work in terms of search engines like Google, links, etc. The most important message is that writers should support literary magazines, because they provide an essential pro-bono service in keeping short fiction and poetry alive in this consumer-oriented society. And the good ones are a pleasure to read...A final piece of advice is not to get discouraged, and to keep writing. Literature is crucially important to preserving and enriching the illuminated aspects of the human species. You have to collect a good number of rejection slips before your work begins to see the light of day!

CR:
     What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done to support your writing?

Crawford:
     I went to a reading in Lawrence and read “Salisbury Cathedral” under a huge portrait of Che Guevara.

Glasser:
     I have not gone the bartender/moving van/night clerk route. I don’t support my writing as much as I support myself, and since I like creature comforts, I have been reasonably well-paid in white collar jobs all my life. If TS Eliot can be a banker and William Carlos Williams a doctor, the notion that one takes a marginalized life for one’s art is silly. One writes to write: Art is a social luxury. Better to have a real job and know something of the world than to take substandard pay and know nothing.

Rambauch:
     I stopped teaching middle school for two years and lied to my parents about it. I had to ignore their calls during the day. I stopped teaching so I could continue my writing. It is often very hard to put up with family opinion.

Reiken:
     Hmmm, this is the type of question that gets you in trouble. I don’t know if I can think of anything strange. Well, I can, but I will qualify this as not being the strangest, but one of the more recent. Without telling you the whole story, I’m writing this book with a character that has this pet bear. The bear is in a late stage of lymphoma, so he’s going to die any day. The character has gone off to find this other character in the story that has gone underground. They have to bring the bear with them because they can’t just leave it alone on death’s door. I called all these people trying to figure out what kind of car could fit a huge animal like this. People must have thought I was crazy. It didn’t really work, so I eventually had to go down to this GMC or Toyota dealership near my house. I told the guy there that I was a wildlife specialist and I needed information on cars that I could use to transport a bear in this condition. So he led me around and gave me a bunch of options. I haven’t talked to that guy since.

Rose:
     Edited x-rated letters for a jerk-off rag. (Wrote a funny essay about it, however.)

Skyler:
     Hmmm. I once wrote a story for Cat Fancy magazine in an effort to win the $500 prize. I’m actually allergic to cats but some strange woman who was in a writing class of mine loved cats and told me about it, so I gave it a try. I figured there wasn’t much of a crossover between cat lovers and good writers. I guess I was wrong because I only got the free book--about a cat on a road trip adventure--for entering.

Towle:
     Getting an MFA while practicing medicine full time and teaching in a medical school. I took nine years at it, buried my father in the middle of it. For that they made me apply all over again. He missed seeing his Red Sox take it all by 15 years but we had a great celebration of it right in my living room anyway. I loved the MFA but it was crazy. I’d do it again, probably because it was crazy. What else is there?

Top

About the writers:

Robert Crawford's first book of poetry, Too Much Explanation Can Ruin a Man, was published by David Robert Books in February, 2005. His poems have appeared in The Formalist, the country's leading journal dedicated to formal verse; The Lyric; The Dark Horse; Iambs & Trochees; The Larcom Review; Light; Pivot; Forbes; Compass Rose, and other national publications. His poem, "French Braids," won the prestigious 2001 Newburyport Art Association's national poetry contest His poetry, with a strong sense of place, explores universal themes in a New England setting He lives in Chester, NH, with his wife and two daughters.

Perry Glasser began his teaching career with a decade before the chalkboards of Bay Ridge High School in his hometown, Brooklyn. After leaving public school teaching, Perry earned his MFA degree in Fiction Writing at the University of Arizona. He then taught writing and literature for three years at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, followed by a decade at Bradford College in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he became a Professor of English in 1991. Perry has published two collections of his short fiction, Suspicious Origins (St. Paul: New Rivers Press) and Singing on the Titanic (Urbana and Chicago: The University of Illinois Press), a book recorded by the Library of Congress for access by the blind. His work has twice been read on National Public Radio's "The Sound of Writing" and has three times won P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Awards. From 1996 to 2002, Glasser worked as a staff writer and editor for business and consumer magazines, including a stint as Editor in Chief of Web Guide. His consumer freelance magazine journalism has appeared in such venues as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Poets & Writers, Phi Delta Kappan, and Dads; his book reviews have been featured in The New York Times Book Review and The Chicago Tribune's Sunday Review of Books. In 1994, Perry was named a Contributing Editor of North American Review, the oldest literary journal in the United States, now published at the University of Northern Iowa. Perry returned to academe with a one-year stint as Director of the Writing Program and Visiting Professor of English at Wichita State University from 2002-2003. His current writing projects include the Rock 'n Roll Memoirs, a collection of creative non-fiction, Based on True Events, a new collection of his short fiction (finalist for the Sandstone Prize in 2003), The Ghost of Annabel Hastings, a young adult novel, and Power Writing: The Four Foundations of Winning Business Style, an instructional text.Perry Glasser joined the faculty of Salem State College in September 2003.

Peggy Rambauch is the author of Fighting Gravity, a novel published by Steerforth Press, and a collection of stories entitled When the Animals Leave, published by Ampersand Press. And she is the editor of Under the Sugar Palm Trees: Memoirs of Cambodian Refugees Living in Lawrence Massachusetts, and A Name Like Me: Essays and Poems by Vietnamese and Cambodian Teenagers Living in Lawrence Massachusetts. She was awarded the 1994 and the 1998 Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant in Fiction, was the recipient in 1994 of the St. Botolph Foundation Grant in Literature, and was a Fellow at the MacDowell and Yaddo Artist Colonies. She has published stories in literary quarterlies, and has written for The Boston Globe and The Boston Globe Magazine. For over twenty years Rambauch has taught writing and literature to graduate and undergraduate students, adults, high school, middle school students and Seniors. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Tufts University, a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire, and a Masters of Fine Arts from Vermont College. Presently she provides private writing instruction, professional development programs for educators, is a visiting artist in the schools, and teaches ESOL at the Asian Center in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She lives in Andover, Massachusetts.

Frederick Reiken teaches courses in fiction writing and literature. He received his B.A. from Princeton and his M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine. His first novel, The Odd Sea, won the Hackney Literary Award for first fiction and was chosen by both Booklist and Library Journal as one of the best first novels of 1998. It has been incorporated into high
school and college curriculums across the country. His second novel, The Lost Legends of New Jersey, was a national bestseller and was cited in both the New York Times Book Review "Notable Books of 2000" and the Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2000" lists. Both books have also been published in several foreign translations. Recently he has published a short story in The New Yorker magazine. Formerly a nature writer, news reporter, and columnist for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, his diverse background also includes a stint as a wildlife biologist in the Middle East. He has previously taught at UC Irvine and at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Daniel Asa Rose was born in New York City, raised in Connecticut, and graduated from Brown University. His first short story was accepted by The New Yorker when he was 27 and he won an O. Henry Prize and two Pen Fiction Awards for the other stories in his first collection, Small Family with Rooster. His first novel, Flipping for It , is a black comedy about divorce from the man's point of view, and was a New York Times New and Noteworthy Paperback. Recently he published Hiding Places: A Father and his Sons Retrace Their Family's Escape From the Holocaust - a saga that intermingles a taut current-day quest of a search for the hiding places that saved his family's life with memories of the author's own hiding places growing up in very WASP Connecticut - a book which earned starred reviews in both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly ("brilliant and remarkable"), as well as the New England Booksellers Discovery Award, a coveted place on the BookSense 76 List, and inclusion in "Best Jewish Writing 2003." Currently a senior book reviewer for The New York Observer, he has served as arts & culture editor of the Forward newspaper, travel columnist for Esquire magazine, essayist for The New York Times Magazine, and food critic for the past 20 pounds.

Heather Skyler was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV.  She received her MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.  Currently, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the Beloit Fiction Journal.  She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband and their son and daughter. 

Parker A. Towle has published three chapbooks of poems, and an anthology of other peoples previously unpublished poems. An associate editor on The Worcester Review, Towel has edited special issues on Frank O'Hara, and Stanley Kunitz. He's held nearly every position possible at the The Robert Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire, except positions of authority (which he's avoided), and guest poet, (being prestige challenged). Towle is a decent racquetball player for his age and an experienced neurologist, which the med students and residents down at Dartmouth-Hitchcock seem to appreciate. He's a father times four and a husband times 49 1/2. "I don't know how she's put up with it for so long, but I appreciate it, indeed."

Tim Weed was born in Vermont. He attended Middlebury College and experimented with a wide variety of jobs, in restaurants, investment firms, adventure travel companies, ski resorts and fish markets. He earned master’s degrees from the University of California and the M.F.A. for Writers program at Warren Wilson College. In the course of his longest-term paying job -- as a director of international education programs -- he has lived in Spain, Italy, Australia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Cuba. His fiction, essays, and feature articles have appeared in Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Chiron Review, Borealis, Rivendell, Compass Rose, Vermont Literary Review, Middlebury Magazine, Northern Woodlands Magazine, Mountainfreak, Yale Angler’s Journal, Couloir, and elsewhere. He was a finalist for the 2003 Richard Yates Short Story Awards and the 2004 Alligator Juniper Fiction Award, and was nominated for the 1999 Pushcart anthology. Tim taught essay writing at Keene State College and was a Writer-in-Residence at Chester College in November, 2004. He spent the summer of 2004 teaching a traveling creative writing course in Santiago, Baracoa, and Havana, Cuba. He recently completed a novel and a short fiction collection, and is hard at work on his second novel.