F***ing Shakespeare

Phuc and Kate speak with the acclaimed and straight-up luminous Texas Poet Laureate, ire’ne lara silva, at the 2023 Writer’s Family Reunion sponsored by Writespace.

We had the opportunity to chat about her process, the bold and unapologetic treatment of grief in her writing, and how she finds cracks of light in the depths. silva, who is an inductee in the Texas Institute of Letters and an inaugural CantoMundo fellow, runs a workshop called “Forget Discipline,” where she and fellow writers practice the art of creating without constraints. Though she has authored books of poetry, short stories, and a forthcoming comic book, silva hardly considers herself prolific. “I’ve spent hours debating a comma,” she quipped in response to this characterization of her work, “I don’t let anything go until I’m ready.” 

Perhaps these principles are what drive her acclaimed work, which has been described as “candid and fearless.” True to this portrayal, silva’s work is unafraid of approaching heavier themes, and she recognizes this authenticity and honesty as critical to creating a space where readers can see themselves in her stories. This approach lends itself well to silva’s exploration of grief in many of her works, which she artfully conceives of as a transformative process that signifies the importance of those close to us in our lives. Concluding with an elegant summation of her creative process, silva muses, “what’s the point of transforming all these things if it’s not to live a joyous life, if it’s not to find love and friends and work worth doing and to appreciate our creativity?”

We couldn’t have asked for a more fitting conclusion for season 6 of the podcast. Stay tuned for more from the desks of Bloomsday Literary. If you’ve heard all the podcast episodes, and still want more, we have short interviews with publishing insiders in our Instagram Live archive series called “Dear Sirs.” Check it out @bloomsdayliterary on IG.

Honorable mentions: 

Writer’s Workshop, Macondo Workshop (next workshop begins July 23, 2024!)

the eaters of flowers, Saddle Road Press 

silva’s books and reviews

for Uvalde by ire’ne lara silva

Photo credit Jana Birchum

Enzo Silon Surin writes, composes, and publishes artifacts on the “witness continuum”—art that he says “pays homage to the culture in which it was formed” and the necessity of generational change. Surin’s work spans librettos commissioned by the Boston Opera Collaborative, four poetry collections, and a musical-in-the-making. He also founded Central Square Press, an independent publisher of works that “reflect a commitment to social justice in regards to African-American, Caribbean, and Caribbean-American communities.”

We had the pleasure of chatting with Surin about how he came to writing as means of documentation—from intuitively producing plays and operas about his childhood in Queens to developing his 10-minute play, “Last Train” (which has a forthcoming operatic adaptation). We discussed the juxtaposition of violence and tenderness in his collection, When My Body Was A Clinched Fist, winner of the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards. Between witnessing the coup that forced Surin from Haiti and the “social violence” he saw in New York, he says he grew up in “state of violence.” It was by becoming a “clinched fist” that Surin says he protected his innate compassion and resilience. Finally, Surin celebrates how writing “saved [his] life” and speaks from the corner of publishing he’s forged, where he’s found that real-life audiences hungry for quality work “already exist."

Honorable mentions

• When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (recorded reading)

• American Scapegoat

• Central Square Press

• Cheesy love songs in the style of Barry White

Bloomsday Literary in partnership with Official 2023 AWP Conference and Bookfair

Does Alyson Sinclair sleep? We had to keep asking ourselves as we chatted it up with Alyson from the floor of AWP (Association of Writing and Writing Program)’s Conference and Bookfair. She’s done it all when it comes to the writing world—bouncing between the bureaucracy of big-four publishers—um, she sent faxes to Seamus Heaney?—to the hustle and bustle world (emphasis on the hustle) of independent presses. Currently, Alyson is the Owner/Publisher at The Rumpus and founder of Nectar Literary, a boutique publicity and communications firm for authors, independent presses, and literary organizations of all ilk. 

Making literary community might just be the crux of our conversation. After learning that hunker-down-and-drink-tea-all-day-with-page-turny-manuscripts editorial roles are not the default at an eye-opening internship, she turned to publicity. Connecting authors to the broader writing ecosystem thrilled her. Publicity and pitching media, in Alyson’s eyes, is a fascinating form of problem solving. Her insight comes from a wide range of experiences in all corners of our ecosystem, spanning from soliciting advertising at a magazine, to setting off individually in the convoluted publishing universe, to coexisting with other literary collectives that share the same mission. Let’s just say—both before and after soaking in this conversation—Bloomsday is a certified Alyson Sinclair fangirl. 

Honorable Mentions:

• Independent Press, Alice James Books

• Independent Press, City Lights

• Literary Network, Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP)

• Literary Magazine, Crazyhorse

• Nonprofit Publisher, Graywolf Press

• Director of Coffee House Press, Mark Haber

• Nonprofit Publisher, McSweeney’s

• Seamus Heaney

• Yusef Komunyakaa

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

As Program Director of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), Chelsea Kern is the glue that holds so much of the indie literary world together, advocating for mission-driven independent publishers and magazines—and, with equal importance, introducing readers to the work this community produces. It is clear from our conversation, she has a passion for seeing big projects through to completion.

We discussed the constant that is CLMP and how the literary landscape has transformed since the organization’s founding in 1967—becoming increasingly global and digital. CLMP, with Chelsea’s leadership, has taken these changes in stride with webinars, newsletters (that Bloomsday archives for reference religiously), and a listserv for magazines and presses to ask and answer each other’s questions. As a proud member of CLMP, we can confirm that this listserv is one of the crown jewels/hidden gems of the organization, which always saves us from having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to oddly specific publishing questions Google doesn’t have the answer to. We also explored Chelsea’s personal journey, from a CLMP fellow working in Diversity & Inclusion to Program Director. A go-between who works to connect us needy presses with the grant gods themselves, she has spearheaded vital programs like the Literary Arts Emergency Fund. Chelsea could be considered literary royalty, but she is a magnanimous monarch. We are grateful to have shared space with her in this episode.

Honorable Mentions:

• Literary Advocacy Organization, Academy of American Poets

• Fellowship Program, American Council of Learned Societies

• Grant, Literary Arts Emergency Fund

• Literary Coalition, LitNet

• Literary Foundation, National Book Foundation

• Writing Mentorship Program, Writers in the Schools (WITS) 

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 Conference and Bookfair

Poetry “carr[ies] the most human of voices” for Deema Shehabi, a Palestinian-American writer whose work has appeared in publications including The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology and Kenyon Review. Shehabi earned her undergraduate degree in History and International Relations from Tufts University and Master’s in Journalism from Boston University, previously served as the vice president of the Radius of Arab American Writers, and has received four Pushcart prize nominations. She is the author of Thirteen Departures from the Moon and Diaspo/Renga, the latter of which she co-wrote with Marilyn Hacker. 

In this episode, Shehabi shares how Diaspo/Renga emerged out of four years of email correspondence with Hacker. Together, we celebrate the collection as a testament to the “private humanity” between its two poets. Shehabi also speaks to the homes she’s found in Palestine, Kuwait, and California and the “perpetual expansion and contraction” that accompanies exile and return in her life. In negotiating this state of flux in her relationship with language, Shehabi talks about the burden of translation and always having to “teach people how to read” when she writes. Finally, Shehabi gifts us a striking reading of her poem, “Tracery of Dune and Chamomile,” which is modeled after Marie Howe and gazes upon the truth of humanity and intersections.

Honorable Mentions

• Radius of Arab American Writers 

• Diaspo/Renga

• Edward Said, “Reflections on Exile”

• Naomi Shihab Nye

• “Migrant Earth”, featured as Poem-a-Day on Poets.org

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

Photo credit: Omar F. Khorsheed

Exploring the specificities of a diaspora while also calling upon ancestral experiences is just one of the many threads Maha Ahmed weaves through her poetry. Like many members of diasporic communities, Maha’s experiences as an Egyptian American do not always resemble the grossly generalized “immigrant story.” We had the opportunity to chat with Maha about writing herself out of this pigeonhole, as well as how she experiences life as a student, scholar, and poet.

She received her MFA at the University of Oregon, and is now a literature and creative writing PhD candidate at the University of Houston (Go Coogs!). She specializes in colonial Egypt, Arab-American diasporic literature, and Arabic to English translation. We talked with her about Rusted Radishes, a Beirut-based literary magazine, and the big-city-but-small-world way she was offered the position as its poetry editor.

We dive deep into the US-centric and profoundly skewed notion that immigrants’ stories only matter once they land on US soil. It is exactly for that reason, Maha insists, people of the diaspora can acknowledge ancestral ties to a place even when it may feel uncomfortable to do so with a hyphenated or dual identity. 

Honorable Mentions: 

Rusted Radishes

Ars Poetica, published in The Recluse, Issue 17

Professor Tim Mazurek

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

Matt Bell is an author, English professor, and editor. He currently teaches creative writing at Arizona State University. In this episode live from the conference floor at AWP 2023, we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of his indispensable book on the craft of writing, Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts. We also discuss his dystopian novel, Appleseed, and and his admiration for climate writing that restores hope for humanity.

Listen to the full episode to find out what Bell means when he advocates for ‘radical revising’ and his mission to conceptualize revision as a process that can transform a draft into a novel, rather than an assignment needed to be completed for school. We also discuss his dreamy ten-plus-year relationship working with Soho Press (shout out to the indie stalwarts!), and some of the advice he gives to his students: 1) allow readers space to figure out things for themselves, 2) experiment with non-traditional writing structures, and 3) work through tangly writing problems together.

Finally, Bell ends this episode with advice for gaining inspiration for your next work and the unfortunate discovery that you can learn what your agent truly thinks of you through their editorial notes (writer beware!). 

Honorable Mentions:

• A Tree or a Person or a Wall, Bell’s short story collection

• His incredibly good Substack (a must-read for any writer), No Failure, Only Practice

• In the House Upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, the “truly weird” novel (Matt’s words) that was allowed to just be itself by the good editors at Soho Press

• Lastly, while we’re still down the rabbit hole, check out his non-fiction book-length essay on the video game, Baldur’s Gate II.

Photo credit Jessica Bell

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

Kristen Millares Young calls her novel Subduction “a study of recurrently going meta,” or “an examination of the longing that we have to be in contact with others who are not like us.” From exploring the notion of consent–not just sexually but also culturally–to the difficulty of the transmission of knowledge and the burden of whiteness, this novel plumbs the depths of the human consciousness.

Kristen is a prize-winning journalist and essayist who regularly writes essays, book reviews, and investigations for The Washington Post, The Guardian, Literary Hub, and much more. Her recent novel Subduction, published by Red Hen Press, was named a staff pick by The Paris Review, called “whip-smart” by The Washington Post, was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and won the Nautilus and Independent Publisher Book awards.

We had the privilege of speaking with Kristen about Subduction, including her writing process, how her journalism informs her work as a fiction writer, and her appreciation for Red Hen Press. We also learned about the importance of cultivating a strong professional relationship with an editor and how building trust with them can allow a writer to push for what they believe in.

Honorable Mentions

Ellen Akins review of Subduction in The Washington Post [paywall]

Michelle Bowdler’s Is Rape a Crime

Other Works by Millares Young

Pie and Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze

In conversation with Brad Listi on the Otherppl podcast

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

Photo credit Natalie Shields

V.V. Ganeshananthan is an author, poet, and journalist, whose works have been featured in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She currently teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota as a McKnight Presidential Fellow and associate professor of English. Ganeshananthan also co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast with Whitney Terrell, which explores writers and literature as mouthpieces for our cultural landscape. 

In this episode, we talk about Ganeshananthan’s 18-year-long writing process for her latest novel. Ganeshananthan maps her journey with Brotherless Night, from “bluffing her way into” a novella class during her own time as an MFA student to her techniques for “fielding facial expressions” of doubt over the novel’s completion. We revel in our common ground in the literary ecosystem, with Bloomsday poet Jabari Asim and Kate and Jessica’s longtime mentor, Michael Knight, both appearing on the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast. While fondly recounting how MFA writers at the University of Minnesota experiment in “speed-dating” to “workshop the workshop,” Ganeshananthan reflects on the value of an MFA program that isn’t genre-siloed and the living body of work that speaks to writers of color. Finally, while celebrating the release of Brotherless Night and asking what’s next for Ganeshananthan’s writing, we try to “remember how to start things.” 

Honorable Mentions

• Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan

• Fiction/Non/Fiction

• University of Minnesota MFA

• Letters to A Writer of Color edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro

• Craft and Conscience: How to Write About Social Issues by Kavita Das

photo credit Sophia Mayrhofer

Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

Amanda Niehaus has a PhD in Physiological Ecology. She is the author of numerous award-winning short stories, essays, and an acclaimed novel, The Breeding Season (Allen & Unwin, 2019). As part of her author profile (bestill our science-loving hearts) she writes: “Does science belong in literary fiction? As a scientist, I never thought so. But fiction connects with readers, enabling them to empathise with imagined lives. So what better way to communicate?”

She was studying a unique marsupial species where the male invests so much into their reproduction that they only survive one breeding season. The metaphor was just too rich. That’s when she started writing The Breeding Season. What began as an award-winning short story eventually evolved into a novel—which was completely outside Amanda’s comfort zone. But as both she and Jess agree, you just have to trick yourself by writing it piece by piece. Check out the full episode as we discuss this, and many other traits of scientists-turned-writers, as well as the organization she founded with author, Jessica White, called Science Write Now, a publishing platform and community-based forum for creative writing about science.

Honorable Mentions:

• Author, Lidia Yuknavitch

• Author, Alice Sebold

• Author, Krissy Kneen