Interview with Lee Upton

by Bernadette Sukley

Lee Upton Author of short stories, novellas, poetry and four books of literary criticism; as well as over fifty articles and essays about literature. Her awards include the Lyric Poetry Award and The Writer/Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America; the Pushcart Prize; the National Poetry Series Award; the Georgia Contemporary Poetry Series Award; the BOA Short Fiction Award; and the Mary Louise VanArtsdalen Prize for Scholarship, the Marquis Teaching Award, and the Jones Faculty Lecture Award at Lafayette College, where she is the Writer-in-Residence and a professor of English.

 

Bernadette: As a poet, do you think it's the placement or the economy of words that paints the most successful images?

 

Lee: Every poem comes into the world as a new species, and every element in any poem contributes to the poem’s power. The most powerful images depend on many factors, including the structure and diction of the poem—-what [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge called “the best words in their best order.”

 

Bernadette: Your poetry is filled with personal experience. Are you ever concerned that the reader may not be able to relate to you--or is that the challenge for the poet?

 

Lee: Both my poems and fiction often derive from imagined experience, but the emotional underpinnings of the work come from having lived through experiences that are common to many of us. At the same time, as a reader I don’t need to have experienced what a character has experienced. What we read can extend our imaginative sympathy and allow us to enter worlds that differ greatly from our own. As a reader I’m ready to entertain the possibility that the uncanny and the strange may refresh my sense of possibility. 

 

Bernadette: Without giving too much away from your conference presentation can you describe what "extreme concentration" means?

 

Lee: Extreme concentration refers to the ability to focus on writing intensively, shutting out distractions, and having faith that the act of writing itself will lead us into new areas of awareness. Writing poetry in particular calls for extreme concentration, given that if we pre-determine the ending of a poem, most often the poem loses vitality. There’s a high stakes quality to writing poetry, a willingness to allow language to lead us into discoveries that we could never anticipate.

 

Over time, writing becomes a little like long distance running. You learn to extend your capacity, both for writing for longer periods and for trusting that while you write you will draw up associations and conceptions that you couldn’t have encountered in any other way than by writing.

 

Bernadette: You will also discuss self-trust for the writer. How does a writer preserve that when the industry, agents, editors tell them to change?

 

Lee: One way to develop self-trust, I find, is to recognize that creating a perspective that only you and you alone can create is worthy of respect. Who else has your exact voice? Having faith in your own unique voiceprint is essential. That means that you have to listen to your writing, reading it aloud, testing it, deciding when the voice in the writing attains a pitch that strikes you as resonant. Nevertheless, it’s often useful to listen to what other people have to say about your writing. Sometimes you’ll become aware of what would otherwise be invisible. At the same time, some advice, inevitably, will be bad advice. Some advice will also be contradictory.

 

No one can know with accuracy what writing will attract readers. What we can know is what in the writing excites and surprises us as writers. All we can do is to read widely and write full-heartedly, boldly, and freely. As for editors: I’ve been blessed with exceptional editors, most recently Joseph Bates and Jim Schley, writers themselves, and I’ve been grateful for their attentiveness and inspired suggestions.

 

Bernadette: What draws you to poetry? 

 

Lee: I write poetry, fiction, literary criticism, and creative nonfiction. Of all those genres, poetry is especially exciting for its immediacy, the ways in which poetry can startle us, even within a few lines, drawing us up and out of limiting ways of seeing the world and our situation within it. Poetry can break through our hardened resistances at an accelerated pace.

 

Bernadette: Do you think it's necessary for writers to study poetry to become better writers?

 

Lee: I tend to agree with Cynthia Ozick, who claims that most artistically ambitious fiction writers have done at least some work with poetry. But then, who hasn’t written a poem, at least during childhood and adolescence? There may be few better ways to develop the ability to rewrite word-by-word than by reading poetry and seeing how one verb, one noun, one comma, can change the shape of anything we write. A substantial amount of poetry calls for “slow reading,” an almost obsessive attention on each word—-and that sort of enhanced attention is useful for any writer during the revision and editing stages. Exercising a willingness to allow the unexpected to enter a piece—the poet’s necessary discipline—-can be very good training for any sort of writing.

 

Bernadette: Of all the poetry that you've written, which is your favorite poem?

 

Lee: I like my fifth book of poetry’s title poem, “Undid in the Land of Undone.” In some ways it’s a writer’s anthem:

 

Undid in the Land of Undone

 

All the things I wanted to do and didn't

took so long.

It was years of not doing.

You can make an allusion here to Penelope,

if you want.

See her up there in that high room undoing her art?

But enough about what she didn't do — not doing

was what she did. Plucking out

the thread of intimacy in the frame.

So let's make a toast to the long art

of lingering. We say the cake is done,

but what exactly did the cake do?

The things undid

in the land of undone call to us

in the flames. What I didn't do took

an eternity —

and it wasn't for lack of trying.

 

Interview with Ramona DeFelice-Long

by Jerry Waxler

Ramona DeFelice-Long is an author, independent editor, and writing instructor. At the Write Stuff, Ramona will be teaching a session on short stories and a double-session, called "Hard Truths", on creative nonfiction and memoir writing. She'll also be teaching a preconference workshop on self-editing. GLVWG member Jerry Waxler got in touch with Ramona to find out more about her and the sessions and workshop she'll be teaching.
  

Jerry: You are teaching a combination course of memoir and creative nonfiction. That sounds like a rich combination with two intimately related types of writing. To help potential attendees understand your workshop, please say a few words about what you hope an attendee would gain from these two interrelated hands-on sessions.

Ramona: First, the workshop will address the similarities and differences between memoir and creative nonfiction. We’ll touch on how to write about memories and personal experiences (memoir) and how to explore and recreate actual events using fiction writing techniques (creative nonfiction). There will also be information about marketing both genres for publication.

Jerry: The more I write nonfiction, the more intrigued I became by the enormous differences between smaller pieces like articles and longer pieces like books. Please comment on your own writing passion. What are your favorite features of short forms and long forms?

Ramona: I like the challenge of working within the confines of a set word count. In short fiction, that means (usually) a single setting, a lean cast, a well-defined story problem. When I teach about revision, I talk about using language economically—writing in a sharp, succinct style so that overwriting and over-explaining don’t happen. Now I am working on a novel, and it is a new adventure to understand scene goals and story arcs in a larger story landscape. There’s more to juggle in a longer work, fiction or nonfiction, while keeping to the theme and story concept.

Jerry: It seems to me that the book length form has a much different structure than the short story. What is your passion when it comes to writing creative nonfiction, the short or the long form, and why?

Ramona: I love and find comfort in the classic three act structure for both novels and short fiction. When writing fiction, long or short, the author is concerned with plot points and character consistency, as well as a plot that remains logical and moves toward a satisfying conclusion. There is no single way to construct a story. Stories can be linear or chronological, or the action can be presented episodically, or told by multiple narrators from varying points of view.

Creative nonfiction is the same. The author will need to make choices on the best way to present this nonfiction story meant to read like a fictional one.

I am happy you bring up length. How often do writers tell of starting a novel with great gusto, only to hit a wall at 100 pages? One reason this occurs is size confusion. Not all story ideas fit into a book-length format; some are more appropriate as shorter works. This applies to fiction and nonfiction. I will address the size of a story idea in all of my workshops.

Jerry: I usually associate creative nonfiction skills with full length books and literary journals. I wonder if you could or will offer suggestions for how creative nonfiction principles could also be used to help improve blogs or other short informal writing.

Ramona: I have written blog posts that are as memoir and/or creative nonfiction: about the murder of a small town police officer; about how a local pediatrician got away with being a longtime pedophile; about how I double-dated to my high school prom with a young man who, years later, murdered his date. I’ve also crafted essays about motherhood. The key is recognizing a viable topic for exploration. What is intriguing about a small moment that makes it something to ponder? If an idea has broad appeal, how do you personalize it to reach a single reader? What in a particular event or experience has depth or a message? Is there some humor or irony in a mundane event that will make a reader feel connected? Think about human experience and hone in on a particular area where the subject of a post can address that.

Jerry: You are teaching a pre-conference workshop on self-editing. Thank you! That’s an important topic for writers. I notice in the description that it is listed as a workshop for fiction writers. I know from experience that nonfiction writers also need to edit their work. I wonder if you could suggest why or why not a nonfiction writer would want to sign up for your preconference workshop.

Ramona: I originally developed the workshop for a group of fiction writers, so the description continues to reflect that. The workshop will include writing with economy; good grammar and engaging style; active writing; and bad habits to be conquered. Those apply to writers of all genres, so the workshop would be beneficial to nonfiction writers who want to sharpen their storytelling skills. But I will address topics such as character consistency and plotting, and those may be of more value to a fiction writer. No matter what you write, learning good writing techniques has good value, correct?

Jerry: From your bio, I see that you belong to a number of writing groups. Why are groups such a big part of your writing life? If you can tell an anecdote about some powerful moment in your writing-group life, that would be even better.

Ramona: I belong to a monthly critique group. We turn in 20 pages for critique and discussion. The value of my critique group is: a) it makes me write at least 20 pages a month! b) I get good feedback from experienced critiquers; c) I evaluate works in progress and see the progression month by month, as the story grows (for novels) or is revised (for short works). For the past year, my group has been critiquing my novel in progress, so while I continue to work at my job as an editor, I have to keep up with my monthly submissions. That keeps me from saying, “I’m so busy now, maybe I should put this novel aside.

I maintain membership in professional organizations such as Pennwriters and Sisters in Crime because these big groups offer a plethora of opportunities for networking, online courses and conferences, and peer support. On a local level, I belong to the city arts alliance and state literary groups to support the artist community in Delaware. In all of these groups, I’ve found opportunities to share my experience but more so, to learn from the community of other writers. Recently, in Delaware, we’ve started a writers’ breakfast club. Once a month, we meet and chat for a few hours. It’s great to enjoy that camaraderie of like minds.