Summertime in a city park,
The basswood above me,
Like Rimbaud's linden trees,
Invite heartache,
Against the bark,
Under starry skies,
After the bar,
Pining,
For his low voice,
Just above the breeze,
Before,
Limbs intertwine,
With whisky breath,
In rites of splendor,
As ancient as,
The forest-fawn,
But like Rimbaud,
We are not serious,
Willow strands slapping,
Our upturned faces.
Bio: James Schwartz is a poem, slam performer and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011), Punatic (Writing Knights Press, 2019) & most recently Motor City mix (Alien Buddha Press, 2022)
Q1: When did you start writing and who influenced you the most?
Adora: My biggest influences have always been modernists such as T.S Eliot, Walt Whitman and the feminists poets such as Sylvia Plath. Plus, I worship Sappho. Currently, the poetic work of Lana Del Rey has been inspiring to me.
Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Adora: I never thought I would be a writer. I’ve always written, thought. So I thought I should as well submit something. I began submitting stuff this year and have had a good number of acceptances. I’m amazed by that.
Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?
Adora: My writing career was journals lol I had never thought of doing it professionally until a couple of years ago. The person who has most supported me is my friend J.P Vianini. I have some talks with that that became poems.
Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?
Adora: I grew up in Brazil and the only time I spent outside of it I was depressed. What is within me inspires me most than any other thing. I have an obsession with the relations between the soul and the “self”.
Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?
Adora: My everlasting project, “The Genesis of Language” is my baby. I’ve been pondering the relations of language and time for a while and I can’t get enough of language-inspired poems.
Q6: Favorite activities to relax?
Adora: Thinking.
Q7: What is a favorite line/ stanza/lyric from your writing?
Adora: Life is a huge reinterpretation of itself.
Q8:What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song that always comes back to you as an inspiration?
I like folk music. Joni Mitchell is my all time favourite artist in all aspects. Among the new ones I like Lana Del Rey. Her artistic vision has done so much to our time.
Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, etc that you would like to promote?
I have a chapbook being published by Alien Buddha Press in October 5th and my book in Portuguese, Mulher Poesia, will be published in Brazil in December as well.
Bonus Question: Any funny memory or strange occurrence you’d like to share during your creative journey?
Once I actually went through a crazy situation in a tavern only to get inspired to write a poem then. And that’s all I’m going to share about that.
* * *
Bio: Adora Williams has degrees in Journalism and Languages and writes poetry in Portuguese and English. She lives in a historic region of Brazil. Her poetry anthology, Mulher Poesia, in Portuguese is being published in Brazil and Portugal in December 2022.
Q1: When did you start writing and whom influenced you the most now and currently?
Sam: I was born with a pen in my hand (my poor mother) – I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. My biggest influence is probably the wonderful short story writer, Tessa Hadley, who taught me years ago. Poetry-wise, I’ve been lucky enough to be taught by Bill Herbert, and I’ve also had seminars with Sean O’Brien, Linda France and Tara Bergin, who have all been influential in the development of my poetry.
Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Sam: I can’t remember one – I always just knew. I’m not even sure it was a want – more a need. The way we don’t actually want to breathe, we just need to and so we do.
Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?
Sam: Again, Tessa Hadley’s feedback was incredibly influential when it came to short story writing, but I could say the same for everyone I’ve ever been in a class or a workshop with. Everyone who has given me feedback has helped me. I also owe a debt to Red from Alien Buddha Press for agreeing to publish my debut short story collection.
Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?
Sam: I grew up in an English town by the sea but funnily enough never write about it. I’ve travelled fairly widely but do often write about places I’ve never been to: a Bangladeshi brothel, a Thai jail and a Russian prison feature in my short story collection, whereas my latest published poem is about an Australian woman who is running 200 marathons mostly in Australia/Asia. I do also write about places I have been – such as the Lake District and Madrid that feature in the collection too.
Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?
Sam: Reading is the main one – I also love walking, being with my friends and family, the theatre…
Q7: What is a favorite line/ stanza/lyric from your writing?
Sam:
I still expect you to vanish at night, my refugee, so new to this country. The fact of you is thin and silvery, but you’re more important to me than me.
(From ‘Night-light’)
Q8: What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?
I love The National – their song ‘Pink Rabbits’ is an inspiration.
Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, etc that you would like to promote?
Bonus Question: Any funny memory or strange occurrence you’d like to share during your creative journey?
My first book, ‘The Elves and the Fairies’ was written during my infant school days – the headteacher, Mrs Woolgar, bound it for my parents!
Bio:
Sam Szanto lives in Durham, UK. Her debut short story collection “If No One Speaks” was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022.
Sam’s poems are published in international journals including Punk Noir, Blue River Review, Impostor Lit and Duck-Duck Mongoose and forthcoming in The North and Fiery Scribes. She won the Charroux Poetry Prize in 2020 and the First Writer Poetry Prize.
Q1. When did you start writing and whom influenced you the most now and currently?
Sara: I’ve always written in one way or another, I can remember writing poems at a very young age about animals and flowers. In high school I started to get serious about writing short stories, and one of my teachers encouraged me to continue. I think my biggest influences have been women writers across different genres, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood. Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf. Everything from Charlotte Brontë to Anne Rice to Miriam Toews.
Q2. Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Sara: I think I always knew I would write, but there was a distinct time when I was about 23 or 24 when I decided that I would work hard to make something happen. I was naïve and figured I could just write something great and find a publisher. I didn’t know how long it would take (20 years!) or how I would do it, but I felt it was what I wanted.
Q3. Who helped you most with writing and career?
Sara: I was always a lone wolf when it came to writing and I have no formal training. Back in the day I would send a typed manuscript via actual mail to a big press and wait 6 months to a year to get the SASE back with a rejection. It wasn’t until I discovered social media and the literary community on Twitter and Instagram that I was able to make real connections, as well as to find a wealth of places to submit to. Through volunteering as a reader at a few online lit mags I ended up making some great friends who’ve supported me and my work, and I’m very grateful to them.
Q4. Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?
Sara: I grew up in Southern Ontario and the area has definitely seeped into my writing. I’ve set stories near lakes and rivers and relied heavily on water as a theme or a metaphor, which I think comes from living so close to Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, and of course, Niagara Falls. I’ve only travelled to a few cities, namely New York, Los Angeles, and Montreal, and I’ve written about them all. Recently I had the opportunity to travel to London, England, and though I haven’t started it yet, there is an idea forming.
Q5. What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?
Sara: I hope every story I write is meaningful in some way, but I suppose I’d have to say my novel, which is unpublished as of yet. I think I invested the most emotional input into that particular work.
Q6. Favorite activities to relax?
Sara: I love hanging out with my family, having picnics by the water. I love watching movies and reading everything I can.
Q7. What is a favorite line /stanza/lyric from your writing?
Sara: That’s a difficult question. I think opening lines make or break a piece when I’m working on flash fiction, and I use a fair bit of surrealism. As an example in “Beneath a Vacant Sky” which was published at Ruminate Online, I started with “The morning after the moon explodes, Marla wonders if she imagined the whole thing.” I was happy with the scenario that line creates.
Q8. What kind of music inspires you the most? What’s a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?
Sara: I love all kinds of music, but again, as with my writing influences, the songs that inspire me the most are by female performers. Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders, Siouxsie Sioux, and Tori Amos are some of my favorites because they tell stories. I think Feist has such poetic lyrics together with a blend of folk/indie/punk music, like in her song “I Feel it All” for example, and that vibe somehow agrees with my whole way of thinking about writing.
Q9. Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, etc. that you would like to promote?
Sara: I have a flash fiction chapbook that came out July 24th with Alien Buddha Press called “Static Disruption” which is available on Amazon (link included below). I’m also very excited about my first full length collection of short stories, “Flight Instinct” which is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in late October. Pre-orders will be opening soon, so follow me on Twitter @sbdobbie for updates!
Bio Sara Dobbie is a Canadian writer from Southern Ontario. Her stories have appeared in Fictive Dream, Sage Cigarettes, New World Writing, Bending Genres, Flash Frog, Ghost Parachute, Ruminate Online, Trampset, Ellipsis Zine, and elsewhere. Her chapbook “Static Disruption” is available from Alien Buddha Press. Her collection “Flight Instinct” is forthcoming from ELJ Editions (2022). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, the Pushcart Prize, and is included on the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist. Follow her on Twitter @sbdobbie, and on Instagram at @sbdobwrites. To read her published works check out her website: https://sarabeth1.wixsite.com/saradobbie
Bio: Nolcha has written all her life, starting with poop and crayons on the walls. Her poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her chapbooks, “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” and “The Big Unda” are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of the Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry.
Q1: When did you start writing and whom influenced you must now and currently?
Nolcha: I started writing as soon as I could support myself in my crib. Poop on the walls was my favorite medium, although I did eventually move to crayons. I also tried to write on my face with my mother’s red lipstick when I was a toddler, although I mostly missed and painted my blond hair red instead.
My biggest influence, really my biggest cheerleader, is my mother. She encouraged me to write all my life. I still send my draft poems to her, because I know she will always be honest about what I can improve.
I’ve also been influenced by my father’s sense of humor, which I (unfortunately) inherited. That sense of humor was further corrupted by reading a big storage box of my aunt’s collection of Mad Magazines from the 60s (I believe), as well as a love of National Lampoon and Harvard Lampoon magazines, Charles Addams comics, Tom Lehrer’s songs, and Monty Python. Oh, and really bad disaster movies.
Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Nolcha: I was always a writer, but I never admitted it was what I wanted to do until I fell into my first technical writing job. Getting paid made it ok. I was a technical writer for over 20 years, which was a mystery to most people who had no idea what that was about.
Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?
Nolcha: Technical writing actually honed my skills as a poet and accidental interviewer. I learned to use short phrases and simple words, to tighten up meaning, because my audience was typical developers and other nerds with English as a second language.
I was also helped immensely by the wall of books in the hallway of the home I grew up in, which included classics, science fiction, and fantasy, and I read every one of those books. Some of them several times.
Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?
Nolcha: I was born in North Carolina, where my father was in the Marines. My parents hated the place so much, as soon as my father’s stint was up, they drove in front of a hurricane to get out of the state. It was probably the only time in their marriage that they weren’t late. And yes, that became a poem.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley (a suburb of Los Angeles< and if you’ve never been there, you’re not missing a thing). I had a very boring childhood, and I credit that with baking my brain creatively, since my imagination was the best thing going in the neighborhood.
I travel in my head, and on the internet. I’m a horrible traveler in real life, a wreck looking for a train.
Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?
Nolcha: That’s a tough one. I write like my hair is on fire. It typically takes me about 10 minutes to write a poem. I’ve edited a few afterward, but the majority go out for submission the same day. By the end of the week, I barely remember what I wrote. An awful thing to confess, I know.
The poem I had the most fun writing recently (and the poem that horrified some of my friends) is “Anxiety Milkshake,” published on August 18th on Kiss My Poetry
Anxiety Milkshake
for Ken Tomaro
1-1/2 cups ice cream
½ cup milk
2 overdue bills
1 layoff notice
1 voicemail threatening divorce
1 note from creepy neighbor slipped under the door
3 days of no sleep
1 pot of coffee
1 bottle of Kahlua
1. Pour yourself a cup of coffee. Add Kahlua to taste. Maybe more Kahlua.
2. Add ice cream and milk to the blender.
3. Add a cup of coffee to the blender.
4. Add a generous portion of Kahlua to the blender.
5. Blend thoroughly. Pretend you are blending your husband.
6. Pour yourself a cup of Kahlua. Add coffee to taste.
7. Shred the layoff notice, the overdue bills, and the creepy neighbor note. Toss shredding into the fireplace. Start a fire. Who cares if it’s summer?
8. Leave voicemail for your husband that you’re leaving him the house. And the kids.
9. Pour yourself a cup of Kahlua. Forget the coffee.
10. Pack your clothes.
11. Open a new bank account. Transfer all funds from the old account to the new. Your husband would only spend all the money on his new girlfriend.
12. Pour the contents of the blender into a vase and drink, drink, drink.
13. Leave voicemail for your parents that you’re moving back home.
14. Get in the car and drive away, fast.
Writing a recipe poem was on my bucket list. Actually, it was the only type of poem in the bucket. I guess I need a new bucket.
Q6: Favorite activities to relax?
Nolcha: My first favorite activity is trying to figure out how to relax. And how to sleep. My mother still talks about what a rotten sleeper I was as a child. At least I'm consistent.
I also like to crochet. You might find me tangled up in yarn at any given moment, unless our newest rescue ran off with the skein. Who knew dogs had a yarn fetish?
I've been bodybuilding for over 30 years. Yes, there were even gyms back then. And torture machines.
Q7: What is a favorite line/stanza/lyric from one of your writings?
Nolcha: I don't have a favorite any of that. But I did write a brief poem (published on Dark Entries) that still makes me chortle as much as when I wrote it:
Such a Sweet Child
What is that sweet child doing,
always digging in the sandbox?
Well, two hours ago
I buried the cat.
If I can’t
find the body,
I’ll dig a tunnel
out of town,
before you
find out.
Did I mention my dark sense of humor?
Q8: What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song that always comes back to you as inspiration?
Nolcha: I'm stuck on Jim Croce ("Time in a Bottle" is my favorite, although any Jim Croce song makes me hum), and The Mamas & The Papas "California Dreamin'."
Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events/projects that you'd like to promote?
Nolcha: Alien Buddha Press published "My Father's Ghost Hates Cats" in January of this year:
https://www.amazon.com/Fathers-Ghost-Hates-Cats-Stumbling/dp/B09QP1XY3X
And also published "The Big Unda" in June of this year:
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Unda-Memories-Imaginations/dp/B0B55P2F7L
Dancing Girl Press is supposed to publish "Why Chicken Explodes in the Microwave" maybe in September. It's a pretty chill press. This was my first chapbook to be accepted, and ....
I did a couple of collaborative books with artist friends, and one of them will come out maybe late September or October with Alien Buddha Press. No date yet.
Bonus Question: Any funny memory or strange occurrence you'd like to share during your creative journey?
Nolcha: I never planned to publish a book. It was only because a poet friend of mine was self-publishing a chapbook that I realized I had enough poems to publish a book, too. I'm a princess, and don't want to do the work involved with self-publishing, so I submitted "My Father's Ghost Hates Cats" to Alien Buddha Press because I saw on Twitter that submissions were open. According to the submission blurb, it would probably take about a month to get a response. Nine days later, Red contacted me to let me know he wanted to publish it. I was floored.
Links: https://thepoetryquestion.com/2022/08/26/talk-to-me-nolcha-fox/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=talk-to-me-nolcha-foxhttps://spillwords.com/author/nolchafox/
Fevers of the Mind 