TBR: The Heart Folds Early: A Memoir by Jill Christman

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

NOTE: See below for a coupon code for ordering this book and information about finding Jill at AWP26 in Baltimore.

 

  

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 What I say if someone asks:

The Heart Folds Early is a memoir about what it means to make a choice.

 My third-person pitch:

River Teeth editor Jill Christman’s fourth book of nonfiction, The Heart Folds Early, is about what it means to make a choice. Loving, rageful, and often funny, Christman's new memoir centers her decision to end a half-term pregnancy when a routine ultrasound reveals her baby has just half a heart—and asks: As mothers, how do we carry life and death in our bodies and survive with our hearts intact?

 

What boundaries did you break in the writing of this memoir? Where does that sort of courage come from?

 

As a writer, I am a contrarian. In grad school, they told me No dead grandmothers. But I couldn’t help it. In my first memoir, Darkroom: A Family Exposure, I wrote the hell out of my dying grandmother (Beatrice Coe Ingraham, school librarian and ace poker player, may she rest in peace). Later, I learned that using multiple points of view in a memoir is bad form, but again, sometimes I feel as if I’m looking at my younger self from somewhere near the ceiling or perhaps I need to issue instructions or establish myself as  part of a community. Third person, first person direct address, second person (sparingly), first person plural. . . I use them all. Why have tools if we’re going to leave them in the box? And now you’re telling me there’s a fourth wall between the narrator and the reader? Crash through that wall like the Kool Aid Man. (I mean, when it suits you. Or you’re thirsty for some Red Dye 40.) So, yeah, both in terms of subject and craft, the breaking of rules is so much a part of my daily practice that it doesn’t even feel rebellious anymore—which is kind of too bad, you know?

 

Now, this book had to break that Big Boundary—the boundary that tells us we’re not supposed to talk about a thing. The boundary that shames and scares and shushes us into silence. This book is about my choice to have a second-trimester medical abortion.

 

This is my third memoir, written through a nearly twenty-year gestation, a time that ran parallel to me both raising a couple of kids with my poet husband (and, therefore, working in short, frequently interrupted bursts) and falling in love with the essay. So  

The Heart Folds Early started as a memoir (called Mothercraft), split off into essays, spawned a whole separate e-book (Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood) and several essays that ran away from the book and eventually got together with other essays to form a collection (If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays)—all the while growing and shrinking and changing not only outfits but whole forms, shapeshifting between nonfiction classifications and structures like a love child of Proteus and Methis (I’m making this up: they didn’t hook up, even in myth, but just imagine!).

 

After an initial agent pitch to publishers came back with the news that the subject of dying babies is too depressing, and thus, hard to sell, I read my by that point teenage manuscript a story and put her to bed (or maybe it was the other way around, but in any case, I was done). Maybe, I thought, this was not a book I needed to write. Maybe, I thought, this was a book I had written for myself, and honestly, that’s a pretty good way to live, no writing is ever wasted, and I would move on and write other essays and books and let this one rest in a giant file that was, back then, named Blue Baby Blue.

 

But then something big happened. Something terrible. Something world rattling. In June of 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, and now, now, I had a new urgent question, didn’t I? What the actual fuck? And so I rewrote the whole book, beginning with a prologue (in which it’s quite possible I curse too much), the moment in an Airbnb in Colorado when I heard the news we’d all known was coming, but now, now, here it was—the news that the right to an abortion in the United States was no longer protected. Spewing from the rageful volcano that was by then a perimenopausal me, The Heart Folds Early took on her final shape.

 

The book coming out this March from Nebraska is now quite solidly memoir, and even more or less chronological—except for that starting at the end to go back to the beginning bit, and some detours into my youth. One early reader called it a romance. Sexy. Another said she laughed in every chapter, even though she wasn’t sure she should be laughing. Writer and activist Sonya Huber said I had “steel nerves”—so that was something. Steel nerves! Me!

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

I cheated and started answering this question above. (Do you see what I mean about me? I can’t even follow the clear rules of a good interview question.) So you know there was the low of being told that my story was too depressing and wouldn’t sell well as a baby-shower gift (that was an actual thing a marketing department shared by way of telling my then-agent they were taking a pass). And because the book is coming out with the amazing people at the University of Nebraska Press, in the American Lives series, an extraordinary team I’ve worked with before and knew I could trust with this book, well, that’s the actual publication high.

 

But if I could point to one thing that scared me enough to become a low until I really faced the scariness was how much I worried about the story being received, specifically by other parents who had faced the same diagnosis (or one like it), mid-term, and made a different choice. I deeply and truly respect these many choices. All of them. With love. So one thing that was really different for me—and hard—in making The Heart Folds Early was how conscious I needed to be of my audience in that final two-year rewrite. I was no longer writing the book for me. I was writing about my choice because I understood it was my responsibility to tell the story of my second-trimester abortion. I had the skills to tell my story and the resources to get that story out into the world. (Speaking of boundaries, we cannot let the parameters of the conversation around reproductive rights be defined by those who would—and have—stripped us of those rights. We cannot let these conversations—or any of the big things we’re wrestling with right now in this country—be over-simplified because they’re hard.)

 

So I was hyper-aware of my many audiences—both actual people I knew or knew of, and whole categories of people—like young people in the United States coming of age in a time when their right to an abortion is not protected. I am always aware that I am writing to my children—perhaps in a time when I will no longer be here. And, as I said, I was aware that I was writing to other parents, mothers and fathers, who had faced the same diagnosis we faced and made a different choice. I wanted to write a book that respected all choices—except, I suppose, the choice to take away somebody else’s choice. As I write this, I realize that another high of this book’s path to publication was figuring out how to tell this story out of love—and not from a place of fear.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Shew! Great question. I edit two magazines—River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative—and our (free!) weekly online magazine of micro-essays, Beautiful Things—and I’ve been teaching and writing nonfiction for thirty years, so let me tell you, I’m full of advice, most of which I footnote with—Or maybe not. Maybe you have a reason to do something else here. So let me try to offer some advice that doesn’t need that footnote. I’ll choose three:

 

• Remember that you are not the only one. Not even today. Not even this minute.
• When you’re working on something difficult? Stay. Don’t leave. Linger in the uncertainty. Slow down when it gets hard.
• But keep going. You’re doing it. Keep going.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

Ah! Yes. There’s more advice that doesn’t need a footnote. I’m here for the surprises. On a macro-level, I was surprised by how a book could grow from such hot rage and deep love—at the same time, on the same pages. On a micro-level, so many, but one I sometimes point to is on page 23 of The Heart Folds Early, in a moment where the writing-me returns on Google maps to look down on the intersection where, many, many years earlier, my then-fiancé was killed in a horrible crash along with two of his buddies on the way to get a pizza after work—the jolt of surprise and sadness I felt in my heart from my couch in Indiana, a lifetime away: “Before I was a mother, I never thought about this detail of the tragedy, but now? It makes me so sad to know they died hungry.”

 

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

As a serial memoirist and someone who’s been teaching creative nonfiction writing for over half my life, there’s a question I hear a lot: How long do I have to wait before I write about [insert hard thing here]. And my answer is always some version of the advice I give for all writing-advice questions: Only you know how long you need to wait. What do you think? But for this one, I usually add that the standard advice that we need to fully process a difficult experience before we write about it has never made sense to me. Isn’t writing how we come to understand the hard things in the world that don’t make sense? We can write the hard thing right away and then three months later and then a decade after that—and each time we put pen to paper from a different perspective, something new will emerge. Last spring, the wise and wonderful essayist Steven Harvey (aka, The Humble Essayist) visited my graduate writing class and when we asked him why he writes, why he’s still writing, he answered: “I write to compensate for losses.”

 

And the losses keep coming, don’t they? But when we write them, when we write into and through them, we can find something like hope—for ourselves, for our children, for each other, and maybe, you know, for the world.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

I love this question—because I love food. Oh gosh. I’m trying to think. I ate a lot of clementines during my first pregnancy—and consumed many avocados during the writing of the book. They’re in there, along with a fair amount of kid food. And cookies. In life, I’m a baker—sourdough baguettes and (vegan) banana bread (my daughter is deathly allergic to eggs)—even before the pandemic made us do it—so those are foods that supported The Heart Folds Early. My go-to easy, food-processor (gasp!) baguette recipe is Mark Bittman’s “Easiest and Best French Bread” and the queen of all banana bread recipes was developed by those vegan geniuses, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, in Veganomicon: I always double the recipe, add Penzey’s double-strength vanilla and half again the amount of spice, and bake one standard loaf pan and one pan of those cute mini-loaves for my kids’ dorm freezers. Sometimes it’s hard to make it to breakfast before class! (I can’t find the version from the cookbook online, and it’s always good to point folks towards Post Punk Kitchen, so here’s a recipe for Isa’s Marbled Banana Bread—which is basically the same except, you know, for the chocolate; if you’re not in the mood for marbling, just make this one, but omit the boiling water and chocolate, and add 1/3 c molasses and a 1/3 cup-ish applesauce: moist, fruity perfection.)

 

***

 READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.jillchristman.com

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496246790/the-heart-folds-early/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK: https://jillchristman.com/2025/12/19/the-heart-folds-early-a-memoir/ (with 40% off coupon code)

 

READ AN ESSAY RELATED TO THIS BOOK, “The Sloth”: https://brevitymag.com/nonfiction/the-sloth/

 

BONUS: If you’ll be in Baltimore for AWP in March, visit Jill a panel, offsite event, or the River Teeth booth #551: https://jillchristman.com/news/

TBR: A Woman in Pink by Megan A. Schikora

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

When the unnamed protagonist meets Dutch, she believes that he is her Johnny Cash, that she is his June Carter, and that theirs is a great love story. As the novel progresses, it tells a different story, one swirling with the chaos of addiction. It raises questions about our devotion to people who are terrible for us and at what personal cost.  

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I really enjoyed writing Dutch’s mom, June. She’s a powerhouse. At the same time, beneath all that strength and polish, she’s as vulnerable as the protagonist. I saw and heard her so clearly. I’d like to grab drinks with her. I’d like to be friends.   

 

I struggled with Tim, one of the protagonist’s romantic partners. Some find him endearing, the obvious “good guy” opposite of Dutch. But even as Tim pledged himself to the protagonist, I’m not sure he ever fully saw her. I’m not sure he was capable.       

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

This road has been a long one. I’m such an impatient person, and before A Woman in Pink, I had only ever written short stories and essays. To give this book the best possible shot, I had to slow down and hone my discipline. Books take time. Thoughtful editing and querying take time.  

 

I also had to toughen up. This process comes with so much rejection. It’s like drinking from a firehose.

 

One of the best moments was my first conversation with Jaynie Royal, Editor-in-Chief at Regal House Publishing. She had read my manuscript, and she wanted to talk.  

 

For context, I had struggled with a recurring comment from early readers: “You have to name your protagonist.” I didn’t want to withhold something readers felt they needed, but I also knew that the omission of the name was critical to the story. Jaynie Royal was the first person who not only understood but appreciated my decision. I felt like my book was finally being seen, and that I was, too, as an author. I signed with Regal House Publishing shortly after that conversation.             

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Those lovely people in your life who tell you how great you are? Don’t share your early drafts with them. Share your work with critical readers who will point out the weaknesses and tell you the truth.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

The ambiguity of the book’s conclusion surprised me. I didn’t know the protagonist’s precise fate, and I decided that I was okay with not knowing. I didn’t need or want a tidy ending. I wanted to leave some room for interpretation and hope.  

 

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

I want readers to know that A Woman in Pink is not a romance. It’s not cynical, either. It’s a messy story, one that veers away from “happily ever after” toward lived experience, one I hope will resonate with anyone who’s ever loved an addict.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

 

I cook once or twice a week only because my kid did an intervention. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. But if you invite me to dinner, I’ll bring wine. And if we go to the movies together, I’ll recommend adding Sour Patch Kids to your popcorn. You won’t be sorry.

 

***

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.meganaschikora.com/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK:

https://regal-house-publishing.mybigcommerce.com/a-woman-in-pink/

Brief Hiatus

 TBR should return in February!

Best Books (I Read) in 2025

A random assortment of some
of the books on my list(s)

Presenting my annual “best books” list, along with the accompanying list of caveats: these are, simply put, the best books I read over the course of the year. I try to narrow things down to 10ish books, which is awfully hard. I definitely read (and ADORE!) books by my writer friends, but I keep those books off this list. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: ALL lists are subjective. In my personal definition of “best,” I mean some magical alchemy of this book at this time that hit me this way. The order is chronological, so don’t spend time parsing out why one book is first, another last. Also, I had to eliminate some VERY EXCELLENT books to keep my list tidy, and YES, I feel terrible about doing so. You’ll see that I cheat a little at the end, but all’s fair in love and books.

 

DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver

I always nod kindly and knowingly when people mention Barbara Kingsolver, but I’ll confess that this is the first book by her I’ve read, and what a doozy! I was all in from the very first paragraph, though I often resist reading loooong books (you’ll see what an outlier this year was on that matter as my list progresses!). This novel about Appalachia and opioid addiction and resilience moves fast, is smart, and offers a political point of view without turning preachy or predictable. The first-person voice is extraordinary and convincing. Yeah, maybe it’s cheating to rely on a genius like Charles Dickens and swipe the plot of David Copperfield…or maybe that tack is its own genius. I must have recommended this book a zillion times.

 

WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys

I read this novel back in college and retained only vague memories, which just shows I was assigned way too many books back then because I should have a better memory of this artful book about Rochester’s “madwoman” wife in the attic (definite red flag, Jane Eyre!). Deeply-evoked characters and perfectly evoked landscapes ranging from the Caribbean to that awful attic in England, meant that the minute I finished the last page, I immediately wanted to know everything about Rhys, wanted to reread Jane Eyre, and wanted to study Caribbean history. A hard-eyed look (wrapped in lush writing) at class, money, race, history, gender, and it has to be repeated: money.

 

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: MEMOIRS by John Updike

Because I was lucky enough to be selected by the John Updike Society for a writing residency in Updike’s Tucson, AZ, casita, I thought I should study up. I read a fair number of his books in college (though then he went on to write many, many more over the years and I failed to keep up), so I sort of thought I knew what he was “about.” But these autobiographical essays gave me a fresh view, seeing how his life intertwined with his fiction (not that he called his fiction “autobiographical”) and seeing how he viewed his own career and life. Immense honesty in these pages about his insecurities, his painful and debilitating battle with psoriasis, the chip on his shoulder, his recognition of his failures as a parent. For a writer with such an absolutely dazzling writing style (those sentences! oh, sigh!) and with such a charmed career, he’s as messed up as the rest of us! I’ll confess that I didn’t read the entire book because the last two essays felt indulgent and probably should have been excluded. Does a writing style of such precision, bordering on ornateness translate to our world of TikTok videos? I can’t say—but I can say that when I was focusing on his words, I was transported.

 

OPEN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Andre Agassi

You ever buy a cheap, used paperback you plan to read quickly and leave behind on the plane? You ever put that book on your “best books list”? For me, now, YES, and YES. What an exciting surprise this book was! It’s not that I care about tennis or Andre Agassi, but I do like an artful, honest memoir, and I’m always fascinated by what celebrity means. Ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, OPEN is beautifully written and well-structured (covering 40ish years) and even suspenseful. The voice is consistent and feels authentic and natural (I mean, of course I don’t know for a fact if this is Andre’s voice, but by the end, I was eager to hang out with him). Apparently, Andre hated playing tennis for most of his life yet he kept playing, and at the highest level. What is ambition? What drives us to success? What is enough? Who are we without that which has defined us for decades? These are the questions that kept Shakespeare awake…here in a tennis book.

 

THE LONELY CITY: ADVENTURES IN THE ART OF BEING ALONE by Olivia Laing

I absolutely loved everything about this book: its smarts, its bleakness, its bold and honest exploration of what loneliness is and does to a mind. While we get the author’s personal experiences, this is also a book of thoughtful research, as loneliness is examined through a series of visual artists (i.e. Hopper, Warhol, Wojnarowicz) who coped with their outsiderness and loneliness in a variety of (often unhealthy) methods…all the while continuing to create art. This book pushed deep—and uncomfortably—into my brain. While the book reflected New York City, my favorite place, we see here that unsettling aspect of New York City that tourists don’t always witness: the way one might feel utterly, helplessly alone while surrounded by an ocean of people. (Wait, that’s not exclusive to New York….)  

 

HELP WANTED by Adelle Waldman

Who’d guess a novel about an early morning crew of warehouse workers unloading deliveries at a Target-like store would be artful, compelling, funny, and infuriating? I liked how the author melded a strongly narrative story based on seemingly low stakes (which employee will get the promotion!?) with understated (yet biting) political commentary on how American capitalism uses/abuses the working poor. The large cast of characters and mix of POVs worried me a bit, but I adapted quickly and ultimately had no problem keeping people straight. I also liked that this was no sad-sack story: these workers maintained dignity and connection despite the odds perpetually stacked against them by forces beyond their control.

 

*NINTH STREET WOMEN: LEE KRASNER, ELAINE DE KOONING, GRACE HARTIGAN, JOAN MITCHELL, AND HELEN FRANKENTHALER: FIVE PAINTERS AND THE MOVEMENT THAT CHANGED MODERN ART by Mary Gabriel

Longest title and longest book, at 926 pages(!!), including notes. I think I spent about a month immersed in this book, and what a glorious month it was. Every year I’ve got at least one “girl comes to New York City” book on my list, so this one’s that, but also so much more. I’m a fan of abstract expressionism, but museums mostly show the men (Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, etc.), so what a joy to learn about these fierce, independent, brainy, dedicated female painters, forced to wrestle both the muse and misogyny. I’m also a fan of reading about subcultures of artists, and hearing firsthand from denizens of the Cedar Bar was intoxicating (speaking of intoxicating, oh lordy, those artists PARTIED!).  And I’m a HUGE fan of reading about New York City, especially the 1950s, so no surprise that all these elements coming together made this my most favorite book of the year. If you read this book (and I insist you do), have your phone handy so you can look up the paintings under discussion. I was lucky enough to get to MoMA shortly after finishing this book, and I about cried to see a real, live painting by Joan Mitchell right there on the wall—as if that’s where it was destined to land all along. *My favorite book of the year

 

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving

I first read this novel back in the days of yore, probably when I was too young to appreciate it. I remember being bored by the detours into reproducing Garp’s short story and novel chapters, but this time I absolutely adored every detour Irving took us on, admiring how each tangent reverberated eventually. A book ahead of its time, as the reader is presented with questions about women’s rights, sexual assault, and a transgender character who is (IMHO) the most interesting and memorable character in the book (and the movie). (Reminder: this book was first published in 1978.) By making Garp a writer, I felt Irving was showcasing his own theories and strategies on writing and creativity, which was a bonus for me. In the end, the highest praise I have is that this book absolutely is like no other.

 

THE GALES OF NOVEMBER: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD by John U. Bacon

I grew up in Iowa, with relatives in Michigan, and went to college in Chicago, so the Great Lakes stretch through my early days. Yet I knew nothing about the ships navigating these bodies of water and little about the underpinnings of the manufacturing economy that made the industrial north (now Rust Belt) the envy of the world. Yes, yes, there’s a (truly) devastating shipwreck in these pages, but the bigger revelation for me was the compelling and comprehensive examination of the culture of Lake Superior and sailors, iron ore mining and manufacturing, ship-building and captaining a laker. The relentless push of capitalism to get the goods delivered. The vagaries of weather. Luck, good and bad. Finding the way to a mournful hit song that might seem to trade on the misfortune of others. I liked reported facts and research balanced here with the personal recollections and reflections of family members of the dead men, and sailors who worked the Fitz back in its glory days, and other experts and observers. Clear and compelling narrative nonfiction with the emotional pull of a great novel. Plus, excellent maps!

 ***

 Here’s where I’m going to cheat a bit and add some extra material—just like the narrative nonfiction books do!

 

SOME SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS I ADMIRED:

 

Goodbye Columbus & Five Short Stories by Philip Roth (OMG! Impossible this is his debut book!)

 

The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake (desperate men clawing through Appalachia)

 

Are You Happy? by Lori Ostlund (complicated contemporary lives evoked with flair)

 

The Continental Divide by Bob Johnson (dark & artful midwestern violence)

 

SOME BOOKS BY FRIENDS THAT I READ & LOVED:

 

Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop by Paula Whyman (memoir; funny & an education about native plants without being “teacherly”)

 

King of Broadway by Dan Elish (novel; charming and insider-y take on writing for Broadway)

 

Stay Here With Me: A Memoir by Robert Olmstead (memoir; lyrical & retrospective)

 

We by Sarah Freligh (short fiction; compact & powerful)

 

The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place by Andrew Bertaina (essays; brainy & dreamy & Proustian)

 

Pink Lady by Denise Duhamel (poetry; the sorrow and disorientation as an elderly mother declines)

 

One Last Ride by Dan Elish (YA; boy at camp & I bet you’ll cry)

 

POETRY!

At my free-writing dates on Thursday afternoons, I start each session by reading poetry and copying down resonant lines. Here are the books that kept me company in 2025 (to be transparent, I know many of these poets IRL). If you’re looking to add more poetry in your life, I suggest you start here.

 

Bodies of Light by Susan Tekulve

In Which by Denise Duhamel

Sky Mall by Eric Kocher

Everyone at this Party Has Two Names by Brad Aaron Modlin

Late Summer Ode by Olena Kalytaik Davis

The Place That Is Coming to Us by J.D. Smith

The Odds by Suzanne Cleary

TBR: Woman : Plant : Language by Agata Maslowska

 Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

We don’t expect an elevator pitch from a poet, but can you tell us about your work in 2-3 sentences?

 

The poems in the collection explore my main areas of interest which include ecopoetry, migrant literatures, translation, and experimental writing, among others. I think through the parallels between botany and migration and look at migrant experience through the lenses of the natural world and ecology. I like to interrogate language(s) to see what is possible and how words can point beyond their ascribed meanings to create multi-dimensional, polyphonic connections.

 

Which poem/s did you most enjoy writing? Why? And which poem/s gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I most enjoy writing poems when I am guided by language, when I give myself into the music of language without control or an agenda. I feel that this is how I come up with my freest poems. An example of such a poem is a sequence “Sounding Soil” where I give up using words altogether and focus on sounds to create a soundscape which hopefully resonates beyond the sounds themselves. I also enjoy writing poems in conversation with other poets, artists, and writers. There is a sense of dialogue and being connected to something larger than myself. An example of such a poem is “A Bird in Flight” written after Jane Hirshfield’s poem “A Chair in Snow.” The poems that gave me most trouble are the poems where I attempt to tackle specific topics that are difficult and emotional for me, for example, the poem “Women’s Hell” where I look at the total abortion ban in Poland. I wrote six or seven versions of this poem before I was somewhat satisfied with it. It still feels like it only scratches the surface.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

Most of the poems in the collection have been written in the last five years. I started immersing myself in poetry during the Covid pandemic as I could only read and write poetry at the time. I got hooked and have been obsessively writing poems since then. A few years ago, I saw that one of my favourite poets was judging a poetry manuscript competition. While I didn’t expect to win it, I really wanted him to read my poems. I put the manuscript together and sent it. I didn’t win of course, but I had a manuscript ready to submit for publication. I submitted it to Bad Betty Press who accepted it. It was totally unexpected and the opposite experience to submitting my novel manuscript for publication which was rejected so many times I lost count. Working with Amy Acre, my editor, has been one of the most nourishing experiences. I feel Amy understands my poems even better than I do and has helped me make the poems stronger. I’ve been very lucky to have been selected by Bad Betty Press.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Read, read, read. Read as much as you can, particularly writers and poets from other countries.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

What surprised me about writing these poems is how indispensable writing poetry has become in my life. My perception and sensitivity to the world around me has changed completely since I started writing poems regularly. I have fallen in love with it. I still occasionally write prose, but it is influenced by my poetry writing practice.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

I was initially trying to find a phrase in any of the poems, but nothing seemed suitable. I then thought of distilling the main themes of my book and this is how I came up with Woman : Plant : Language. The colons represent the interconnectedness of these themes in my collection. I also like to view the title as an image rather than a string or a sequence of words.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

One of my poems, “Herbiporous,” talks about how I became vegetarian. Here’s one of my favourite veggie recipes: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/butternut-squash-sage-risotto

 

***

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://agatamaslowska.co.uk

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER: https://badbettypress.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://www.waterstones.com/book/woman-plant-language/agata-maslowska/9781913268763

  

READ TWO POEMS FROM THIS COLLECTION:

“Sounding Soil,”  https://www.propelmagazine.co.uk/agata-maslowska-sounding-soil & “A Bird in Flight,” https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/a-bird-in-flight/

 

 

 

 

 

TBR: Burner and Other Stories by Katrina Denza

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

The stories in BURNER explore technology’s influence on the way we communicate with each other for better or worse. Some also touch on the ways in which women are compelled to inhabit their own power in a patriarchal society.

  

Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And which story gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

Burner was so fun to write. Having worked in restaurants in my twenties, I know the environment and the family-like relationships that can develop. I had a great time imagining how my character might try to seduce a man who’s clearly not interested in her, and especially not intellectually. There’s No Danger Here was probably revised the most drastically. In its earliest drafts the story was over six thousand words. I chipped away at it until the narrator’s understanding of what she really wanted revealed itself.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

I sent the manuscript out to about six or seven agents and received some positive responses, but the prevailing message was that story collections are difficult to sell. At the same time, I entered the collection into contests and submitted directly to a few smaller presses. Burner was a semi-finalist in a 2023 Autumn House Press contest for fiction and longlisted for Dzanc’s 2023 contest for short story collections. A few months later, Cornerstone Press accepted it for publication. 

  

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

My favorite piece of advice is from Richard Bausch, and I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially to ground the reader in the story with details. And I also like the more general advice: write the things you’d want to read.

  

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

My surprises show up in revision. The way I revise is probably the least efficient, which is to rewrite the story from start to finish every time, but this method tends to yield the most surprises.

  

How did you find the title of your book?

 

Burner seemed to capture the disposable nature of communication that technology encourages or allows.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

The chef in Burner makes a delicious coq au vin, but unfortunately, he’s as tightlipped about how he makes it as he is about himself.

 

***

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.katrinadenza.com/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK: https://bookshop.org/p/books/burner-and-other-stories/c1fe6bc8563b1165?ean=9781968148126&next=t

  

READ A STORY FROM THIS BOOK, “In These Dark Woods”:  https://newworldwriting.net/katrina-denza-in-these-dark-woods/

 

 

TBR: Peacocks on the Streets by Michele Wolf

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

We don’t expect an elevator pitch from a poet, but can you tell us about your work in 2-3 sentences?

 

Peacocks on the Streets explores what is wild and unpredictable in our lives — both what slams us and what uplifts us — and how we find the resolve to triumph after trauma. The poems’ subjects range from pandemic bereavement, hate crimes, and terrorism, to falling in love at midlife, adopting a child, and caring for a parent stolen by dementia. With grit and compassion, Peacocks on the Streets offers an acute sense of the privilege of being alive.

 

 

What boundaries did you break in the writing of this book? Where does that sort of courage come from?

 

I broke personal boundaries in that I began to write about some previously self-censored subjects, such as the emotional pain of my infertility and my often fraught relationship with my mother, a tension that peaked in my teens and 20s but always lingered under the surface. This loss got magnified once my mother plunged into dementia. The courage came from the grief I experienced even before my mother’s passing, as I watched her deteriorate cognitively and physically. My mother’s death released me to claim my truths and to see situations, whether real or conjured, with more clarity and a fuller appreciation of multiple points of view. This has led to an even deeper authenticity, strength, and warmth in my work, which I find people relate to.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

I spent a bunch of years sending a version of Peacocks to competitions offering a book-publication prize, and I received several finalist or semifinalist notifications. I steadily continued to publish pieces in literary journals and anthologies, and I didn’t give up trying to place the manuscript. I had previously published two full-length books and a chapbook, and I had confidence in the work. My breakthrough came when I began investigating and submitting to independent presses that offered book publication and royalties but not a prize. First I was offered a yes from an independent press whose seven-page contract did not seem author-friendly. Like the vast majority of poets, I don’t work with an agent — there’s not enough of a financial return on most poetry books to be of interest to an agent. So, I joined the Authors Guild and had my contract reviewed by an attorney on the staff. After that consultation, I sent an email to the publisher, requesting several changes to the contract. Via email, they withdrew their publishing offer, saying we were too far apart. That was not my happiest day.

 

But soon Broadstone Books offered me another yes. That was a hallelujah day. I’ve had a great experience with Broadstone.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

My favorite writing advice comes from a one-day master class I had with the late U.S. poet laureate W.S. Merwin. “We don’t write poems,” he maintained. “We listen for them.” Wow. I found that approach to be powerful — that the writing process is not so much that we will a poem into being, but instead that we get ourselves to a quiet place and listen for the words.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

This is something that surprised me after I had written the book. It didn’t occur to me until two people mentioned it that Peacocks on the Streets is rife with animals — five kinds of birds, a coyote, mountain goats, pandas, a hamster, manatees, deer, tadpoles, zebras, a beagle, fish, corals, seals, dolphins, whales, a ladybug, and more — and that I was making a statement about the wisdom and supremacy of animals. Okay, I suppose that makes sense. But it was never my conscious intent to suggest this! 

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

The book’s title, which is also the title of the poem “Peacocks on the Streets,” comes from that time during the pandemic when we were in quarantine and the streets were so empty that, worldwide, wildlife ventured out to residential and commercial areas. “Peacocks on the Streets” was always the title of the poem, and I knew, even before the poem was complete, that it would be the unifying, flagship piece and title that spoke for the entire book.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

 

In the poem “Peacocks on the Streets,” my persona buys a rotisserie chicken. Here is my completely subjective ranking — from “Bleh” to “Meh” to “Scrumptious” — of supermarket rotisserie chickens available in the D.C. area.

5. Costco

4. Whole Foods

3. A tie: Safeway and Harris Teeter

2. Giant

1. Wegman’s—the best!

 

*****

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://michelewolf.com/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK (THE 20% OFF DISCOUNT CODE IS POETS24): https://www.broadstonebooks.com/shop/p/peacocks-on-the-streets-poetry-by-michele-wolf

 

READ SEVERAL POEMS FROM THIS BOOK: https://michelewolf.com/poems.html