How Big Is YourWorld?

The inspiration behind this theme was a trip I took from the beginning of January to the end of April 2023. My husband and I spent four months aboard the Queen Mary 2, last ocean liner in the world, visiting five of seven continents. Nineteen countries. Thirty-six cities.

I have a tendency to look at every landscape and map it onto somewhere I know from home. The Suez Canal looked like Riverside, California. Muscat, Oman looked like the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona. Kangaroo Island, Australia looked like the coast road between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. But they weren’t. The shades of brown and green, the height and shape of the shrubs, the way the light played in the folds of a mountain may have looked similar to what I know from home, but up close, there was no mistaking the differences. And it wasn’t just the scenery—the food, even when the names of the dishes were the same as the ones at home, was never the same. The language, even when it was a language I speak, sounded different and used very different words. The clothes, although built for human bodies similar to my own, were very different.

That’s the key. Are you looking at the similarities, or the differences?

All over the world, people simultaneously grumble about the shortcomings of their local government, the people around them, the inefficiency or inconvenience of their city’s layout. They also feel a fierce civic pride, and brag endlessly about all of the superlative things – the tallest, the oldest, the largest, the most expensive – that their city has.

All over the world, people are glad to have tourists affirm the wonderfulness of their city or country. At the same time, they’re angry at foreigners who fail to respect local laws, customs, or people. Most people have heard of the “ugly American” stereotype, but I have seen some stunning examples of horrible behavior from people of every nationality.

According to a 2019 poll conducted by Forbes, 40% of Americans have never left the country, 60% have never traveled outside North America, and nearly half don’t read books for pleasure, and therefore aren’t exposed, even in fiction, to countries outside their own. This ignorance of the wider world is what allows Americans to believe that they live in the ne plus ultra of countries. Add to that the proliferation of television shows that take place all over the world, giving people a highly fictionalized picture of life in other countries, and what you get isn’t just people who are ignorant of the lives and customs of countries outside their own, but believe a host of inaccurate things.

I would like to be able to say that broadening my understanding of other people and cultures was at the heart of my desire to travel, but it would be a lie. I didn’t want to see French people – I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t want to see Egyptian people – I wanted to see Karnak Temple. I didn’t want to see Australian people – I wanted to see kangaroos. And yet, there is no way to see those things without seeing the people who live and work near them, and I discovered that there is no way to see people in their native countries and not like them.

The best thing travel has done for me is to allow me to look at the place I live with new eyes. I live in a beach town with some of the best surfing in the world, so it’s a popular tourist destination. Nowadays, I walk around town looking at things that exist nowhere else in the world, and I understand why so many people come to my city every year.

I know that not everyone has the means to travel, but whether or not you ever leave your hometown, please do this: look around you at all the things people who live in another country would find fascinating, unique, and beautiful. Take selfies with attractive buildings and interesting trees. Smile at people you pass on the street. Notice the interesting names of streets and neighborhoods. Eat at a restaurant you’ve never tried before. Buy a postcard from your town and mail it to someone. Even if you never leave home, your world will be as big as you make it.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I don’t remember when I wrote my first poem, but a friend recently found the poetry booklet our class published in third grade. In resplendent mimeographed blue, I rhymed gray and day. (I do live in Seattle after all.) I suspect people said nice things to me about it because I continued to believe I would grow up and be a poet.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
“We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”

Ella’s Song, Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon

Sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock

This line comes to me all the time. I like it for the assonance, the cadence, the communal perspective, and the hope. It sings in me when I don’t know I need it.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
I have nothing of value to say. I’m too busy being a know-it-all to be surprised. I don’t pay close enough attention. I don’t have enough technical skill. I don’t put in enough time working the process. I’m boring. Hmm, I seem to have more than one.

What is your most evocative memory?
I only get to see my grandma once a year. We are standing in her tiny kitchen shaped like a ship’s galley. She opens the oven door. Cinnamon, apples, sweet butter. My grandma puts a paper straw in the pie. She tells me, “I’m checking to see if it’s done.” Everything about this—an old fashioned paper straw, that you can make a pie from beginning to end with your own hands, that I have flown three thousand miles to be in this high rise apartment with a view of the Rodin sculpture garden—amazes me.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
I started The Postcard today, the one about the Jewish family in France who received a mysterious postcard with the names of four family members who had died in the Holocaust. In the first chapter, the patriarch of the family tries to convince everyone to escape Russia and go to Palestine or America. They think he’s nuts. I thought, this is not going to go well. (You think the family lost to the Holocaust would have clued me in.) Even though I really want to know who sent the postcard and why, I decided I couldn’t suffer for another 300 pages.

What does your creative process look like?
I have lots. Here’s one.

Get onto my Zoom accountability meeting Tuesday at 9:00. Tell my accountability buddies I will read a few poems and then pick one to turn into a prompt. By turn a poem into a prompt, I mean analyze all the craft moves in the poem. Like the first line of Bob Hicok’s poem “Last Days of Rome” is “She lights matches to see the thoughts of gasoline,” so an actor does an action with a concrete object to experience something surreal with a related concrete object. After five tries, I wrote: “She holds the compass to test the voice of gravity.”

Tell my accountability group I did what I said I would do. Post whatever I wrote to The Grind (a different accountability group). Can you tell I need a lot of accountability?

Let what I wrote sit for at least three days, often for years.

Revise the material using Laure-Anne Bosselaar’s 14 step method that includes everything from checking the emotional authenticity to experimenting with the syntax and line breaks. OR Give up on making this a poem, and salvage some of the lines for use in another poem.

Show a draft to a peer critique group. Revise. Repeat as needed, usually for years.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I draw old (and sometimes not-so-old) cars using colored pencils. It's a slightly painterly/cartoony style which some people like and some really don't. The objective is self-realization (I sell some of them when someone stumbles over one they like and contacts me, but mostly I do it for my own pleasure). The link to the gallery is here: https://www.deviantart.com/gbondoni/gallery/all

How old were you when you produced your first work?
How was it received? I was 29 when my first work was published. It was quite well received, but since it appeared in a tiny magazine, it was well-received by very few readers! Fortunately, that story has been reprinted in other places, allowing more people to read it.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
I LOVE the opening line to Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again," because it just sets the mysterious tone for the rest of the book so perfectly. But for brilliant sentences, any book by Wodehouse is full of them. So many I can't choose one.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Is my writing any good? That's the doubt that plagues me, even after 400 story sales and a dozen traditionally published books. One would think that the impostor syndrome would pass after so many editors have bought and/or said nice things about my writing... but it never does, and I always finish my writing sessions convinced that the product was utter tripe.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
1950s New York! That was a brilliant time and place to be a writer, although I'd also have loved to hang out with the lost generation in 1920s Paris.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
Not counting a couple of books I've forgotten on airplanes, The Coming of the King by Nicolai Tolstoy. It was unreadable, and I put it down because of that. To give you an idea of how unusual this is, the event happened around 1995, and it's still the last book I've abandoned.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I never got the acceptance email for my first story sale, so I received the contributor copy of the magazine and I wasn't entirely certain what was inside. When I saw my story and realized I was a published author, I couldn't believe it.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
I think, if Isaac Asimov had been writing in today's day and age in which characterization and literary sensibilities in the SFF genre are more prevalent, his fiction would resemble mine.

What does your creative process look like?
I sit down and write 2000 words a day, every weekday, rain or shine. No excuses except international travel are accepted. Editing happens on a different schedule, generally when I finish a piece.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
When adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, young me told them, An artist. My current paintings are abstractions that may be hung any-side up. For many years I made almost no visual art, then moved across town and discovered a nearby bar/art studio with regular figure-drawing sessions and got back into making non-verbal things.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
A poem I wrote in first or second grade — "People die/People live/People buy/ People give/Some will know what to do/Some will go without you…” — felt very profound as I was writing, as if I were unearthing hidden truths. My memory of that experience is strong. But I have no memory at all of what anyone I may have shared it with said. And I don’t remember how the poem ended either.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
Two sentences from E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End impressed me when I read the book four decades ago. I looked them up for this purpose now because I remembered being so struck then: “A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.”

What is your most evocative memory?
How the woods and fields surrounding my grandparents’ house in the Connecticut countryside smelled after a thunderstorm, and the intensity of those storms, I don’t think will ever leave me.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
I doubt I’ll be able to paint or write many of the things I imagine making. There are many pictures in my head and visions of painting all day, every day, in a studio of my own, writing novel after novel and play after poem that I doubt will ever come to be.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I’m too fond of modern plumbing (for one) to turn the dial back very far. If I got to time travel in short bursts and return to the present, I would love to meet my grandparents and other ancestors when they were younger people.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
When I was about 6, I won a national art contest sponsored by the SPCA in Canada (where I lived)! To make it more believable: 1. I’m certain it was just for little children and 2. I think my parents’ belief that I won, not for my realistic depiction of a bird calling for help from its nest but because I’d spelled help HELLP, was correct. Not until my sister told me did I know of the mistake.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Yikes. I have no notion because my sense of what my own work is like is hard for me to identify.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I am also a photographer, but it’s hard to put enough energy into both, and so I have not sent out photos the last few years. Before that, I had a number of those in various literary magazines and/or covers. Because of the time submissions take, I have made the decision to focus on my writing for the moment. It would be nice to be everywhere at once, but I haven’t perfected the art of that. Being everywhere at once—that would be truly the pinnacle of creativity.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I wrote something as a child (single digits). My father paid me $100 dollars for it. I believe he wanted to make clear that creativity was to be highly valued, as he was a writer as well—also an English teacher. I got that part of the lesson, but if I truly cared about the money, I wouldn’t have become a poet.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I’m very happy to be living now. If I had lived earlier, I’d be dead. And since it seems like we’re moving toward a global warming apocalypse, I don’t think I'd want to spend my formative years living through that either. On the other hand, I’m tempted to respond, "all of them," if that could be a possibility. Maybe in some version of physics that I don’t understand, I am living in all of them.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
It’s a character failure, but if I start reading something, even if it’s dreadful, I persist in seeing it through to the end, hoping I’ll see what clearly at least the publisher saw in it. It’s a form of optimism that I’d probably be better without. This only applies to books. I did stop halfway through the Luther movie, the one that isn’t part of the series, in spite of my adoration of Idris Elba. The movie just got silly and I’m all for silly movies, but it wasn’t silly in an interesting way.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
My hope is that my voice is distinctive enough so that if someone reads something I’ve written, they think, “Oh, that’s a Susana poem” because isn’t the aim not to sound like anyone else?

What does your creative process look like?
I don’t think it’s possible to describe that part of my life in an interesting way. Basically I spend a lot of time alone in a room. Boring boring boring. But it isn’t. I’m either reading or writing or revising. Or sometimes, I just living and there’s a spark of something. Or I’m reading and there’s a spark of something. Maybe it’s just the newspaper. Maybe I’m sleeping and I’m suddenly awake. Maybe I’m in the shower. Or walking in the street, which is really inconvenient because then I have to stop and move off the center of the sidewalk and find a pen and write down some notes which I will otherwise forget.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I do hand-drawn illustrations, collage, paintings, photography, and hand-lettering, among other random things.

…I also have this weird fascination with taking abstract photographs of thistle plants…I just can’t get enough of it. So much so that I recently designated an entire collection just to hold all my weird little thistle photos that I love so much. It’s called THISTLE.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I was 2.5. I was sitting in the kitchen in my baby trap/walker thingy and I had a piece of scratch paper, an orange crayon, and a black crayon in front of me. I drew a fairly competent stick figure for a two and half year old. Then I thought in my tiny little toddler brain, “...do I want everyone to know how devastatingly amazing I am at art? I’m awfully young to be so great at this. I imagine that being famous would be a lot of work and there would be flashing cameras and that sounds very stressful…No, I think I must remain hidden so I can live a normal life” and I scribbled over the stick figure to disguise my obvious genius.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
That the discriminatory practices being legalized in the U.S. limit positive reception to my queer art, as a queer artist.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
A future in which everyone has excellent, affordable, healthcare and housing and it’s not a terrifying experience to be a womxn, queer, or disabled, to be a Person of Color, an immigrant, or to belong to any community that has historically been discriminated against. Still waiting.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I used to work in customer service for the airlines.

This one time, there was this really belligerent customer (that's not the unusual part) who was getting aggressively angry at me (also not unusual…working customer service for the airlines is a complete joy, I tell you) because I wouldn't upgrade him to first class, for free, on a plane where there were no more seats available in first class anyway.

He kept trying to tell me he “B.B. King’s manager”, like I didn't understand that and once I did understand that he was apparently “B.B. King’s manager” I would suddenly say “Oh! Ok! I didn't realize YOU WERE B.B. KING’S MANAGER. Let me just create another seat on the plane with my Secret Airline Magicks. Sorry about the confusion, Mister B.B. King’s Manager”.

After many failed attempts to yell at me until I magicked him a free seat in first class, he eventually realized that it was not going to happen and that the laws of physics did, surprisingly, also apply to B.B. King’s alleged manager. Then he kept grumbling the sentence, “...I’m gonna tell B.B. on you,” under his breath and glaring at me.

I was like “...Ok? Cool? Have a nice flight,” and I rolled my eyes all the way into the back of my head, where they remain to this very day (just kidding. I got my eyes to return facing forwards again after I quit this job, lol).

Anyway.

What does your creative process look like?
It’s not something I ever document to post reels of on social media or anything. For me, creating is very personal. Trying to create for an audience takes away some of the magic I use for art instead of for B.B. King’s alleged manager (that’s right, I could’ve used my wizardy ways to create him a seat out of thin air the whole time! Bwahahhaa! <<laughs diabolically for 5 minutes straight).

ANYWAY. My favorite part about creating a piece is actually one of the last steps: the photo. The photo is the final work.

For instance, my piece Acid & Smoke: there’s no physical piece of art, per se. What I did was take a blank notebook and basically use it as a table/canvas. I added background materials and colors, then I piled on interesting shapes, stickers, textures, pieces of string and golden twist ties from bags of bakery bread. Then I stood above it and took a photo looking directly down at this pile of stuff I’d placed under a lamp to give it more of a glow and shine.

Then came my favorite part: of the dozen photos I took of this pile of stuff, I carefully chose my favorite. Then I went in and made that photo into its own unique piece of art. I played with the contrast, the shadows, the highlights, the colors…I asked myself what I wanted it to say, to look like, what kind of feelings I wanted it to evoke, what story I wanted to tell with this piece. I made a new creation from this image. I love doing this, it's soothing.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
Games! When I’m not scraping together stats for my latest D&D villain or mapping dialogue options for a game I have no capacity to code, I love building Frankenstein’s creatures out of discarded Risk pieces. I also vibe with an intimate audience and zero shelf life. Musical improv, sand castles, steam-mirror-poetry, tabletop roleplay…There’s nothing as delightfully humbling as letting your friends obliterate everything you’ve created.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
When I was seven or eight, I made a comic series called "Colin". The first adventure of the titular hero was part superhero origin, part high fantasy, and contained a concerning number of effigies. My family loved it, saying things like “Wow, cool story!” and “Is that a lizard?” I spent the next few weeks chasing the resulting dopamine hit. Issue 27 was a single, badly drawn page, and my mother very politely commented that the newer stuff just didn’t hit the same. I took a long, hard look in the mirror and ended the series there.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
I’d like to say something more interesting, but my biggest anxiety has always been do [insert specific people] like what I’ve written? Hopefully someday I can graduate that circuit and worry more about whether I like it myself.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Early 1900’s Germany. If I play my cards right, I could dispose of toothbrush mustache man in a “childhood mishap,” become one of the first patients at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin, and have a haunted, torrid affair with Rilke. Or I could die of influenza. It’s a roll of the dice.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
When other people are mad at my writing, they compare me to N. K. Jemisin. I like to be stingy with visual description, mess with genre norms, and abandon the plot in favor of something more interesting. When I’m mad at my writing, it’s those goddamn Inklings. If I ever write a full chapter without a bizarre Briticism sneaking in, I’ll die happy.

What does your creative process look like?
The creative process is about 500mg of caffeine in cold brew form, several packs of spearmint gum, and Queen or Against Me! to drown out the dying screams of the darlings.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
My first short story was completed three years ago, when I was 22 years old. It was received nicely, by friends and colleagues, however rejected by any publisher I sent it to.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway (end of paragraph 1)

“The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterwards the road bare and white except for the leaves.”

What is your most evocative memory?
The memory that began my love of travel, reading and, eventually, writing: watching the sunset on the shores of Lake Ohrid, Macedonia while high, backpacking and hitchhiking for the first time in my life.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Enough time. When working to pay rent and bills, taking classes to stave off debt, and finding the time to travel and explore the world, fitting in as much writing as possible becomes an exercise in adaptability.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
This is a tough choice. In no order: 20s Paris, 30s Barcelona, 70s Mexico City

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
Across the River and into the Trees - Hemingway. I stole this book from a bookshop in Paris because I had heard incredibly mixed reviews on it. After about half way through the short book (maybe 200-250 pg total) I had to forfeit. One review I’d read previously, from his ex-wife (I think), had said of the book: it has the sound of madness and the smell of decay. I have to say, there is some truth in that statement.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
Our boat almost capsized while voyaging through a tropical storm from the east coastal town of Bluefields, Nicaragua to Big Corn Island, in the Caribbean. The thought of going down with roughly 200 people, and maybe 20 life preservers, was a bit nerve wracking.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Hard to say exactly one person, so perhaps Raymond Carver, or Hemingway, or even Steinbeck. These are all great inspirations and influences to my work.

What does your creative process look like?
I write everything on paper. I always start with the physical. It releases the story for me. Then, a first draft is typed. Then, cut. Then, a second. Then, cut. Then, a third... It can take a while.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I enjoy painting in various media: oils, acrylics, and watercolor. I have gone from realistic to abstract and now find myself in a meld between the two, in an experimental stage. I have also played the violin and guitar and enjoy creating fine cuisine.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
“It is difficult to remove by logic an idea not placed there by logic in the first place.” Dr. Gordon Livingston, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart This guides my conversations with others and is constantly in my mind.

What is your most evocative memory?
At the age of three, I traveled with my family for 16 days aboard a freighter from Germany to the port of entry of New Orleans to embark upon a new way of life, with no English skills, no birth certificate, and a false date of birth. This is an experience I relive constantly with amazement that I made something of myself, even with all my doubts and humble beginnings. It infuses all my writing, especially my poetry.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Knowing what I now know about the past, and knowing no certainties of the future, I must choose to remain in my current time, my most authentic time. That doesn’t keep from writing about different eras and imagining the future, about which I write quite often.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
This is hard to admit, but I had to lay Shogun down due to its violence. The violence overshadowed the story for me, filled me with anger and depression, and since then I have given myself the right to quite reading any book that disturbs me that greatly. I wish I were made of sturdier stuff, but I must accept myself for who I am.

What does your creative process look like?
This is hard to put into words. A single word, a sentence overheard, a line in a poem by another, a beautifully plated meal, a visual experience, a memory recalled, all may trigger an idea that invites me to either write a story, create a poem, sketch an image, or do research to learn more about a potential subject or focus. I never know when I will hear it, feel it, or see it, but when I do, I must react in the moment or lose the thread to pull me in.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
Thank you so much for the question. Yes, artists and authors creating in multiple disciplines is both exciting and inspiring. I love photography and I sometimes paint.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Like many writers I know, my fear is that the words will dry up one day, and that I may never feel like writing again.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Historical time? Ah, I have never given it thought! Any period in history I can think of, sadly, is as much known for being good socially, politically, or architecturally, as for being riddled with misfortune, hunger and wars. Guess I am happy in the times I live in, in spite of all the mess.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. I have started, lost track of the narrative because of something or the other, and then started again, and stopped again. This has happened multiple times. Not finishing something I have started to read isn't my nature, but unfortunately, such a thing has happened for the first time.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I never thought I would be a writer. Being a published author is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
James Joyce.

What does your creative process look like?
If I were to imagine it, well, my creative process would look like a calendar where one follows the other, regularly, repetitively.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I am the daughter of a photographer and art runs in my genes, so I've combined the two. Growing up I wrote my own guitar music and was a ballerina, so I guess I cover many of the art criteria.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I was in 2nd grade when I wrote my teacher, Miss Bath, a soppy epic poem about a dog. And ten when I won my first art contest.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
Gosh, too limiting! One of my favorites is this one:

“Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.” Sheri S. Tepper

What is your most evocative memory?
I grew up in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) so evocative memories are many. Probably the rainstorms, with their colossal lightening strikes and immense thunder, vision obliterated by the rain belting upwards from the street and being assailed by the heavy scent of petrichor, are amongst my most primal, thrilling memories.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Self worth

What historical time would you most like to live in? I'm all about the now.
What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down? Oh not me! I'll grind my way through any book till the last semicolon. Because if someone bothered to write it, then I can do them the service of reading it. Brothers Karamazov nearly killed me, though—but in the end I really appreciated slogging through it!

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
Oh I don't know where to begin. Several men I love have died on me — or tried to — so at some times I think I'm cursed. I've had many unbelievable encounters with deadly snakes. But maybe the most intimately unbelievable thing I ever did was give birth to my two exquiiste boys.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Too narrowing to have to pinpoint. I would like to think I'm as tartly succinct as Kay Ryan, as philosophical as Jane Hirschfield, as emotionally perspicacious as Mary Oliver, as intellectual as T.S. Eliot, as densely evocative as Manley Hopkins, John Donne, as familiar as Seamus Heaney & Simon Armitage — but in the end, I would like to hope that my work mostly resembles my own.

What does your creative process look like?
Very early morning: cup of tea, filtered sunlight, birdsong, write, write write. Leave it to simmer. The following morning: tea and critique, the ripping apart and the revision. Some specially lucky times not much revision's required because the poem arrived whole, from somewhere outside of me. Like 'The Unwanted Tenant'.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I’ve been writing poetry since college, mostly as a hobby. When I retired from a job in Information Technology, I got more serious about it and devote full-time to writing and publishing now. Four years ago, I branched out to fiction and have published two gay romance novellas – “Debut” and “When Worlds Collide” – under the pen name Scott Damon. I’ll be writing more.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
My first works were done more as a prank to provoke my 10th grade English teacher. I invented a poet named Loreli M. Thodvigs, an anagram of Oliver Goldsmith. She wasn’t amused. Perhaps if the quality of the writing had been better…

In college, I had several poems published in campus publications at two University of Wisconsin campuses. The best was “Duluth”, which I’m still proud of and is generally well-received. It’s in my collection “Bluebonnet Whispers”. I’ve reworked several others to get them in respectable shape. One won a Texas state contest.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
That’s hard to nail down. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is an obvious classic. I also like the opening of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” – “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.” I love that book and can actually read it in French.

What is your most evocative memory?
I told my oldest son, Daniel that skydiving was on my bucket list when I was in my late teens. He responded that you can’t take things off your bucket list. So, he and I traveled 100 miles to eastern Maryland to give it a try. We each had an experienced guy strapped to our back to do the important stuff, but it was exhilarating! For one minute, we were in freefall and for five minutes we drifted with the chute open. I wouldn’t do it again, but it was worth doing once, especially sharing it with my son.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Will my work last? In part, I write to create a legacy. It would be nice to think that it will still appeal to someone many years down the road.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I’d like to see what our world and civilization are like thousands of years from now, but I might feel like a fish out of water, so being able to return to today would be nice.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
I have a habit of not finishing books all my life, which is a bad habit for a fiction writer. Even beginning in high school, I found I didn’t need to finish books in order to pass tests or write papers about them. And some of them were very difficult to get through. “Pride and Prejudice” was not my cup of tea. The last one was Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. I enjoyed the book and was moving along fine, but then my family decided we wouldn’t use it for a family book club discussion, so I lost motivation. I need shorter books.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I’m 69 now but just a few years ago I had a two-year relationship with a 20-year old French man. I spent 40% of my time in Paris for those two years. It was great! I also got many poems out of the two-year arc.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
I don’t have a good perspective on that. For one thing, my work seems to vary considerably as I experiment with new forms or evolve. I admire the work of David Wagoner, a poet and author from the Seattle area. Some of my works align with his, but his style varies as well.

What does your creative process look like?
I write at random times and when inspired. I always have plenty to work on with various projects in the works.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
Fairly recently, I’ve been doing some drawing, mostly line drawings and cartoons. I’ve also done quilting, knitting, and crochet projects. I enjoy choosing colors and deciding on arrangements.

What is your most evocative memory?
My most evocative memory is of my mother reading to me before bed when I was young. Often, she would read poetry rather than stories. My favorite was “The Spider and the Fly” by Mary Howitt. Though my mother passed away in 2001, I can still remember how her voice sounded during those reading sessions.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
My biggest doubt is about whether my work is worthy of sharing. It sometimes takes an act of courage to send something off for consideration.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I think I’d stick with this one. Sometimes, I’m tempted to think things would have been better when life was simpler and we lived closer to the land. Also, society’s impact on the environment in modern times is of concern. Then again, I appreciate many present-day conveniences. Besides, things weren’t always great historically (and still aren’t, in some places) for women.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
I won’t name the author and title, I’ll just say that it was historical fiction set on Canada’s East Coast. There were some graphic references to cruel behaviours and that just isn’t my thing. I’ve stopped reading other books for the same reason.

What does your creative process look like?
Sometimes, if I am lucky, ideas will come to me fully formed. The best example is a nature poem that came to me while I was mowing the lawn. Usually, though, I’ll think of an idea that seems promising, and brainstorm ideas and images to expand on that. In the case of a themed call, I often start by mind-mapping possible directions to take, and then I jot down some possibilities, pursuing those that seem to work best and have the most appeal to me. Then, depending on how things are shaping up, I’ll experiment with formats that seem to suit the idea. Usually I work in free verse, but sometimes I write pantoums, triolets, haibun, or other forms, and I write a fair bit of scifaiku, single or joined. I usually write draft poems in staple-bound notebooks, then type each poem into a word document and edit and refine from there.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I have been known to sketch sometimes! I dabble in a bit of graphic design as well—although this is more out of necessity, things like making flyers for school or making my author website. I also play the piano.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
It depends on what you classify as “work.” My first ever work was probably in 5th grade (so about 9 years old), writing fanfiction with and about my friends. My first serious work was a poem I wrote for class in 7th grade (12 years old). It ended up winning first prize in a local writing contest, which was actually what inspired my interest in writing and submitting!

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
The best that I can remember: “Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think.”

What is your most evocative memory?
Moving to America—I vividly remember seeing all the small green squares outside the plane window as we began descending.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Since I’m a young writer, I often worry that my work is too childish or immature.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Reading Chinese wuxia books made me fall in love with ancient Chinese culture, so it would be really cool to live during the Tang dynasty (as a wealthy man).

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
I can’t believe I’m about to expose myself like this, but it was Sense and Sensibility. I had to leave for summer camp in the middle of reading it, so since it was a library book I sadly had to return it. But I will probably finish reading it sometime soon!

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
Getting the book deal for my first novel, Stuck in Her Head! It was last December, and I was on a high all throughout winter break.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Probably my writing partner, Liana. We wrote Stuck in Her Head together, and we edit each others’ short stories and poetry a lot, so I think we often subconsciously affect each others’ writing styles.

What does your creative process look like?
Being a student (and going through the college application process, no less), I don’t usually have a lot of time to write short stories, so I tend to write in bursts. It’ll take about a week or two for me to get an idea, brainstorm some potential plotlines and quotes, and then I’ll get the first draft down in a day or two. After that, it’s edit edit edit!