[Interview] Magdalena Ball

In earlier interviews, poet, storyteller and literary activist, Magdalena Ball talked about the factors that made her start writing, her concerns as a writer and about her debut novel, Sleep Before Evening.

Since then she has gone on to publish She Wore Emerald Then, a poetry chapbook written in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson. The chapbook was a finalist in the USA Book News 2009 NBBA Best Book Awards.

She Wore Emerald Then was followed by Repulsion Thrust (Bewrite Books, 2009), a full length, solo poetry collection whcih tackles subjects like quantum physics, astronomy, time travel, ecological destruction, and technological singularity, all viewed through the lens of the human condition.

Below, Magdalena Ball talks about the work she is currently doing:

How would you describe Repulsion Thrust?

My latest book is Repulsion Thrust, which is out from Bewrite Books. It's a poetry book which is in three sections. The first has an overall theme of "The Black Dog" (as in Churchill's - eg depression and pain), the second is environmentally and technologically/futuristically focused, and the third is an almost lighthearted (for me!) synthesis of the first two -- a kind of answer to the clash of the first two notions.

As always with my work, there's a fair amount of influence from the 'sciences', from quantum physics to psychology, geology, evolution, and astronomy.

I chose Bewrite Books because they published my novel, Sleep Before Evening, and I knew that they also published poetry, and above all, that they would provide a thorough editing process for me, which is what I wanted. I also knew it would be easier than going to a new publisher as I already had a positive relationship in place with them and a reasonable understanding of the process, although poetry was quite different to prose, and there was much still for me to learn.

Which were the most difficult aspects of the work you put into Repulsion Thrust?

Finding a neat structural framework for the poetry I had been writing was a little bit tricky. Also with poetry, there's always work involved in ensuring that you remove anything that is absolutely unnecessary to what you want to say. Every word has to work, or you dilute the effectiveness of the poetry.

With the framework, that was simply a left brain exercise. Sit down and think about the overall focus of the work and work out how a structure could support what I wanted to say.

In terms of the editing process, again, having someone else involved was very helpful. I had one superb reader (my mother -- say what you will -- she's a great editor), who went through every poem with me once I was done. I read them to her outloud, and she would ask questions or point things out. Often just the process of reading outloud showed me what didn't work and what did.

My Bewrite editor (Sam Smith) was also very good at spotting what worked well and where I was overly wordy (an issue I need to work on!), or obscure. We even removed a few poems he didn't feel were strong and replaced them with others. I even did a last minute edit after the final proofread.

What did you enjoy most?

To be honest, I really love writing poetry. It's a medium I find most natural, and the fact that you can complete an exercise in one relatively contained burst, and then have something to submit, makes it very satisfying.

I found that I was (and continue to) "allow" myself some poetry time at the end of a hard slog or difficult bit of writing as a kind of reward. The combination of short term (completion/submission) gratification, with knowing I was working on a longer term objective (a full book), was very pleasurable.

To be honest, it's kind of hard to stop myself and get back to a daily fiction schedule, which doesn't have that instant component.

I will though.

My next novel is over halfway done, so it has a kind of imperitive of its own.

What sets Repulsion Thrust apart from other things you have written?

This is my first full length poetry book (the others have been much shorter chapbooks), so it's a big thing for me. It's much more intense and inclusive.

I was able to have that chapter structure and to cover a much wider terrain. I'm very excited about it!

In what way is it similar to the others?

When I finished Quark Soup, I said I would leave science alone for a bit, but found myself even more drawn to it. Not only the language, although I do tend to find words like "catalysis" and "emulsification" very attractive (not sure why!), but there is, to me, something so breathtaking about looking at the world around us from a scientific perspective. There is so much that is beautiful to explore. The fundamental structure of a snowflake or rock formations are just startling. An aurora or solar wind is an amazing thing. The quantum world itself is so full of interesting absurdities that breakdown reality in ways that are seem out of sync with day to day relativity, but when you think about dreams, emotions, or perceptions, there are alignments which aren't absurd at all. So I play with those things in most of my work.

What will your next book be about?

Black Cow is the story of Graeme Archer, a well respected Chief Executive Officer of a large multinational corporation. When his health problems worsen, and his busy family life starts to disintegrate, he has to rethink the way he lives.

The story tracks the family as they move from a ritzy suburb to a small Tasmanian farm, and the challenges they encounter as they attempt to change their lives from super consumers to super conservers. It's a little funny (my funny, which is still reasonably black at times ...)

Do you have a target audience?

I'm sure I'd sell more books with a more specific target audience.

I embrace all readers and hope that my work, even the poetry, is clear and simple enough to appeal to all levels.

That said, my work probably will appeal more to a literary fiction, poetry loving reader who likes their work to resonate for a while, rather than to someone who likes fast paced, action thriller style work. That's what my son tells me, and I'm sure he knows best.

How would you describe your writing?

I'm one of those jacks of all trades who tends to write across genres.

I have been doing a lot of poetry recently, and my work seems to be very science oriented at the moment, though that can change, and tends to apply more to my poetry than my fiction and certainly more to poetry than to nonfiction, which can be on any topic from literary criticism to parenting.

No matter what I'm writing, it's always metaphor rich, with a certain amount of depth, and probably more run-on sentences than I should have. That's my natural tendency. Even my academic writing is metaphor rich, much to the horror of various supervisors that I've had over the years!

Which influences do you draw on as a writer?

So many authors have influenced or inspired me, that it's difficult to pinpoint specific influences. I could start from my earliest reading experiences, including such authors as Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are, Little Bear, In the Night Kitchen) and Dr Seuss (The Lorax still brings a lump to my throat. On Beyond Zebra still excites me) through to authors that inspire me now, from literary writers like Umberto Eco, James Joyce, Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, Salman Rushdie, to Auden, Plath, Porter, Judith Bevridge to the incredible science writers like Hawkings and Dawkins. I'm sure I've left out some major influence, and could probably list names for many paragraphs.

And, like most writers, I also draw on my personal experiences in almost everything I write. I'm something of a magpie, so will pick at just about everything I've got - personal obversations, sensory experiences, overheard conversations, a story someone told me, the song my son is struggling to learn on the piano. If I burn myself on the stove, the pain will be in a story or poem before the sting goes.

As a writer, I always try to get at the core of something. To try and get at something meaningful and deep at the heart of our experiences. That goes for whether I'm writing fiction, comedy, nonfiction or poetry. It isn't always easy, but it helps to have good readers, who can test whether what you've said translates into what you mean for a reader. I have several excellent readers who I show final drafts to, and they don't hesitate to tell me when I'm not making sense or when I've written something trite.

Do you write everyday?

I do write everyday. It isn't always a lot, but I'll always schedule in some time for writing in my daily plan.

I would love to have a regular place and time, but with the juggling I do, I have to take whatever moments I get, so I'll usually just open something up in the morning that I'm planning to work on and whenever and wherever I get a chance I'll work on it.

If I'm writing a poem, I'll usually keep going until the whole thing is done (first pass - often there are several iterations later). That's the same for any short piece of work - flash fiction or a short nonfiction piece. For longer work like a story or a novel, I'll usually keep going until, through some kind of instinct, I feel I've had enough and it's time to stop (or I have to go pick up the kids from school or meet some other impending deadline).

It's probably the same for nearly every 21st Century person but time is my biggest challenge. Finding enough of it to do all the things I want to do.

I'm reasonally well organised and do tend to plan each day fairly well, listing key objectives to lead to the bigger objectives, but there's always a limit to just how much you can get through in a day, and in addition to my writing, I'm also parent to three young(ish - getting older all the time :-) children, have a reasonably big day job, have just started another Master's degree, have two websites to manage and a new book to promote, so time is always a challenge. I deal with it as best as I can, through planning and prioritising - standard time management processes, but I also sometimes have to ease off my goals and accept my limitations. My children won't be young forever, so they always have to take priority.

How many books have you written so far?

I've listed the books I've written below. I've collaborated on and participated in quite a few more anthologies and collections (say around six), but these are the key ones:

• Repulsion Thrust, Bewrite Books, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-904492-96-2 - this is my just released full length poetry collection. Repulsion Thrust tackles big subjects not often the fodder of poetry: quantum physics, astronomy, time travel, ecological destruction, and technological singularity, all viewed through the lens of the human condition.
• She Wore Emerald Then, 2008, 978-1438263793, (poetry chapbook - collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson), finalist in the USA Book News 2009 NBBA Best Book Awards. She Wore Emerald Then and Cherished Pulse are part of an ongoing "Celebration" series of chapbooks designed to replace greeting cards.
• Sleep Before Evening, BeWrite Books, 2007 , ISBN-13: 978-1904492962 – 2008 Indie Book Awards Regional Fiction Finalist - this is a novel set in NYC that follows the adventures of 17 year old, Marianne as she discovers the healing power of music through an almost deadly journey into the deepest recesses of her own mind.
• Quark Soup, Picaro Press, 2006 , ISBN 1-920957-23-5, ( Poetry Chapbook) - Quark Soup contains twenty eight poems which muse on topics like what it means to be human, love, loss, fear, longing, and transcendence. Avoiding cliché and the mundane, the poetry in this collection is accessible to the common reader, with a powerful intellectual edge and playful wit. As all good poetry should, this work uses sound, sense, and strong imagery to deal with everyday topics like depression, birth, growing old, love and death, all moving towards a large universal picture. As the title suggests, there is a strong astrophysical theme running through the poems.
• The Art of Assessment: How to Review Anything, Mountain Mist Productions, 2003 , ISBN 1-920913-10-6, ( Nonfiction) , The Art of Assessment is a complete guide to the review process, from how to write good reviews, how to use interviews to add depth to your reviews, obtaining review copies, marketing your reviews, and plenty of examples and references to help you become a working reviewer.
• Cherished Pulse, 2006 , re-released in 2009 as a print book, ISBN 978-1449546052 ( Poetry Chapbook - collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson) , Cherished Pulse contains twenty poems which look at love from a wise, mature, sensitive perspective. Never sentimental (forget Hallmark), the poems explore love in its many guises -- cherish, longing, sensuality, and that sacred place between desire and consumation.

Possibly related books:

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Related articles:

• Interview with Magdalena Ball, co-author of Cherished Pulse, By Lucille P Robinson, Alternative-Read.com, February 6, 2009
• An Interview with Magdalena Ball, Author of Sleep Before Evening, By Ernest Dempsey, News Blaze, October 17, 2007
• Interview with Magdalena Ball, By Sarah Cook, AussieAuthors.com, July 2007

[Interview] Ivor W. Hartmann, author and editor-in-chief of StoryTime

Ivor W. Hartmann is a Zimbabwean writer, visual artist and literary activist. He is also editor-in-chief of StoryTime, an ezine that seeks to showcase new African writing.

In this email interview, Hartmann talks about the ezine and about how it is being received by emerging African writers.

What is StoryTime all about?

To quote the StoryTime About page mission statement if I may, since I put the effort into re-writing it recently:

The StoryTime African New Fiction FreEzine is all about new African fiction reading and writing. For our readers we provide a free weekly ezine showcasing the works of some of the hottest new African fiction writers. For our writers we endeavour to find them, and then encourage free online fiction publication at ST, as a multi-purpose means to improve writing ability and their exposure.

For the ST readers, my aim is to publish at least one great fiction story every week from an African writer, usually early morning Sunday (+2GMT).

I also do the occasional special edition on days like Valentines, or like the last one on President Robert Mugabe's Birthday. ST featured a cutting edge farcical story written for the occasion by Zimbabwean author Masimba Musodza ("Robin Hood & The President's Birthday Bash").

Also in the works is an annual ST Book Anthology called African Roar, which is set to be published by The Lion Press in early August 2009. It will then be launched at a new Zimbabwean Writers Festival in that same month being organised by The Lion Press.

For the writers, I actively look for new and established talented fiction writers to showcase at ST, and welcome all fiction submissions within the ST guidelines. Once the authors are accepted into ST, I then provide an interactive online home for them and their stories. Firstly, we showcase their stories by publishing them in the ST ezine.

In addition to that, for each ST author, I create a special author bio page that showcases them specifically. This includes an autobiography with their picture, all their stories at ST, and as many related links (I updated them monthly) to good content about the authors and/or their works. It includes, extra to the main ST feed, a specific feed only about them from ST.

The author page also gives them a space and the freedom to communicate with their readers in personal posts at their page, and in comments on the story itself. Taken all together, ST hopes to serve as a promotional interactive conglomerate of their online authorial presence and work.

How did StoryTime come about?

Like most ideas, this one grew out of necessity, or the dearth of good fiction-only magazines, coming out of South Africa and understandably, Zimbabwe. Not that there aren’t any, but they are fewer and far between in comparison to the rest of the world.

Frustrated as a new fiction writer madly writing with so few local outlets for my work, I started thinking about how I could remedy this dire situation.

Being strapped for cash back then (as a new-ish dedicated full-time writer and living in a new country), basically made me realise that a proper print magazine was out of the question to start with. So I took a look at online publishing which led me to Google's Blogger framework, and so the first incarnation of StoryTime was born.

Right from the outset my intention was to use the Blogger framework to publish a real ezine. I also definitely wanted to avoid personal blogging in the ezine and feature only fiction works, even if they were only mine to start with.

How long have you been working on the project?

I published the first ST ezine in June 2007.

Initially, I wanted to create a fiction ezine that would consist of an eclectic collection of world fiction, run directly by its authors for their readers, and create an online home for all the authors involved.

Over time and after gaining a bit of experience in this new field of online publishing, I came to realise what I wanted ST to be. That being, primarily a focus on the poorly represented and yet amazingly rich and diverse, fictional literature coming out of Africa and from the far flung African Diaspora. So I changed the ST emphasis to African writers only and the rest was history.

How do you find contributors?

I actively seek out talented writers and invite them to ST, and constantly look for free ways to promote ST and all our authors by all means at my disposal, on and offline. Then there's the relatively new development of the ST book anthology, African Roar, something I have wanted to do since the very beginning. In this regard I have just put out the call for ST fiction submissions to be published first in the ezine, and thereby gain entry into the selection process for the printed anthology. This came about thanks in no small way to Sarudzayi Barnes at The Lion Press, who secured us the funding to print publish with LP, from the U.K. Arts Council. Though in the long run I'd like the anthology to not only pay for itself, but also offer a decent percentage return for all the authors published in it.

Which writers are you currently working with?

This is a great question and maybe I can also explain something of how ST works. Firstly let me do the honour roll for everyone ST is actively working with:

Igoni Barrett, Adesola Orimalade, Ayesha Attah, Ayodele Morocco-Clarke, Beaven Tapureta, Chris Mlalazi, Colin Meier, Esi Cleland, Emmanuel Sigauke, Masimba Musodza, Nigel Jack and Sarudzayi Barnes.

It is these authors who have made ST what it is by joining, contributing and working with ST. Two members of prime contribution are Emmanuel, who is co-editing the upcoming ST anthology with me, and Sarudzayi, whom I mentioned earlier.

Now when I say our authors work with ST, what I mean is unlike traditional publishing, ST runs under a Creative Commons 3.0 licence (Attribution, Non-derivative, and Non-commercial). This means that in effect, the author joins ST and then together we showcase their work in the ezine, directly under their own names and copyrights. The authors then, forever, have complete access to all their works at ST and can edit them or remove them entirely if they so choose. This I feel is an important part of the capabilities of online publishing, giving the authors direct control over their work.

Hindsight can also be very illuminating, especially as one improves as a writer with each new work. At ST as the author you may make changes, normally reserved for a second revised edition in the print world. So the ST authors are their own editors, and I approve their works for publishing in the ezine as editor-in-chief of ST.

What challenges do you meet and how do you deal with them?

ST always presents many daily challenges which I try and deal with as swiftly as humanly possible. But I suppose the prime challenge from the beginning, has been my choice of the Blogger framework to publish ST for free. In doing so I have had to constantly search for ways to present ST as an ezine and not a generic blog. Luckily though, I am also a visual artist and have tried to make ST on the whole look as un-blog-like as possible. Not to mention the utter helplessness when faced with problems beyond my control, because it’s a free service. However, that's also the good thing about ST in its current form, apart from my own time and that of the authors; it's totally free for us and therefore our readers. This might change in the future, if we can ever afford a dedicated .com domain name and full website etc., which will bring its own set of new challenges no doubt. Though, unless we start printing a magazine solely, I'd like to keep the ST ezine free for the authors and all our readers.

There is also an inherent challenge in letting your authors have complete access to their works. One only has too view MySpace to see how out of hand this can get if left unsupervised. So behind each story I work a bit of hard-learned but simple HTML magic to make sure it complies with the ST layout standards, and doesn't jam the feed readers.

In general though, I have found the ST authors more than willing to help solve any problems that may arise, which makes life a lot easier.

How would you describe the standard of writing at ST?

So far, I think we have maintained a fairly good standard of writing at ST, but I can only believe that this will become even better as ST grows. It is also my intention with the first anthology to raise the bar significantly, by only print publishing the 'eclectic' or very best, of all the works published in the ezine since our beginnings. Subsequent to the first anthology it will be the best of that year.

Who is your target audience?

On the whole I'd say we already have enough variety to satisfy nearly every fiction genre taste, and so this would put us squarely in the fairly broad realm of all those who read fiction/literature magazines and ezines.

Furthermore, with our solid presence on Facebook and by using the Blogger framework, we are introducing ST and our authors to whole new generations of online fiction readers.

Which aspects of the work do you enjoy most?

There are quite a few reasons why I was motivated to start ST, but one of the big ones was to start communicating with my fellow Zimbabwean writing peers in Zimbabwe and those spread throughout the world. I had the idea that together we could do what artists are at least in-part meant to do, and that is being a voice for the voiceless; to bring to the world light, the very real catastrophe of our Zimbabwean situation through our arts, in this case, writing. Therefore, I have slowly but surely opened the lines of communication between several Zimbabwean writers and myself, and together we have achieved some measure of real progress. This is surely what I enjoy most, seeing and being a part of something greater than myself, which actually does cause positive change.

Ultimately, like most Zimbabweans, I have a great desire to return home permanently from what is effectively an economic exile.

What sets ST apart from the other ezines and literary magazines?

It would have to be the complete control the authors have over their work, and the strong sense of close community that ST engenders in both its authors and readers. We like to help each other out where we can, and most of us bring an existing entourage of readers to ST when we join. I believe it is this spirit of openness and community, tempered with real authorial control, which draws readers and serious writers to ST. This, therefore, raises the bar with the addition of each new talented writer, and our growing experience in online and print publishing.

Possibly related books:

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[Interview] Karl Stuart Kline

Poet and author, Karl Stuart Kline is a past president of Epilepsy Concern, a coalition of self-help groups; a past president of the Greater Miami Avicultural Society and a lifetime honorary member of the Florida Sheriff’s Association.

He made his debut as an author in 2004 with the publication of Poison Pearls, an 88-paged collection of poetry and prose which explores issues that include forced labor, modern-day slavery, human trafficking and prostitution.

He followed this up with Going Without Peggy (PublishAmerica, 2005), another collection of poetry and prose about his marriage of 17 years and the bond that existed between him and his first wife, Peggy; her struggle with breast cancer and the effect her death had on him.

His latest book, Brain Stemmed Roses (PublishAmerica, 2006) is also a collection of poetry and prose and includes some of his early work from the 60s and 70s as well as poetry about romance and friendship in Eastern Europe and a section dedicated to his wife of seven years, Marina.

In a recent interview, Karl Stuart Kline spoke about the work he is doing.

How would you describe your writing?

Impulsive... I seldom sit down knowing in advance just what it is that I am going to write or what form that it is going to take. I find a certain amount of freedom in that because each time that I sit down to write, I have a different story to tell and a different way to tell it.

I want my work to withstand the test of time and for it to be as popular and well-read in a hundred years as it would be now if I was writing to please modern stylists.

I don’t write to accommodate the style du jour and refer to myself as writing poetry that will appeal to people who think that they don’t like poetry.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I don’t believe that it was ever a conscious decision any more than it is for a fish to swim. Writing has always been as natural as breathing for me and the instruments of my craft are always close to hand.

A school assignment prompted me to write my first poem in 1966. The medium just had a natural appeal for me and I continued to write poetry as a matter of preference whenever possible.

Ten years later that same poem motivated me again, when I entered it and a few others in a college level competition... The poem took first place.

Later I found out that I had caused some consternation amongst the judges when the three winning poems were matched to their authors and they found my name on all three entries. Contest rules did not allow any one person to be awarded more than one prize, so all my poems had to be removed from the competition and those that remained were judged again for the second and third place awards.

The three poems were "The Tear", "Storm’s End" and "Patterns". All three are included in my most recent book, Brain Stemmed Roses.

Who would you say has influenced you most?

I suppose I would have to say that it has been the women in my life. With few exceptions, they have been a source of encouragement and inspiration for my writing.

As for writers that might have influenced me, I might mention the story-telling abilities of Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein. Neither of them were noted as poets, but they both had that wry sense of humor that I like to bring to my own work.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

Now that I have three books to my credit, my priorities have shifted. Over the last year I have continued to write but not with the immediate goal of my next book in mind. Rather, I have been concentrating on my Internet presence, so that my name is starting to be recognized in an ever widening circle of people.

I’ve also kept my websites free of any advertising. I hate to be bushwhacked any time that I find a site that I want to visit and I refuse to do it to anyone else.

Do you write everyday?

Unfortunately, no... My day job can be very demanding and there are often days that I just come home and collapse.

When I do write, many times I start by sorting through notes that I have made to myself over the preceding weeks, months and even years... they can be newspaper clippings, journal entries or scraps of verse, jotted down on napkins or placemats and saved.

I follow my muse, separating or bringing together different notes etc., according to perceived discords or commonalities. When something or a combination of things starts to sing to me, it tightens my focus. Soon I have something new to share with my readers.

Where I start often has very little to do with where I wind up. For example, I wrote an epigraph for a page on my website and it later became a rhyming sestina, done consistently in iambic heptameter.

How, where and when does the process end?

I don’t think that it ever ends! I may complete a piece to my satisfaction, but it almost always leads to something else!

Your latest book, Brain Stemmed Roses is divided into six sections. How and why is this?

The first of them is “A Poet’s View of Poetry”... mostly verse, but also an essay titled “Poetic Form and the Community of Man.” The second, “Early Works”, is material that I wrote in the ‘60s and ‘70s, including my very first poem. The third, “Smart and Sexy” details some of my dealings with the fair sex, starting about a year after Peggy’s death.

The fourth section is “The Ukrainian Connection” and it tells of my friendship with two itinerant Ukrainian artists. Through them, my acquaintance with Anne McCaffrey became possible and their friendship encouraged me to consider taking a bride from the old USSR. The section finishes with my expedition to Kyrgyzstan.

The fifth section, “Finding Marina” was meant to be a book in its own right, but my lovely Russian wife is also shy and she discouraged me from completing the book. However, I’ve still managed to tell the story of our ‘round the world romance, "Love, Marriage & Immigration."

The sixth and final section, “Passions of Poetry”, is comprised of several of my best and most recent works.

You mention Anne McCaffrey. Do you mean the Anne McCaffrey who wrote the Dragonriders of Pern series of books?

Yes, that's Anne McCaffrey. We know each other through a common acquaintance, the sculptor Vlad Ivanov of Kiev, Ukraine -- on his website you will see my name pop up as you run the cursor over some of the sculptures that are displayed in his gallery. (Except that he misspells my middle name as "Stewart.") Those are pieces that I commissioned with him and he also did the dragons for the gates to Anne's estate in Ireland (Dragonhold-Underhill).

Incidentally, my poetry that went into Going Without Peggy was inspiration for his Orpheus & Eurydice sculpture. I'm the reason Orpheus has a ponytail. Vlad surprised me as well when he revealed Orpheus & Eurydice to me. He'd been rather secretive about the project and I had no forewarning that he was doing Orpheus in my image.

How long did it take you to write Brain Stemmed Roses?

Counting my early works? Forty years!

When and where was it published?

April, 2006, by Publish America. This is my third book with this publisher.

Originally they were recommended to me as being friendly to first time authors. The writer who suggested them to me had his book turned down by them, so my first impression of them was also that they weren’t accepting just anybody who could submit a manuscript. They were also a relatively new company and at the time they were using new technology in an industry that had been relying on a business model that’s been around for decades, if not longer.

Better yet, they didn’t ask for any money and even offered a token advance that was at least symbolic of the fact that they expected you to be able to earn some income with them.

So I sent in my query letter and Poison Pearls was accepted for publication!

What advantages or disadvantages has this presented?

One advantage that I had was being able to retain a great deal of editorial control over the finished product. I know of one typo that slipped through in my first book and I have yet to find any in either of my other books.

Also important is that they have a very capable art department that pays close attention to the ideas that I present to them for the covers of my books. The cover art for all three of my books has been better than it had to be.

The most enjoyable part of having these books published is the sheer number of people who have come back to me and told me that not only did they enjoy reading my books cover to cover, but that they went back and read them two or three times over.

Which aspects of the work you put into the book was most difficult?

Blending and transitioning from one section to another. I didn’t really have a single unifying theme in this book, except that it presented several different periods in my creative life and wove together several interesting stories from my life.

All my books are quite different from what I have written in the past as a reporter, columnist or contributing editor.

Brain Stemmed Roses is a larger book than the other two and gives a broader overview of my art through the course of several decades while Going without Peggy could be read almost as a true life romance novel. Its story has brought tears to many eyes.

Poison Pearls, on the other hand, is a poetic voice for human rights and is meant to help in the fight against human trafficking. Nonetheless, it was quite a surprise for me when the booksellers classified it with Criminology, Social Issues and Women’s Studies instead of poetry! It’s also the beginning of what ultimately became scaredsafe.org, a website that unabashedly uses the power of poetry to combat the evils of human trafficking.

This article has also been featured on Associated Content.

[Interview] Steve Dearden, literary activist

Steve Dearden is a literature activist, consultant, and writer.

He coordinates the Writing Squad, a program for writers between the ages of 16 and 20 in Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, and Light Transports, a project commissioning and publishing writers in journey-sized chunks for free distribution on the transport network.

He also works with a range of literature and cultural clients on project, business, and organisational development. He has written for radio and for magazines in the United Kingdom and Australia. One of his short stories has been translated into Swedish.

Steve Dearden spoke about the work he is doing.

You have been described as a "gamekeeper turned poacher." How and why is this so?

It's a shorthand other people use and I don't recognize. I worked for the Arts Council for nine years, but it was a different beast in Yorkshire at the time. We were part of the profession, we got in there, got our hands dirty, intervened, collaborated, did strategic work, supported exciting individuals with energy and commitment. Again pastoral work in some ways, producer work too, a blend of strategic and focused intervention.

There was the same old bureaucratic shit, but I always saw it as my job to protect my sector from that, not from good business practice, and good policy implementation — they often drove that in any case — but from the kind of policy that is driven by central government rather than artistic agendas.

I've no problems with the government agendas. It's just that they are imposed rather than interpreted by Arts Council officers who have a lot of experience of meetings, little of making art and relating to readers or audiences. I always saw my job as representing the arts to government; now it looks the other way round. Sometimes I think Arts Council Officers seem scared of artists. They certainly don't create many 'big tent' opportunities for us jointly to create and deliver a strategy for literature.

So if people insist on using the analogy I would say that I was never a gamekeeper, always a poacher. If I was being ridiculous I'd say that I was the game.

What unites all the projects you are involved in? What motivates you?

I can't express it better than my mate Ralf Andtbacka, who put it very well in his introduction to my contribution to the Interland project: "... literature seems to be an integral feature of Steve's way of being in the world ... [in] the way he goes about his writing: there is always focus on the process itself, on producing a good text, rather than on the potential benefits of being a writer, all the useless hype. For him, I believe, literature above all signifies empowerment, intellectually and existentially, and this is the key motivational force behind his work both as a writer and a literary activist. "

How do you find the time to do all the things you are doing?

I'm not sure there are that many things, and they interconnect. It helps that I'm doing what I would do if I wasn't doing anything. I don't feel that I "go to work"; rather I work at what I enjoy. Let's keep things in perspective, I am not running a city, nor am I a farmer or a nurse on an A&E ward.

How does all this affect your own writing?

Luckily I write short stories; maybe if I didn't do other things I might discover whether I have the patience and stamina to try something longer. I'd like to. But for now, I book time out, at least six weeks at the beginning of the year somewhere out of the gray and rain. I also spend a lot of time on trains. Movement is good for writing and, of course, working with writers and readers is a great stimulant to writing. I like commissions and requests; they kick things off and the deadlines are good to get things done, but also to stop me editing, editing, editing. I enjoy the honing much more than getting stuff down on the page in the first place.

Of the projects that you are currently involved in, which would you say are the most exciting or challenging?

It would be hard to choose between them and although they're opposite ends of what I do, they are connected.

The Writing Squad is a two-year program for 15 writers, aged 16 to 20, in Yorkshire. We give them a mixture of Squad Days with visiting tutors, one-to-one sessions, and they have their own private website to chat and exchange work on, to stay in touch with each other.

We are on our third cohort, so we also keep developing writers from previous Squads who stick with us. For example this afternoon I'm going to the reading of a play by Nick Payne from the last Squad; we're giving him some money towards taking it to Edinburgh [theatre festival in Scotland] this summer. I'm helping him with the script.

There's a lot of pastoral work, particularly by my co-director Danny Broderick. I could go on for hours about the individual relationships he's built up and the results.

We take a holistic approach, like the best football academies, working on technique but also the other skills our writers will need to play the game. That's the development side, which I love, helping people release the text they're striving for.

In Light Transports, I'm pursuing an idea I've had for a long time: "Why go to all the trouble of marketing and selling new writing to tiny readerships? Why not just give it away?" So I'm commissioning and sourcing journey-length stories — a commute, an intercity — to give away on five Yorkshire mainline railway stations.

I'm also trying to demonstrate, through the choice of writers, my belief that regional literary ecologies are not defined by geography, or by birth or residence, but by the complexion and connections of the people, promoters and publishers who live and work there. That's what gives each literature ecology its unique DNA — so some of my writers on this project live in Yorkshire and others in Calgary, ... Finland, Portland Oregon, Singapore, [and] Guyana — locally grown and locally sourced product, which explains Yorkshire and its place in the world in a way that escapes the stereotype.

The connection with the Squad?

Well, we'll have stories by two, possibly three Squad writers in the mix, their first publication, on merit. That feels very good.

I'm a great believer in giving people chances as soon as possible, supporting them, but throwing them in there, too. It seems crazy to me that you could be captaining your country at a sport, or touring the States in a band, but be branded a Young Person as a writer and excluded from mainstream funding and support.

I realize I haven't answered your question about challenges, but that's boring. Just keeping it all going, I guess, the dull admin and money-raising that underpins these projects. The rewards way outweigh the challenges.

Possibly related books:

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Related articles:

• "Planning A Project And Funding It", by Steve Dearden, literaturetraining.com, February 2009.
• "Tales for the train", by Steve Dearden, theshortstory.org.uk.
• "Steve Dearden on Bookfutures", bookfutures, August 16, 2007.