February – Penned: Interviews with Writers

The other day, my creative writing professor told me that “we were made to tell stories.” That’s the basis of human nature, to share their experiences, to use their voices. Every story is unique — each one has its own distinct voice and purpose.

As writers, we excel at storytelling. It’s in our blood, intertwined into our DNA. We all do it differently; that’s why this month’s interviews focus on individual storytelling techniques.

The February theme: How to begin a story/poem.

 

Tyler Barton:

Find a voice and follow its energy. I find it almost impossible to start with an idea (for example: irony as a defense mechanism can have serious consequences for human connection) and then try write a story. However, if I sit down to write and listen for the voice of a caustic, sarcastic, washed-up comic, whose loneliness seeps hilariously through her speech, I’m much more likely to get a draft started, maybe even completed. Basically: don’t start with what you want to say, but who you want to watch, know, and hear speak.

Leanne Gregory:

To me, the method that works when beginning a story or poem is to become that story or poem. By that I mean, act it out. Whether out loud, or inside your head, find someplace you can be alone and let yourself meditate on what you want the story to say. What the characters look like, and act like. The sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of your world. Imagine it all. Make sure to have a recorder or notebook nearby to record what you discover as well.

Jamie Yourdon:

Every story teaches the reader how to read it. It begins: “I am happy,” or “I am sad.” I am happy and sad. I am the first, second, or third person. I’m an anecdote. I’m argot. I am not to be trusted. I am in conversation with all the stories that came before me, the ones you read in college or huddled under the covers. I am a new old story and you are your new old self—you, the reader. We are bound by this sentence, and the next, and the next. So let’s begin.

Zane Ross:

Any of my work, my stories or my poems, always start with a single idea. I could be sitting at my desk eating lunch and then a lyric will pop into my head or a vaguely defined premise like “techno wizards from Mars.” Although that example sounds completely awful that’s kind of how it is. Even the worst ideas can turn into great ones. So I will pull out my laptop and start typing up a story based on that small thing, not always intending on it being good. The first thing I write isn’t meant to be read by others, but it is meant to establish my characters and my world for me. When you first start you don’t know either of them. You haven’t been to this world or you haven’t met these characters yet. That short story, just for me, is how I understand what they are about.

Ben Tanzer:

It begins with an idea. Or maybe it starts with a theme, family, small towns, marriage. You muse on that theme. You wait for associations. Incidents from your childhood. A story a friend told you. A dream or fantasy. You make a list of these associations. You have associations with the associations. You write them down. The list gets messy. You stare at the list, certain ideas start to take form and leap from the page. You grab hold of them. You put pen to paper. You’ve begun.

 

I’d like to thank the writers who shared with us in this month’s Penned! I hope these responses help with putting your pen to some paper. (Don’t forget, Sea Salt submissions are open!)

See ya next month!

 

Interviewees:

Tyler Barton is a cofounder of FEAR NO LIT and an intern for Sundress Publications. His stories have been published in Midwestern Gothic, Split Lip Mag, Hobart, and NANO Fiction. Find him at tsbarton.com. Follow him @goftyler.

Leanne Gregory is a student at the University of the Cumberlands. She has been writing since the sixth grade, and she was a member of her high school’s writing club for three years. She loves to write in the fictional genre of fantasy, specifically medieval settings, but has recently been trying to expand her writings into the realm of science fiction, as well.

Jamie Yourdon, a freelance editor and technical expert, received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Underneath the Juniper Tree, and Chicago Literati, and he has contributed essays and interviews to Booktrib. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Froelich’s Ladder (Forest Avenue, 2016) is his debut novel. He has been writing for 27 years, always and only literary fiction.

Zane Ross is a junior at University of the Cumberlands and an English major with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in Journalism. He started writing when he was young, writing his own Goosebumps-like stories in 5th grade. He played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons in high school, so he contributes a lot of his practice in writing to those nerdtastic years. He is a fiction writer by trade and focuses mainly on the genres of Fantasy, Mystery and Horror. His writing is very focused on entertaining readers. He also write for the UC Patriot, his university’s school newspaper.

Ben Tanzer is the author of the  book Be Cool – a memoir (sort of), among others. He also oversees the lifestyle empire This Blog Will Change Your Life and frequently speaks on the topics of messaging, framing, social media, blogging, fiction, essay writing and independent publishing. He has been writing for 18 years, a mix of fiction and personal essay.

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December – Penned: Interviews with Writers

Our Encounters with Nature issue has finally been released! If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can do so here. Each of the editors has worked hard combing through submissions, perfecting the mechanics of each piece, and stringing together the parts of the whole.

Readers and submitters don’t normally get the chance to hear from the shadowy figures who construct the lit mag. So, this month, I thought it would be nice to give the readers a glimpse of the women behind the mask and to give The Drowning Gull’s own some well-deserved recognition.

The December theme: A writer who inspires you.

Shonavee:

I know there will be some serious eye rolls when I say this, but the writer who inspires me more than anyone is Stephen King. I first discovered King when I was 11 and borrowed Misery from the school library. The thing that I love most about Stephen King, is his fearlessness and commitment. He’s written what he knows, which is unquestionably horror, but he has never limited himself to that. Hearts in Atlantis was an artistic masterpiece, his short stories are as satisfying as his novels, and his fantasy was a hit or a major miss depending on who you talk to. No matter what, he will always write the story he believes in and he will sit down every day to do it. Fearless. Committed. Everything a writer should aim to be.

Tiegan:

Anyone who follows me on social media would know that my favourite writer would have to be Brenda Shaughnessy, a poet living in Verona, New Jersey. She’s the author of ‘Interior with Sudden Joy,’ ‘Human Dark With Sugar,’ ‘Our Andromeda’, and my favourite of favourites, ‘So Much Synth’. I first came across Brenda when I searched online for poetry books that could begin my collection of poetry. (I was predominantly a fiction reader, back then, but wrote quite a bit of poetry; I wanted to learn what all the popular contemporary poets were up to so I could master it.) “Our Andromeda” popped up on Google, and it piqued my interest, so I got it. That made me fall in love with Brenda’s poetry– and consequently, purchase her earlier collections and watch out for forthcoming ones. I loved– LOVE– the sounds her words create when strung together into eloquent sentences. Some of the sentences in particular became like mantras I memorised for personal use (self-empowerment, etc). Brenda’s poems are empowering, inspiring, enlightening, heartbreaking… All those emotion-related adjectives that, when used by an author’s readers to describe their work, mean the poems did exactly what they were meant to do.

Rebecca:

It’s hard to pick one writer that inspires me, but I am struck over and over again by Italo Calvino’s work each time I read him. He has no formula for his novels — each is unique, a world unto its own, and each book reads completely differently. I love that he gives himself so much room to experiment with form and structure, and I hope to emulate that kind of whimsical dedication to experimentation in my own work. I love how he questions and redefines what a novel can be, and I love the magic that is present in each of his stories. He really gives himself room to play.

Katie:

Mark Z. Danielewski is my idol. One day, I plan to write a novel as trippy and awesome as his House of Leaves. His words mimic his story; physically and emotionally, he captures the essence of the novel in the mere placement of letters. I love how he does not adhere to structural standards (his words spiral and even transcend the page boundary) and, not only does he write outside of the box, he decimates that box completely. There are so many layers and secret messages in his novel. One can dig and dig and dig, always finding a new chunk of gold on which to latch. That’s the beauty of it: his tale is never-ending. In a sense, its layers make it immortal. Danielewski follows his heart, no mater the backlash or the consequence — that’s what I love about him. I want to be his level of fearless.

November – Penned: Interviews with Writers

In anticipation for the release of our second issue in December, for this month’s Penned, I interviewed a handful of well-known, established authors. Each of these authors have sold and written numerous novels, each of them using their talent to create an unforgettable and awe-filled atmosphere.

The question this month corroborates with the second issue’s theme, Encounters with Nature. This is what I asked these talented writers: “The Drowning Gull’s forthcoming issue strongly correlates with a writer’s or artist’s sense of place. How important is this sense of place to you in your own writing?”

 

Allan Frewin Jones:

On the page, I endlessly return to places I know – midsummer beaches – streets of childhood games – mountains seen on holiday – a park where the dog ran unleashed – a stone knife in a museum – an old house on a hill – a leaf-heavy Autumn tree – a window overlooking a garden – textures – smells – curves and lines and colours – these keep drawing me back and infiltrating my writing. Sometimes I am asked or inspired to create other worlds – but those beaches, those mountains, those windows, those gardens always come creeping in.

Ruth Ware:

Sense of place is enormously important to me in writing, and the initial seed of a book often comes from a place I’ve visited, or a sense of atmosphere stored away from long ago. People often talk about books being character led, but setting is to me almost as important – characters react very differently to the same events taking place in a sunny meadow or snowy midnight woods, and a book without a vivid setting is for me like a play taking place on an empty stage – it can still be wonderful, but we’re left wondering how much more wonderful might it have been with a memorable backdrop?

Pippa Goodhart:

When I wrote my first novel, A Dog Called Flow, over twenty years ago I knew the house and valley that the story was set in very well.  They are real.  That particular landscape plays its part in the story.  But so, even more so, does the almost Arctic mountain and river landscape in Finding Fortune.  In that story, Ida travels from Britain to Canada, across Canada, and then the perilous and dramatic journey into inhospitable wilderness of the Klondike as they search for gold.  And yet I’ve never done a step of that journey in real life; only in my imagination.  Different again are picture books such as forthcoming My Very Own Space where the story happens on a blank canvas, so with no landscape at all.  Every story has its own needs.

Jolina Petersheim:

When I was fourteen, our family was forced to leave our home my father had built, along with 365 acres, and I mourned that land more than the dwelling. This predilection permeates every aspect of my writing, and I believe a sense of place is a character, which sets the tone for the story and scenes. Every one of my novels has a rural setting, and I cannot imagine ever setting a story in a city, for it is the land that speaks to me: hardwood trees, freshwater springs, and rolling hills. Such beauty–and peace–is found here.

Jadie Jones:

A sense of place is one of the most important elements of a story, especially in regard to how characters relates to their surroundings. I see setting as the focusing lens of the story. Setting should impact a scene in a 360 degree sense. Example: if a character is sharing or receiving personal news in a crowded, noisy bar, how would he/she speak? What would make him/her hesitate or break up the conversation? If they were to receive/give the same news in a quiet, private setting, how would the feel of it change? The setting acts as a “silent” character.

Ernest Hebert:

I live in two places, the material world and a spirit realm in my head and heart. When they are in sync my life feels complete, and I am happy, which is why I choose to reside in the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire. I’ve collected images and stories of my region and its people in my mind and created the fictional town of Darby. Maybe its divine inspiration, or maybe only shit luck, but somehow Darby images transubstantiated into seven novels. I am grateful.

George Ella Lyon:

PLACE

I been placed

I been displaced

replaced

deplaced

& misplaced.

 

I been overplaced

underplaced

inplaced

& outplaced.

 

I been otherplaced

 

zigplaced

                            zagplaced

rigplaced

                            ragplaced

can’t-get-your-tongue-around-

the-letters-and-the-sound placed.

 

from depraved place

to you’ve-got-it-made place

 

from it’s-not-your-place-to

shout-in-my-face too

 

laced & maced

graced & disgraced

fail-placed

high-aced

 

I been mapped

Cumberland-Gapped

energy-sapped

& crap-zapped

 

I been first-placed

last-placed

inner looped

& outer-spaced

 

How come I’m still                                                                                                     missing?

 

Thank you for reading this month’s Penned. Be sure to check out some of the great novels written by the interviewees. The deadline for this themed issue is the end of this month, I hope to see your work! Happy writing!

 

 

Interviewees:

Allan Frewin Jones was born in London on the 30th April 1954 : Walpurgisnacht – “the most evil night of the year!!” When a teacher read Alan Garner’s THE WIERDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN to his primary school class, he was inspired to write – and hasn’t stopped since. Considered to be “good” at art. Also enjoys listening to and making music. Various clerical jobs followed school, to support writing, amateur music-making and other artistic habits. Wrote several fantasy books when they weren’t in favour with publishers. Went to Middlesex Poly for a Diploma of Higher Education, majoring in Fine Art. Started sending books off to publishers/literary agents. Was taken up by an Agent. Listened to advice and criticism. Re-wrote books. Re-presented books. Got his first book published in 1987. Went freelance as a writer November 1992. About 100 books published to date under several different names. Lives in Bexleyheath, KENT, England, with his wife, Claudia (German) and a cat called Lulu (English).

Ruth Ware grew up in Lewes, in Sussex and studied at Manchester University, before settling in North London. She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. Her début thriller In a Dark, Dark Wood and the follow-up The Woman in Cabin 10 were both Sunday Times top ten bestsellers in the UK, and New York Times top ten bestsellers in the US.  She is currently working hard on book three. Follow her on twitter at @ruthwarewriter. Find her on facebook as Ruth Ware Writer.

Pippa Goodhart has been writing children’s books for twenty-five years, with over a hundred books published.  Those books include prize-winning picture book You Choose, and the Winnie the Witch story books which she writes under the name of Laura Owen.  She lives near Cambridge, and divides work time between writing, working with children in schools, and teaching and critiquing those wanting to write for children.

Jolina Petersheim is the bestselling author of The Alliance, The Midwife and The Outcast, which Library Journal called “outstanding . . . fresh and inspirational” in a starred review and named one of the best books of 2013. Her writing has been featured in venues as varied as radio programs, nonfiction books, and numerous online and print publications such as Reader’s Digest, Writer’s Digest, and Today’s Christian Woman. Jolina and her husband share the same unique Amish and Mennonite heritage that originated in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, but now live in the mountains of Tennessee with their young daughters.

Georgia native Jadie Jones first began working for a horse farm at twelve years old, her love of horses matched only by her love of books. She went on to acquire a B.A. in equine business management, and worked for competitive horse farms along the east coast. The need to write followed wherever she went. She now lives with her family in Oregon’s Rogue River Valley. When she’s not working on a new project, she is either in the saddle or exploring the great outdoors with her children.

Ernest Hebert is  the author of eleven novels, and is best known for the Darby series, seven novels written between 1979 and 2014, about modern life in a fictional New Hampshire town as it transitions from relative rural poverty to being more upscale. Hebert attended Keene State College and is now a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. He is the recipient of three journalism awards from United Press International, the Hemingway Foundation cited his novel Dogs of March for excellence, and he has received the Sarah Josepha Hale Award for lifetime achievement by a New England author. “I have two identities as a writer. Part of me is a realist. I want my novels to be truthful to the real world as I have experienced it. But I’m also a dreamer. I believe in the life of the imagination.”

George Ella Lyon’s most recent books include Many-Storied House: Poems and Voices from the March on Washington, a collection of poetry for young adults, co-written with J. Patrick Lewis. A native of Harlan County, Kentucky, Lyon makes her living as a freelance writer and teacher based in Lexington. She currently serves as the state’s Poet Laureate (2015-2016).

October – Penned: Interviews with Writers

Writing eliminates the mask that an artist holds pressed to their skin. Writing frees a voice hidden within that reaches out through an artist’s hand – a hand holding a pen. That pen is a channel. Its inky words drip from a writer’s soul, blotting in heartbeats on a wrinkled page. That’s how a writer survives.

In case you missed last month’s Penned, various writers, emerging and established, respond to a themed question about their writing process. These writers showcase their passion, their determination, and their love for the written word – not just already on the page, but words they themselves have lovingly penned. Penned seeks to inspire writers, current and future, to unleash the capacity of shared experiences in this tumultuous wordy lifestyle, turning them into the lyrical.

The October theme: Why you first sent out for publication.

 

Steven Shields:

Like many writers, I first sent work out as a kind of gut-check, way back in 1976.  If somebody besides Mom liked it, I reasoned, maybe I was onto something.  And then I got my one and only acceptance for “Your Cats Look Like Taxi-Cabs to Me” from the now-defunct New Infinity Review.  It was another 25 years before I found the nerve to try again.

Chelsea Dingman:

Honestly, a friend of mine told me to. That’s the simple answer. He is a well-published poet and he believed that I’d have a better time applying to MFA programs if I had some knowledge as to how the publishing industry worked. He also believed my work was ready. Which is huge. We had taken a grad-level poetry workshop together and he has great editorial instincts. I know that those first poems that went out were terrible. But I learned to expect and appreciate rejection and how to push through it and not take it personally. I was surprised when I got my first acceptances, but in the way that poetry surprises me with its possibilities. When I send out, I’m reminded by a line of poetry by Gretchen Marquette from her poem, “Want:” I was satisfied, so long as it wasn’t impossible.

Stephanie Heit:

Because I was a dancer and performer. Charged by the moment of performance with audience as witness when air particles accelerated. Desire to shift the breath patterns of those watching. As a college freshman dance major, I didn’t hesitate to send off a poem to a submission call from the Movement Research Journal. I don’t remember the details of the piece I sent but do remember receiving a rejection.

Jessica Walsh:

I was a teenager in rural Michigan in the pre-internet era–I was lonely. Sending out my poetry was my flag, my message in a bottle, my sos. I wasn’t even sure the poetry world actually existed, but I knew I needed to find other seekers. I made a special order for Poet’s Market through the local newsstand/bookstore and began firing poetry flares.

Angela Mitchell:

As a child, I wrote letters. It was the age of pen pals and I had one in Canada, another in Australia. Later, I wrote to a woman living in a nursing home in Kansas. My grandfather found a balloon in a pasture, its string stuck in manure, and inside it was the woman’s address. I, a stranger, wrote to her, and she wrote back. Publication is the same, words sent out to strangers, words waiting for a response.

 

I’d like to thank all of this month’s participants! I hope you, writers, have enjoyed this month’s Penned. Be on the lookout for next month’s special edition of Penned, which will include well-known authors responding to a question relating to The Drowning Gull‘s Encounters with Nature issue!

Interviewees:

Steven Shields has written poems since a high school lit teacher offered extra credit for writing a sonnet cycle (which he wrote over a weekend, not knowing good ones take months or even years).  A move to Atlanta in 2001 led to steady publication and a book, “Daimonion Sonata,” along the way in 2005.  His day job is teaching communication coursework at the University of North Georgia. His poetry veers between formal and open forms; his prose includes prose poems, micro-fictions and lyric essays.

Chelsea Dingman has been writing off and on since she wrote a book of poetry for her fifth grade teacher. The last two years, she has been pursuing her MFA at the University of South Florida. Her first book won the National Poetry Series and is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press (2017).  Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.

Stephanie Heit is a poet and dancer who has written and moved interchangeably since childhood. She lives with bipolar disorder and is a member of the Olimpias, an international disability performance collective. Her debut poetry collection, The Color She Gave Gravity, was a Nightboat Poetry Prize finalist and is forthcoming from The Operating System in 2017. Her work most recently appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Typo, Streetnotes, Nerve Lantern, QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, and Spoon Knife Anthology.  https://independent.academia.edu/StephanieHeit.

Jessica L. Walsh has been writing poetry for over 20 years, but really kicked into high gear in the last decade. She has a PhD in English Literature from University of Iowa and teaches at Harper College. Her first book, How to Break My Neck, was recently published by ELJ. Her work can also be seen in journals like Midwestern Gothic, Tinderbox, The Fem, Whale Road, Ninth Letter online, and more. Visit her website at jessicalwalsh.com.

Angela Mitchell‘s stories have appeared in lColorado Review, New South, Carve, Midwestern Gothic, and others. Her story, “Animal Lovers,” was the winner of the 2009 Nelligan Prize from Colorado Review; it was given special mention in The Pushcart Prize XXXV, and listed as one of thirty “Distinguished Stories” in the inaugural issue of New Stories from the Midwest. She recently attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference as a Tennessee Williams Scholar. At work on her first novel and a collection of short stories, Mitchell is the director of the St. Louis Writers Workshop.

 

Penned: Interviews with Writers

As one of my favorite professors always says: “Most people want to have written, not to write.” I’m here to challenge this notion by interviewing a handful of writers currently on a writing and publishing excursion. These writers showcase their passion, their determination, and their love for the written word – not just words already on the page, but words they themselves have lovingly penned.

Each month, various writers will respond to a themed question about their writing process, whether it covers their love of writing or their responses to writer’s block, and anything else in between. Penned aims to inspire writers, established and emerging, by bringing forth experiences from this tumultuous wordy lifestyle, and turning them into the lyrical.

The September theme: Why you love to write.

 

Chelsea Dingman:

Since I was young, I’ve found writing to be a way to unlock the world around me. Whatever mysteries or conflicts I’m compelled to respond to, large or small, writing is a way to hold those moments like snow globes in my head and turn them until I see something unexpected. It’s the unexpected that ends up on the page. I love to be surprised. With poetry, it’s often the language that surprises more than anything else and I find that thrilling. The way language can be twisted and wrought in a way that I’ve never seen before is why I read poetry. The thrill of pushing the boundaries of language in poetry is why I write it.

Sarah Rainous:

I write to reclaim Imagination that Reality has hidden. I write to fight – for relationships, courage, love, logic, and surrender – and to calm things when the fight gets too stormy. I write because I’m no good at art, yet my hands itch to create. I write because life is both horrible and beautiful, but most people only see one or the other.

That is why I write. But why do I love it?

I choose to.

Martha West:

Writing allows me to express myself in a way that I could not otherwise. Writing dares me to dream beyond my wildest imagination, to do more than I could ever accomplish in the real world. Writing tells me to be the one to slay the dragon, to be the heroine that the world needs. Writing challenges me to look deep inside myself, to discover who I really am. And if somehow through my own words I can encourage just one child to have faith and stand up while humankind simply looks on, then I have given the greatest gift that anyone can offer.

Andee Schuck:

If stranded on a deserted island and could only bring three things with me, I’d choose a notebook, an ink pen, and a copy of Don Quixote. I’ve always had a love for writing. It seems cliché to say, but for as long as I can remember I have been more or less scribbling words on paper. I didn’t always know what I was doing, of course, I didn’t know I was translating the world around me into my own language. I just liked how the words looked and made me feel, and the passion has never left me.

Jessica Walsh:

Writing is another dimension, a parallel universe from which I can gaze, impossibly, on what constitutes this thing known as me. I become a theoretical physicist observing the unobservable, positing ideas that can never be objectively tested because they exist outside any tests available. Writing stops time but helps me survive what happens when the clock starts again.

Steven Shields:

I spent many years working as an all-night radio announcer and so I often think of poetry as being on a sort of “frequency” or “channel” that whispers away through the static and roar of our individual preoccupations.  It’s there if we can only tune in to hear it.  For me, the love comes when the message bursts suddenly through loud and clear, chanting, chanting. And it’s never what I was expecting.

 

I’d like to thank all of this month’s participants! I hope you, writers, have enjoyed this month’s Penned. I look forward to engaging in the lyrical next month!

 

Interviewees:

Chelsea Dingman has been writing off and on since she wrote a book of poetry for her fifth grade teacher. The last two years, she has been pursuing her MFA at the University of South Florida. Her first book won the National Poetry Series and is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press (2017).  Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.

Sarah Rainous spent every morning as a child drawing and/or writing at her family’s “Little Red Table” before toddling into the kitchen for breakfast. She has tried her hand at writing novellas, short stories, poetry, and songs. Sarah will (ecstatically) receive her degree in English this May from a small, sweet tea-drinking, fried food-eating, Jesus-loving university in Kentucky. The university’s literary journal, Pensworth, published one of Sarah’s short nonfiction pieces, “Make Believe,” in 2015.

Martha West has been writing since she had penned her first story about a young girl befriending a lonely ghost at the age of ten. She has since then written many other stories, and is now pursuing an English Degree at a liberal arts college. Her favorite stories to compose and share are creative fiction, dealing with outsiders struggling to find their place in their world.

Andee Schuck is a redhead from northern Iowa but studies English and history at a small liberal arts college in the southern United States. As her writing has matured, her favorite pieces to write are satire and poems, some of which appear in her university’s literary journal, Pensworth.

Jessica L. Walsh has been writing poetry for over 20 years, but really kicked into high gear in the last decade. She has a PhD in English Literature from University of Iowa and teaches at Harper College. Her first book, How to Break My Neck, was recently published by ELJ. Her work can also be seen in journals like Midwestern Gothic, Tinderbox, The Fem, Whale Road, Ninth Letter online, and more. Visit her website at jessicalwalsh.com.

Steven Shields has written poems since a high school lit teacher offered extra credit for writing a sonnet cycle (which he wrote over a weekend, not knowing good ones take months or even years).  A move to Atlanta in 2001 led to steady publication and a book, “Daimonion Sonata,” along the way in 2005.  His day job is teaching communication coursework at the University of North Georgia. His poetry veers between formal and open forms; his prose includes prose poems, micro-fictions and lyric essays.

Katie Dunne: Managing Editor

I’m excited to announce that Katie Dunne is The Drowning Gull’s new Managing Editor!

Katelyn Dunne is a student at a small liberal arts college in a quiet town nestled within the Kentucky mountains. She is in the process of earning her degree in English, with emphases in Creative Writing and Literary Studies, while also studying Business Administration and Psychology. Although her college journey has taken her to a place encapsulated by nature, she is a native-Chicagoan, taking much pride in their towering architecture, vast vegetarian eateries, and their “lovable losers,” the Cubs.

Katelyn has been published in the journal Pensworth, current and forthcoming, and also serves as Pensworth’s student editor. She has won a scholarship for excellence in English, and is a two-time winner of her university’s Creative Writing Award. Writing is her passion, only paralleled by her love of editing. She strives to help fellow writers strengthen their craft and unleash the true beauty of writing.

Katelyn is a self-proclaimed glitter enthusiast who believes fully in the powerful magic of fairies, pixie dust, and, most of all, love. She feels most at home while attending Catholic Mass or writing lyrical creative nonfiction flash stories. She is looking forward to being the Managing Editor of The Drowning Gull and partaking in this newly-created magic!

What sort of work are you hoping to see submitted to The Drowning Gull? 

The more postmodern, the better! The Drowning Gull is already calling for the weird, the quirky, the out-of-the-box. I’m hoping to remove the lines of that box altogether. I’m looking for the mystical, the magical, the interwoven stories within stories within stories. I’d love to see stories that come alive and speak to the reader, both literally and metaphorically. I want to read a piece and be thoroughly confused, but completely satisfied, as if I had just experienced the impossible. I want pieces that wander aimlessly through time, with no end in sight, but somehow manage to come across beauty everlasting. I want stories that make you question what you just read, and leave you voraciously craving more. I want to be enthralled by the magic of the written word.

I believe that half the story is told through the structure itself. Bring on the shape poems, the quadruple-layered stories, the crooked words. I want all of that in The Drowning Gull. Structure is where the magic unfolds. The devil is in those details, and I want to see some black magic!

I want to be dazzled. I want to say to myself, “Wow, what in the world just happened? I love it!”