MAR Asks, Carrie Shipers Answers

Carrie Shipers

This latest contributor interview may go down in MAR history for being the only one to include a sentence like, “His biggest decision is whether to lick his rear end before or after he takes a nap.” But that kind of poetic insight is what we’re here for, folks. Enjoy this lively interview with Carrie Shipers, whose poem “How Sandbag Lives Up to His Name” appears in our Spring 2014 issue (Vol. XXXIV, Number 2). Carrie’s poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New England Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and other journals. She is the author of two chapbooks, Ghost-Writing (Pudding House, 2007) and Rescue Conditions (Slipstream, 2008), and a full-length collection, Ordinary Mourning (ABZ, 2010).

Quick! Summarize your story/poem/essay in 10 words or fewer.

My eleven-pound dog keeps me safe.

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

I’ve been in love with dictionary poems since being introduced to A. Van Jordan’s amazing collection M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A during my MFA program. Unfortunately, as much as I love those kinds of poems, I’m actually pretty terrible at writing them. One of my challenges with “Sandbag” was to let the dictionary definitions do their work without my over-explaining or simply repeating them. As I revised the poem, I trimmed as much as I could from the non-dictionary parts of the poem and tried to trust the juxtaposition between the authoritative voice of the dictionary and the more searching voice of the speaker.

What was the worst/best feedback you received on this piece?

One of the first times I sent this poem out into the world, an editor wrote on the rejection slip, “Of these, Sandbag shows the most promise.” On one hand, I was thrilled to get a personal note of any kind because I know how busy editors are. On the other hand, I kept thinking, “Of course Sandbag shows the most promise! He’s a dog! His biggest decision is whether to lick his rear end before or after he takes a nap.” (Sadly, these are exactly the kinds of arguments I have in my head with editors, even when I know they’re right.)

You’re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?

Since I’m currently writing a series of poems about professional wrestling, I really hope no one asks me this question. I’d hate to knock over the potato salad while demonstrating some of my best wrestling moves.

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

This might sound silly, but I’d been submitting to 5 AM for a decade and always got rejected, although sometimes I received an encouraging note. About a year ago, my poem “A Bed of Grass and Stolen Hay” appeared in the magazine’s last issue before its current hiatus. I really hope the magazine eventually continues publication, but I’m thrilled I finally made it in there.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does involve writing.

My writing brain works best in the early morning hours, which means I’m usually at my desk by 5:30 or so. In the four years since my husband and I adopted Sandbag, he’s been sitting on my lap while I constructed most of my first drafts, including this one.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue?

I’m totally in love with Janet Smith’s poem “To Do List.” Every time I read it I’m reminded how often we seem to make choices designed to make us miserable rather than happy, and how easy it becomes to justify these choices as necessary or responsible rather than seeing that they’re really inspired by fear. It’s easier to keep crossing items off our lists than to move through the world anticipating joy, even when the items on the list are making us actively unhappy. I especially admire these lines: “Decide it’s okay you never see / Prague. Work late for no reason. / Turn down the music. Keep your shoulders / hunched in case of unexpected attack.” Reading them reminds me to do the opposite, for which I’m grateful to their author.

Thanks for the interview, Carrie!

Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

Submit a Winter Wheat Workshop Proposal

Winter Wheat

We are now accepting workshop proposals for Winter Wheat: The Mid-American Review Festival of Writing, which will be held Nov. 13-15, 2014 on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Workshops are held Nov. 14-15.

Interested presenters may propose workshops in any area of creative writing, including but not limited to the craft of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry; publishing; revision; the writing process; and more. Each workshop is one hour and fifteen minutes long, and preference is given to workshops that include writing time for participants. The proposal deadline is Sept. 10.

Curious what type of workshop proposals we’ve accepted in the past? Here’s a sampling of several workshops held at Winter Wheat in 2013:

2013 Accepted Winter Wheat Workshops

“Whose Story Is It? Ethics in Creative Nonfiction” with Sarah White
Whose story is it to tell? You have a creative nonfiction piece you want to write, but it involves your mom, your spouse, your child, that crazy ex-girlfriend from high school…. Where do we draw the line? If it’s part of my experience, am I justified in sharing it? Let’s discuss the ethics of nonfiction.

“Haunted Places” with Catherine Carberry and Katrin Tschirgi
By exploring our past and collective memories, we see that haunted places provide a wealth of inspired stories and allow us to understand the intersection of past and present, living and dead.

“All Scenes Are Duels” with Brad Felver
In this session, we will examine ways to create and elongate tension in a scene. We will consider a few famous examples, discuss potential strategies, and then try our hands at infusing scenes with tension.

“Writing the Imaginary Landscape” with F. Daniel Rzicznek and Bryan Gatozzi
This exploratory workshop will offer suggestions and prompts for writers of all genres hoping to sharpen their senses of expanse and enclosure. Writers will come into closer contact with their physical and psychic surroundings while investigating the landscapes of memory and imagination.

“Poetry with Personality: Writing Persona and Character in Poetry” with Casey Nichols
This workshop will discuss the ways in which we write about people we know (or people we don’t), the challenges of writing from the perspective of a persona, and what our persona poems reveal about ourselves. Participants will spend time writing to create a strong persona or character of their own.

“Diagramming the City, the Experience, the Population of Butterflies: Using Maps and Cartography in Creative Writing” with Anne Valente
In this interactive session, we will discuss and test out using maps to enhance or even define creative work. Writers of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction alike can find innovative ways to use maps and cartography to diagram both tangible and intangible aspects of their creative writing.

Proposals can be accessed here. Please email your proposal to Abigail Cloud (clouda@bgsu.edu) and Laura Maylene Walter (lauwalt@bgsu.edu) by Sept. 10. If you prefer to submit your proposal via mail, please use the address below:

Mid-American Review
Department of English
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403

Good luck!

Join us Nov. 13-15 for Winter Wheat: The Mid-American Review Festival of Writing! Winter Wheat features dozens of panels focusing on publishing, craft, and technique for writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Keynote readers for 2014 include Sharona Muir, Anne Valente, Marcus Wicker, and Allison Joseph; Mid-American Review editors will also offer publishing insight.