MAR Asks, Andrea Witzke Slot Answers

Andrea Witzke Slot
Andrea Witzke Slot

Andrea Witzke Slot lives between London and Chicago. She writes poetry, fiction, essays, and academic work, and is particularly interested in the ways and means in which cultures, ideas, and genres intersect. She is author of the poetry collection To find a new beauty (Gold Wake Press, 2012), and her work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in such places as Spoon River Poetry Review, Southeast Review, Poetry East, Nimrod, Adirondack Review, Crab Orchard Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, while her academic work on poetry and social change has been included in books published by SUNY Press (2013) and Palgrave Macmillan (2014). She’s been a finalist, runner-up, and honorable mention in several recent writing awards, including Southeast Review’s Gearhart Poetry Prize, Black Lawrence Press’s Hudson Award for her second book of poetry, AROHO’s Clarissa Dalloway book prize for her first novel, and the 2014 Calvino Prize for her short fiction. Her website is: http://www.andreawitzkeslot.com.

Andrea’s prose poem, “Panoply,” was a finalist in the 2014 Fineline competition and appears in issue 35.1.

Quick! Summarize your piece in 10 words or fewer.

We’re all anatomical phenomena: slowly disappearing day by day.

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

“Panoply” is one of the twenty-odd prose poems in my recently finished novel The Cartography of Flesh: in the silence of Ella Mendelssohn. Each of the poems explores an aspect of the human anatomy, which in turn provides a kind of internal roadmap for the changes in the characters’ lives and relationships. I learned some amazing facts about the body as I did research for the poems, and was particularly fascinated to learn that we have fewer bones as adults (around 206) than we do the day we are born (between 300 and 350). Top this off with natural bone loss and the all-too-common problem of osteoporosis and we have the strange disappearing act of what it means to be human.

As to publishing these poems, though, I honestly didn’t know where they might belong. I was excited when I read MAR’s call for submissions to the Fineline competition and felt I might just be “coming home” to the type of work I love most. What a treat it was to learn one of my pieces was a finalist, and even more so to receive the latest issue in the mail, read so many amazing hybrid pieces in a collective format, and find my piece among so much work that I admire.

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

Thrilled! — both to hear I was a finalist and to hear about the offer of publication even before a winner was chosen. I love the poem that won the contest, too, and was delighted to be a part of the special feature of Fineline work.

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

A friend suggested that I take the prose poems out of my novel and consider including them in a separate body of work. Although I didn’t do as she suggested, and became even more strongly invested in the belief that the novel is what it is because of them, this friend made me realize that the poems might have what it takes to stand on their own. Maybe that is the best kind of advice: advice that makes you rethink, reposition, and/or recommit. And, in this case, maybe I did all three. I’m genuinely grateful for her words.

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

“It’s my full-time profession and my passion, and everything I do and plan is structured so that I have as much time as possible for it. Luckily, I have a family that is incredibly supportive of the crazy amount of energy I devote to it.” Depending on the relative, s/he might pour me a glass of wine and say, “Tell me more,” or s/he’ll ask, “So do you use your family for inspiration?” Either way, I’d take the glass of wine, probably sigh, and say something like, “It’s complicated.”

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

Completing the novel The Cartography of Flesh is probably what I’d call my “biggest writing success” (a phrase I use with some sense of caution). The novel has several voices, twenty-odd prose poems, and traditional narrative chapters, as well as the larger theme of resisting and rewriting the Penelope-in-waiting myth in a modern-day setting, but it was the process of revising the manuscript over several years that makes me feel it was my biggest success. The revision was complicated by the fact that I couldn’t shake the need to revise like a poet—word by word, line by line, passage by passage, page by page. It was exhausting work and only recently have I been able to say that the novel is “finished.” Happily, I’m now at work on the next novel, with the full benefits of first-novel hindsight. The equivalent in my poetry would be the nine-page poem of anti-violence “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” (a finalist in Southeast Review’s Gearhart Prize and just released in their latest issue), which also took an exceptional amount of time and energy to write, and, truth be told, is still a work in progress despite its recent publication.

This is Andrea’s dog, Macbeth, who just passed away on Jan 3. Macbeth was featured in Andrea’s bio for years and was a great fan of poetry all round. This photo was taken two days before he passed away.
This is Andrea’s dog, Macbeth, who passed away Jan 3. Macbeth was featured in Andrea’s bio for years and was a great fan of poetry all round.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

Not trying contests sooner. I know some people dismiss contests because of contest fees, but I believe contests serve several important roles in the current writing scene: they level the playing field by requiring anonymous submissions, they offer support to financially-starved small presses and magazines (who too often aren’t supported enough in terms of subscriptions and book sales by those submitting work), and they allow writers to test the waters with different genres to see which pieces gets noticed. Plus, there are often benefits even if you don’t win; some (MAR!) sometimes offer publication to participants or offer a year’s subscription to the journal in return for the contest fee. I strongly believe that we need to support the journals we love and the equivalent-of-a-subscription-price (or x cups of coffee) contest fee seems a fair enough deal to me. I guess the key is to be choosy about where you put your money so that you’re not randomly sending work (and money!) out without focus or understanding of the marketplace in which you’re engaging. (I have a budget that I stick to, which helps.) I hope, too, that one day someone will offer scholarships to help struggling writers who genuinely have no resources or tradeoffs that will help them subscribe to more journals, buy more poetry books, and enter such contests. After I changed my mind about contests (at the end of 2013), I found myself as runner-up, finalist, and honorable mention in nine contests in 2014. But, alas, still no win! J

Your biggest non-writing-related regret?

Not putting myself out there more. Do you remember the letter that Henry leaves for Clare in Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife? There were some great lines that I repeat to myself sometimes as if I wrote that letter to myself, namely, the lines “move through [the world] as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.” The fact is, I love staying home and working in a comfy, private bubble—the substance of most of my days now that I’m writing full time. But writers need to brave the world, too. That might sound surprising from someone who lives between two countries and has lived a number of different lives, loves teaching, and even loves people, but my natural instinct is to find time alone in the comfort of books and quiet familiar surroundings, and in the company of those who know me best.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

I love cheese nachos after yoga, which sometimes means munching nachos mid-morning. Do the nachos delete the good of my yoga practice? I’d like to think not. In fact, I’d like to think yoga and nachos are naturally simpatico. I know I’m not planning on giving up either any time soon.

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

Despite years of comfortably teaching in the classroom, I still get nervous before readings and sometimes want to turn the car (or my body) around and go home. Perhaps part of this stems from thinking that I should wait until I’m a “real” writer to participate in these things, a feeling I’m more likely to get when I’m actually writing, when I feel a piece is truly “finished,” or when I get a publication acceptance, which is, I’m happy to say, happening more and more frequently these days.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.

“To Be Left Without A City,” the Luis Garcia Montero piece translated by Alice McAdams. The prose poems are gorgeously haunting and I was particularly transfixed by III and VII. Such beautiful lines in both Spanish and English, and a very impressive translation.

Can you show us a photo of you holding your MAR contributor’s copy?

I’ve included this in the email – a photo my husband took last month as we were crossing the Thames on Putney Bridge in London on our way to meet some friends for dinner!

Andrea Witzke Slot2

Thanks, Andrea!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

MAR Asks, Luisa Caycedo-Kimura Answers

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura
Luisa Caycedo-Kimura

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura was the 2014 John K. Walsh Residency Fellow at the Anderson Center at Tower View, the 2014 Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Fellow at Ragdale, and a 2013 Robert Pinsky Global Fellow in Poetry. She holds an MFA from Boston University. Born in Colombia and raised in New York City, Luisa, a former attorney, left the legal profession to pursue her passion for writing. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Nashville Review, Jelly Bucket, FRIGG, PALABRA, Sunken Garden Poetry 1992-201 and elsewhere. She’s here today to discuss her poem, “Un Jardín en Tolima,” which appears in MAR 35.1, as well as regrets, insects, and more.

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

I was thrilled that MAR had chosen this specific poem. No other poem I’ve written takes me back to my childhood in Colombia quite as vividly as this one. I wanted to make sure that it found a great home.

What was the best feedback you received on this poem?

I wrote this poem while doing my MFA at Boston University. It was one of those poems that didn’t require many drafts. I gave the first two drafts to Louise Glück (one of my professors at the time) to review prior to our scheduled meeting. After reading them, she called and left a voicemail telling me how pleased she was. She thought both drafts were great. I can’t think of better praise than that.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

I wish I had allowed myself to focus on my writing sooner. As a Colombian-born immigrant and the seventh child of a poor family, I felt I had no business majoring in or writing English language literature. Things were different then. There was no Julia Alvarez or Sandra Cisneros to serve as role models. Also, studying literature and writing seemed like frivolous pursuits, so I went to law school. Of course, the problem is that I’m not conventional. I don’t belong to the tribe of lawyers or business people. Although lawyering was something I could do it well, I always felt like an outsider and an impostor. I am a creative writer. I breathe best among creative types.

Your biggest non-writing-related regret?

I had several law schools offer me full scholarships, but I turned them down and went to the school I liked best. While I don’t regret my education, I regret not having gotten it for free. I still owe on my student loans, and I’m not even practicing law.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

I love insects. Well, I don’t care for roaches, mosquitos, or flies. But praying mantises, cicadas, beetles, fireflies, etc. fascinate me. In fact, because of my fascination, my artist husband made for me a pendant with a fig beetle painted on it. It was a heart-felt birthday gift, and I wear it proudly.

Can you show us a photo of you holding your MAR contributor’s copy?

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura MARThanks, Luisa!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

MAR Asks, Emily Schulten Answers

Emiy Schulten
Emily Schulten

Emily Schulten is a poet from Bowling Green, Kentucky. She is the author of the collection Rest in Black Haw, poetry available from New Plains Press. Her poems appear widely in nationally recognized journals such as Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, New Orleans Review, Fifth Wednesday, North American ReviewSalamanderThe Los Angeles Review, and others. She’s here to today to talk about her poem, “Navigating the Afterlife (Book of the Dead),” which appears in MAR 35.1.

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

Attempting control over mortality despite its being a futile effort

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

“Navigating the Afterlife (Book of the Dead)” I wrote after my brother began dialysis and his search for a kidney donor. It has a counterpart, “Navigating the Afterlife (Burial Goods).” Both were written quickly and follow into the category of those rare instances in which a poem comes to the writer more crafted than not. In the end, I obsessed over line and image quite a bit but ultimately changed little. This poem uses one of the ancient Egyptian burial customs of funerary texts, books that were placed into the coffins and that included the spells necessary to resurrect the deceased. I hope it’s a nice vehicle to illustrate the human longing – even desperation – for immortality (or perhaps only the difficulty in letting go). I also hope it might lead to consideration of the various ways cultures sought immortality throughout history, juxtaposed with the ways of doing this in the modern day.

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

I was collaborating with a friend and fellow poet who was writing a poem based on his reading of “Navigating the Afterlife,” and he could not completely connect with its narrative. That is, he took away the mythology of the piece and its quirks, where I’d hoped it was clear that this poem is about the desperation of a man who knows the abandonment of a father through death and is facing being on the other side of this prospect. Many of us can relate to the frustration of a reader’s takeaway being different than that which we, as author, intended. Or worse – no takeaway at all.

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

A stronger closeness to Keats’s negative capability: particularly, those brief moments “without any irritable reaching,” that without the practice of my craft I’m quite certain I would not’ve developed.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

In connection with my previous response, my broadest regret is that there are still such a great deal of moments in which I remain incapable of comfort in “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts.” As a matter of fact, this applies to both writing-related and non-writing-related regrets.

Thanks for the interview, Emily!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

Pets with MAR: Salami Sandwich

Let’s give a catnip-filled welcome to Salami Sandwich, a kitty belonging to Ernie and Keats Czyzniejewski. Here’s Salami with issue 35.1!

salamiMAR-1Super secret insider info: Salami lives in the same household as MAR history — two former editor-in-chiefs, Mike Czyzniejewski (author, most recently, of I Will Love You For the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories) and Karen Craigo, MAR‘s nonfiction editor. (Check out her blog!) In the next issue of MAR (35.2), Karen and Mike participate in a special MAR editor roundtable discussion to celebrate the journal’s 35th anniversary. Don’t miss it!

Want to include your pet in this special Pets with MAR blog series? Simply send your photo, along with your pet’s name and any other relevant details, to mar@bgsu.edu.

MAR Asks, Nina Boutsikaris Answers

Nina Boutsikaris
Nina Boutsikaris

Nina Boutsikaris is a nonfiction MFA candidate at the University of Arizona, where she is the nonfiction editor of Sonora Review. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles ReviewPuerto del Sol, Hobart, Brevity, Booth, Phoebe, Spartan and elsewhere. Her short nonfiction piece, “What Doo-Wop Does” was a finalist in MAR’s 2014 Fineline competition and appears in issue 35.1. First line: “I loved that summer because of the Slovaks, eight sinewy dancers who came to live at a defunct farm up the road from my family’s house.”

Quick! Summarize “What Doo-Wop Does” in 10 words or fewer.

July brings heat, dancers and endings. I take it in.

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

This piece came out of one specific memory, one brief moment in deep summer when I caught my mother spying on my father. They were not divorced yet, but I think they were separated at the time on some kind of trial period. Or at least, she hadn’t moved out, but they were sleeping in separate beds and the boundaries of our family unit had begun to blur. I was on high alert to the changes. In a way, I have always sort of thought of my mother as this strong force of energy and will who had to leave my father because she was the one who needed a new life. But this memory pokes holes in my whole fantasy about both her and my father. I tried over explaining this, writing it in a more expository way, but in the end the version that made the most sense was mostly imagistic and fleeting, especially as told through the eyes of a child.

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

Someone told me I had to include more back-story about my parents’ relationship, but I think you get everything you need to know in this vignette. Sometimes less is more…right? Right??

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

I’m obsessed with loneliness, intimacy and power, whatever those things mean. I don’t know how else to talk about this but to tell it through things I witness or experience, things that really happened—meaning they both actually happened and deeply happened.

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

The opportunity to teach creative writing is probably the greatest writing gift I’ve ever received. Teaching has forced me to become a more eloquent and thoughtful editor and reader not just of others’ work but of my own as well. Every day I’m challenged to be an ambassador to the genre and that has to be one of the best ways to learn what awesome things are happening with nonfiction, what’s happening today and what’s happened in the past and why.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.

I adore Allison Adair’s “Letter to my Niece, in Silverton Colorado.” In this very short piece Adair makes gorgeous leaps of association with images and poetry that are so beautiful and tragic and wise. She is able to take us on a deep and cosmic journey in just a page. She writes, “I’m trying to say that the waves used to roll in, and then back out.” And I know exactly what she’s trying to say.

Thanks for the interview, Nina!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor