A CHRONOLOGY OF QUESTIONS FROM STUDENTS OF ALL AGES


Many publishing writers get asked for interviews by students from middle school, high school, and college classes. The students might be asked to find a writer they identify with and find out what makes them tick--learn something about the writing process by striking up a relationship with that writer, at least get an interview. One of the best packages of student questions was from Jessica. She was one of 18 students in 1999 who had a list of questions for me either thru realMail, email, phone, or (three) in person.

I often want to kick myself for not filing my answers away in a folder for the next student so that I don't have to think it all through again. But, my answers would probably be different whatever day I answered and rethinking these topics is undoubtedly more useful for me than it is for students merely doing homework or going for extra credit. However, I've decided to share my responses to Jessica since a couple of teacher friends who saw this response shared it with their classes. And I've decided to add to it now and then, when I get another set of questions that are a bit different. Students on assignments should read carefully because some questions and answers will be about me as "poet" and others will be about me an an "editor."

December 1999
In response to
Jessica Folger
Jackson High School
Canton, Ohio
A few weeks before the millenium.


1. Is writing your main profession or is it something you do in your free time?

Poet is my title and the following is my job description:
Spend 100% of my time observing the relationships between all things living and seemingly not,regardless of what else I am doing.

Capture in mid-air those flashes of perception unlike anything I've heard out of the mouths or pens of others and get it down before it's gone.

Go TOO FAR in my assertions that one thing is another and extend those metaphors logically but not traditionally.

Re-color re-measure re-assess re-name re-do the world in language chunks made of words that have never danced together before.

Brave the wild ride of vocabulary that might only speak to a few but those few could build a church or a university on those notions.

Relish being strange, weird. Celebrate wrong answers; sometimes wrong answers reflect the most creative thinking.

Write about everything and all the time but don't expect anything to be any good just go WOW when it is and then revise.

Revise again. One more time. Several more times. Learn to love revision.

When IRS, slick magazine surveys, and family say, "Well, yes, but what do you really do?" when you answer "Poet" to their initial question, "What is your occupation?" just count to ten and answer "What part of Poet don't you understand?"

Yes, writing is my main profession and as far as free time there are two ways of looking at it. I have absolutely no free time ever, or, I have nothing but free time. I'm free to decide how I spend all of my time. Everyone is. So, thank the cosmos for 24 hours of free time a day in which: --I don't HAVE to eat. I can keep on writing about world hunger, my neighbor's career, The Seinfeld Syndrome, or the three-legged albino squirrel out my window;

--It isn't REQUIRED that I sleep during normal hours when humans sleep;

--It isn't necessary that I buy groceries today just because we're out of milk;

--I needn't answer the phone just because it rings.

A poet is the Great Cosmic Fisher with infinite supply of bait, line, waders, reel, net, shore and boat. It is my karma to fish around. All careers have their metaphors in mine. I am also the garbage collector, the TV sitcom producer, the Yankees' waterboy, the mechanic, the farmer, and and the turn-key at the county jail. If you don't know what I mean by this, you might sooner or later. My job description goes on but you get the idea.

2. When did you discover you like to write?
Was there something or someone that triggered your desire?

I was probably about 4 years old when I used a bobby-pin to carve a beautiful letter A in the middle of my mother's antique Duncan Fiffe mahogany drop leaf table. I was proud of it and the valuable table was an appropriate frame for such a beautiful letter. For at least a year I stared with pride at such a great gift to the family household even after the spanking I got the day I did it. I loved the physical activity of writing early on. When learning cursive writing in second grade and being told to make a line of upper case Ls I'd make a pageful instead. If it had anything to do with writing I'd do 10 times more than expected.

Today I call writing a "dance of hands". I did well in school in English and writing-related work and not so well in math, well, downright terrible in math. My mother was a scholar and read to me when she was carrying me in the womb and from the time I was a newborn baby. She was way ahead of her time knowing that an unborn child absorbs the sounds and nuances of language. I published poetry in my Eastmoor High School magazine and it was dreadful but that's okay, it keeps me kind of humble yet today. Well, not very humble, but somewhat. Well, I can have moments of humility. Okay so it doesn't make me humble! It should though.

My mother, Maryanna Miller, worked closely with me on school projects and explained the deeper images in great literature and took pains to point out the subtleties in Shakespeare's work, his puns and ironies, double and triple meanings. I soaked it up. Got high on figuring out the riddles and mysteries tucked slightly away in good writing. I noticed that the most interesting writers left a great deal for me to figure out.

3. Are there any people or events that have influenced your writing?

Direct influence, my mother. Other than that, absolutely everything else. A serious writer must enjoy becoming vulnerable, that is, allowing oneself TO BE influenced. Everything we come to believe, know, write is afterall really nothing totally new--it all came from influence. The list is vast:

A. Publishing in high school then having to look back at the embarrassment of that and making up for it. The even better poems by my classmates gave me something to try to compete with. Publishing too early as an adult. Poetry is the easiest thing in the world to get published if you don't care where you publish. My own risk-taking is a paradox of personal history, my own naivete and lessons following might be considered influences.

B. Paying for "master classes" and master critic's time by the hour meant admitting I had a great deal to learn. I have vivid memories of swallowing my pride when I was told a list of things that made this poem a far cry from "good". I've worked with Judson Jerome, David Ignatow, Mark Strand, William Stafford, Howard Nemerov and others. I enjoyed graduate poetry writing classes with Gordon Grigsby at Ohio State University.

C. More than anything I have been blessed with significant close friendships with writers who are a constant part of my life: my three closest friends. Sometimes we have even processed work in the same workshop spaces. Steve Abbott (professor at Columbus State Community College), Doug Swisher (screenwriter, coin & stamp dealer, and economist), Sandy Feen (high school English teacher and purveyor of antique ink wells along with me). All of them have astonishing accomplishments. These are the people I never get to see or hear from enough (even though sometimes it can be daily or many times a day) because they are so busy accomplishing the good they bring to the world and well I'm kind of busy too. These are the people I know are there and don't have to be with all the time but would be in a flash if the need arises. These are the people I send at least 1/3 of my strange ideas to and they say YES, GO FOR IT.

About 6 times a day Doug tells me what he suddenly thinks I could do to bring in money and about 6 times a day I have to remind him that I am not distracted by a perceived need to make money but his creativity and flamboyant writing and mental energy is THE MOST amazing phenomena in my life and has been for over 25 years.

About once a day (on average) I either talk to or have email exchanges with Steve who is a close confidant. He has amazing energy and an outrageous work and community volunteer schedule. We both attend--The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, which is a great influence in my life. It's a very artsy and justice-oriented arena of diverse beliefs. Right now I try not to bother Steve (Board President)or expect to hear from him as much as usual because he's engaged in crucial labor union activity at Columbus State Community College. We're always there for each other if need arises.

During the school year I probably talk with or see Sandy maybe only 20 times, or it will go in spurts. That school building and all its people just kind of suck her up and keep her there. Maybe that's good, I don't know. I probably have only 10 or so good friends who aren't writers. They tend to be people in social services or working for social justice and they influence my life in general and therefore my writing. One is highly involved in affordable housing and another is the other is head of our Mental Health Association.

The writer-friends I am in contact with frequently?--make quite a list. They are great influences. They email me, call in the middle of the night, one still writes letters, which intrinsicly I appreciate but nowadays it drive me nuts regardless! We connive, scheme projects and support, use each other as sounding boards, swap trade secrets, etc. They include but are not limited to (and mind you this is frequent): Robert Peters (one of the country's most outrageous critics, sometimes downright rude in his tell-it-like-it-is style), Michael Hathaway (editor of the Chiron Review), Roy Bentley (teaches at Denison University), Robert Miltner (professor at Kent State/Stark Campus), Susan Terris and CB Follett (editors of RUNE), Lyn Lifshin (America's most published poet), Vivian Shipley (editor of Connecticut Review), our panel for POETS GREATEST HITS, Deborah Grayson (national director of certification for poetry therapists), Sherry Reiter (renown poetry therapy pioneer), Charlie Rossiter (Chicago poet), John Bennett (in Washington, one of the fathers of underground publishing and owner of Vagabond Press), Julie Otten (an awesome writer whose book I'm publishing), James Gray (attorney and Vancouver Washington poet), Jane Elsdon (poet-in-the-schools in California), Karin Hurt (poet & sculptor in Arizona), David Chorlton (Phoenix artist and poet who teaches me about boundaries and borders), Ben Rader (northern Ohio school librarian and grand patron of Pudding House workshops), Gabe Smith (Minneapolis writer and justice worker), Linda Long (Oregon poet and buyer of consultant hours from me re issues from homelessness early on to book publishing), Marg Hoskins (a Lamad Vavnic which I think I'm spelling right and I'll leave it to you to figure out what that is), Cathy Callaghan (linguist who "saved" Indian languages from extinction with her research/publishing of the Lake Miwok Dictionaries and others), and 50 or so others. A few of these people I don't communicate with as often but when we do that moment is everything and brings it all back, you know, why we appreciate each other, why we make ourselves available. From about half of these folks I get an equivalent of one email a day but often personal visits, phone calls, letters. From a couple of them it is one communication a year but I feel as close. THIS IS IMPORTANT: I tell you this so that you can feel the impact of how surrounded I am with writers and good friends all of whom have influenced me positively or I would not have continued to have them in my life. That's right! If they don't contribute to the common good, I kick them out!

Starting about 20 years ago I slowly started booting out every person who was somehow toxic. It is crucial to look that word up (again?), consider and reconsider what I mean by that, and do the same, Jessica. Toxic relationships can negatively influence you to be grumpy, distracted from your writing or whatever your passion is, can get in the way of figuring out your passion in the first place, or can manage to engage you in bad habits. They can keep you busy with THEM rather than with how you really need to contribute something "Jessica" to the world. I have no room for toxic relationships in my life. These people will just have to go elsewhere. So be careful. They might come to you next, they're on the prowl. They love to pull others down with them. Their laughter can fill a hall and be inTOXicating. They can be manipulative and artists at getting you to their houses, back streets, bars, meaningless clubs, costumes, dens, committees, projects, parties, or suffocating living rooms. Instead, I surround myself with writers who are either fully- or near-fully-actualized adults or on-their-way children, people who love to be of use, people who have a strong work ethic, and people who believe in social justice and the interdependent web of life. My friends are my friends because they influence me. They are my friends because I am a better person when they are around.

The person I have learned the most from is my husband, Jim (James) Bosveld who made me an expert on affordable housing and the necessity of it, who made me slow down now and then, who gives me a history lesson daily, who redefines spirituality just in the way he lives every day, who keeps on keeping on as they say, who shares the workload with me, who is an avid traveler, reader, dearest companion. We play perhaps three games of Scrabble a week, date each other (usually dinner and movies), and can't get enough legit theatre and concerts in our lives--we love them but they are a distraction from the rest we need in order to do the work we do. So we don't get to as many concerts and plays as we'd like. Of course, this response is continued in question number 10.

4. What kind of message do you want your writing to deliver? There are many messages.

One is "LOOSEN UP!" Don't sweat the small stuff; don't sweat the big stuff either. Have fun. Make sure your work is play because you're going to be doing a lot of it, or at least you should be in order to contribute to the common good.

Two. Never wait for something external to happen before you work on your projects, all of them, whatever they are. Write long before you have a damn thing to say; make writing breathing. Sooner or later you'll be brilliant and change somebody's life and most definitely your own.

Three. We live in an interdependent web of life with all things living and seemingly not connected in a significant way.

Do no harm.
Every day take at least one person's hand.
Every day tell at least five people something they did right.
Every day make a mental list of what you're grateful for.
Every day learn at least one new thing.
Every day change your mind about something.
Every day take one more step on seven little-to-major projects and no it doesn't count if you take five steps on one of them you still have six to go. There are a lot more messages than that but that'll do for now.

5. Does your writing focus on personal issues, every day issues, or both?

When I was younger my writing helped to define the world both near and far and I wrote about love, relationships, home, family, work. As I became a better writer (and all of that helped train me) I made poems of the stuff of my many occupations. I wasn't always earning my living as a poet/writer. In the past I was Executive Director of the Disaster Research Center; Executive Director of a comprehensive shelter for the homeless, Administrative Rules Liaison for the Ohio Dept. of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, Office Manager for the Writing Workshop in the English Department at Ohio State University, and I've been, honestly, about 70 other things, all very different from each other and almost all of those jobs allowed me to write on the job. And I stole time to write on the job. A writer just has to. I used each job as a window on the world. What is this world from the point of view of the entomologist, disaster expert, writing teacher, advocate for people with mental retardation, advocate for the homeless, advocate for people with mental illness, the rule writer, the seller of glass Santa ornaments two weeks before Christmas on Lazarus 6th floor (yes, I've done that too).

I wrote many poems about the homeless when I worked with them. I wrote many poems about disasters and pending disasters when I headed up the DRC. I wrote poems about insects and bees when I worked for the Cooperative Extension Service at Ohio State University and administrated the only correspondence course the university had--The Beekeeping Correspondence Course. I didn't know anything about bees but I was expected to become an expert of sorts and did. While at DRC I went into that job knowing nothing about tornadoes, hurricanes, and volcanoes, but I could read and literally became an expert overnight and appeared on Good Morning America my first week on the job, talking about chemical spills and community preparedness. But, well, when it comes down to it, I take all of that stuff very personally--you know, that interdependent web thing. So, yes, I focus on personal issues because I focus on the homeless; I focus on personal issues because I focus on disasters; I focus on personal issues because I focus on what Jessica Folger needs to make her report a sock-knocker-offer! I take it all personally. I take you very personally, Jessica. I want you to knock on my door at the old folks home 30 years from now and tell me I was an influence, that you started the day you received this to write a poem a day, or that the next time there was a television show on with Bill Moyer and the poets that you watched it and when you were 27 you went to a writers' conference and then you wrote that award-winning screenplay and did I see you at the Oscars?

6. Do you use a common theme throughout your writing or do your topics cover a variety of issues? If there is a theme, what is it?

No, I don't think you see as many same-topics in my writing as you do in the works of some others. I specialize in the popular culture but it's the broad popular culture. I'm insistent on getting brand names of the day in my writing whether I'm working on poetry, fiction, short short stories, my seldom-touched screenplay, or how-to and nonfiction. I want you to be able to read my work and feel like you're walking down the sidewalk when Cap Smither's uncle Darryl starts playin' his saxophone right there at the intersection of State Route 37 and U.S. 62 for no apparent reason. I want you to NEED to stop and talk to him and I want it to drive you nuts that you can't. It's only a story. But you don't know you can't because the way we shape the dialogue and the way we set the stage makes it all come so alive that you KNOW that it's real and no one can get the book out of your hands. You want to know my character so there's nothing you'd rather do in the world than read on. You miss the bus because you lost yourself in the world of Cap Smithers. Who's Cap? I don't know. Not yet.

7. What is your definition of poetry.

"A relatively little space of word art." --Jennifer Bosveld That's been my answer for 30 years and I'm stickin' to it. It isn't rhyme it isn't tone texture beat treatment subject or feel-good stuff. It's just a relatively little space of word art. And it pays attention to the, that's THE, word, each and every word. This is the question among all of your questions that has been asked the most and miss-answered the most and blabbed on about beyond my interest. I don't think it can be defined really. It's like asking "What is the definition of Jessica Folger?" She changes daily, don't box her in, she is every second a vibrant light on the world. And that is poetry too. Or can be.

8. What form of poetry do you use most often and why?

No particular style or form. Each poem, as it is writing itself, blimps up or shrivels down or freaks out to whatever ghastly or ghostly shape it needs to become what it must. If you ask a sculptor "how did you make that horse," he'll say he cut away everything that wasn't the horse. Ask me how I made that poem and I'll tell you that I cut away everything that wasn't the poem. It makes its own shape. Other poets will answer quite differently. They focus on sonnets or blank verse or shaped concrete poems. I'm a wild child.

9. Which of your poems do you like best and why?

Here is where I had to take a break, stopped writing. I programmed myself to sleep on this one. I often problem-solve in my sleep, in dreams, and awake with an answer. Most poets who are asked this (and we are all asked time and time again) say they don't have a favorite and I hate to admit to having something that seems so important in common with other poets. I don't have a favorite. I'll give you titles of some favorites and where they can be found:

"Good Things Come to Sisters Who Don't Wait", Prayers to Protest: Poems that Center & Bless Us, Pudding House Publications, 1998, $19.95

"Roads Home", Heaven Bone, 1999
"Open Windows", Prayers to Protest...
"Loving War", Negative Capability
"And So You Have Drawn Five Yellow Cards and Still Have Not Advanced, The Sun
"So Cool", forthcoming in Box Games

Many of my ekphrastic poems on the drawings of Edward Boccia which will appear in a book titled The Magic Fish with his work.

Some of my Virtual Journalism poems which can be found in Jazz Kills the Paperboy, a chapbook, $8.95 available from me.

And the "Jen's Poems: a Sampler" page on this website.

10. Who is your favorite writer or poet and why?

Wallace Stevens because he proves that everything and each thing is not as it appears. "Dry birds are fluttering in blue leaves; it is not the thing, but the version of the thing." See his poem "The Glass of Water". I'll soon base an entire workshop on that poem.

William Carlos Williams whose "The Red Wheelbarrow" needs to be visited again and again until you drive yourself far beyond the apparent simplicity of the thing, take a long and winding journey through and around it, and come back to the simplicity.

e e cummings, the king of punctuation and righted meaning and message flashpoint that entertains and informs.

Newer writers: Billy Collins, Doug Gray, Roy Bentley, David Chorlton, Philip Levine, Ron Moran, a dozen others.

Some of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and many of the other poets who have killed themselves because they lost themselves in the work and the mix of their writing and the magnifying glass that puts on a life, the revelations that are possible to find in what they say, and the warnings-by-example they are to not only write the bad times but to RIGHT the bad times by writing our way out of them which is something Sylvia Plath didn't know how to do.

There are some little-known poets who are among my favorites and they include:
David Chorlton, Phoenix Arizona, who writes of border, boundaries, the prisons we impose on ourselves and each other.

Jeanne Lohmann, Olympia Washington, a Quaker poet whose deep understanding of environmental issues and humans being part of nature informs me at every reading.

Daniel Mills, Oregon poet who writes from a deep ecology.

Rebecca Baggett who mixes her children and her sense of the world into some wonderful poems. One could invent a religion on Baggett's family life.

All four of these poets have work in the anthology I edited, Prayers to Protest: Poems that Center & Bless Us.


11. In your opinion, has writing changed with time? If you believe it has, what do you think are the reasons?

Walls have fallen all over the world. We are working without walls in business and industry, learning without walls in schools and universities, living without walls in penthouses and lofts. Ah, but you see metaphors are like statistics, there to be made and manipulated to your liking. Just because the Berlin Wall came down and poets and writers are mixing genre and style and breaking all the rules doesn't mean it will always be that way or that others don't still currently believe in certain rules for writing. I say I don't constrain myself with rules and that the increased teaching of freewriting and many other freeing aspects of the writing process today as taught originally by poets-in-the-schools have unleashed us from all bonds. At the same time there is a remarkable increase in practice and interest in writing in form, with a formal feeling. The nice thing right now is that you have the freedom to choose AND the likelihood of getting it published if it is really good. More women are published now. In some writing genre women had a hard time breaking in. And there is more writing about interpersonal issues, people baring their souls. And increasingly over the past 10 years there has been a growing array of absolute crap on the market. With the advent of desktop publishing absolutely anyone can type up a book and put it out there for the world to buy and most of what is in print really is CRAP, Jessica, and much of it downright bad for you and some of it downright evil. We are what we read. Publishing has changed even more than writing and that whole story is one of the scariest things happening in our world and is material for big books and not answers to students who have already been told ten times more than they ever wanted in the first place.


12. What has been your greatest accomplishment in your writing career?

Writing the largest compilation of writing exercises under one cover anywhere, the book, Topics for Getting in Touch: A Poetry Therapy Sourcebook, in its 45th printing, with over 50,000 copies now sold from a micro-press without industry distribution. This is the major reason I received The Pioneer Award from the National Association for Poetry Therapy in 1996.

The conceptualization and development of a poetry subgenre, virtual journalism, now sometimes referred to in the literature and demonstrated in my book Jazz Kills the Paperboy which has been used as required and/or recommended text in creative writing programs.

The first published use and coining of the term Applied Poetry (1980) and the massive number of essays and articles and programs I've published on its various aspects.

The making of a small collection of poems on parenting the reading and living-up-to I believe can change the world. The Pocket Poetry Parenting Guide thanks to the marvelous poets inside, will change the world.

The founding and growth of national and international profile for Pudding House Innovative Writers Program and the omni-dimensional nature of that business including education, publication, and respite not to mention the fact that I built a heaven on earth for myself and hopefully a healing space and learning place for others who come to hear and work with the many fine poets who lead events here.

The writing of myself into a healthy space as a writer and not one who would kill herself just because she's been divorced three times or because of the many challenges/obstacles life tosses in our face or across our path every day. The ability to separate the issues and go on with what is working and dump what is not--those are decisions I write my way through. The "making of the poet" which is a life-style that enhances the enjoyment of every little thing, every event, every moonscape, ice cream bar, or new CD by U2 (one of my favorite bands), much less the next Mary Oliver poem. The "therapy" I allow poetry and writing to be even through the years when the academic community thought that wasn't so cool. Staying with it and continuing to preach to the poetry therapists that they need to put the "art" of the poetry writing process first and that will lead the patient toward clarification. Having that start to pay off now, in recent years, and seeing the current big name poets get involved and getting to meet and work with some of them: Allen Ginsberg, David Whyte, Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton, Michael Dennis Browne, many others.


13. What are your future writing goals?


I have the following work in progress and I am constantly visiting the workbench on all these projects:

BOOKS

I'm writing some books. Here are the ones that will get finished:

POEM-MAKING: That Changes Everything!

A book of writing ideas and narratives about why certain aspects of the writing process can change the way you work, love, keep a home, entertain yourself and others, make a career, raise a child, etc. Essays, articles, exercises, sample poems with accompanying narrative. Why we must make poems in the schools, therapy/healing, human services, church, and at home. About 200pp book.

TOPICS: The Mega Compendium
Topics for Writing Workshops, Creative Writing Classes, and Self-Discovery--a massive inventory.
A greatly expanded version of the current "largest collection of writing exercises under one cover." About 300pp.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION

My poems that might take an alternative view. Me taking issue with certain common notions or practices. About 150pp.


ANTHOLOGIES

CAP CITY POETS: Poems and Poets from Columbus

One poem each representing current major movers and shakers in the poetry community of Central Ohio. Will also contain a short biography on each.


CHAPBOOKS

BOX GAMES
My poems written from board games, box games, parlor games--using instructions, game pieces and boards, and actual play to inspire poems. Many of these have been published in magazines and literary journals.


SCREENPLAY

GLORIOUS
A movie about a small town in Indiana that just shut down it's last glass factory after having had three of them until just 20 years ago. A dying family gives rise to a young man who reluctantly inherits a deteriorating family business after his father dies--the town bar with a broken neon sign with paint so faded you can't read the name on the sign. After the glass factory shuts down a few more people start to commiserate at the bar and the young man leads them through a re-invention of themselves and the entire community. It almost all takes place in the bar and focuses on their conversations in which they redefine words like "work" and "employment" and "pay". The community becomes well-supplied if not wealthy and healthy if not jet-setters because of how they work together (rather than through a typical and often short-lived big business manner) and the final scene is the relighting of the freshly painted sign on the front of this family-type bar. Glorious!


AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My life stories, probably in memoir-type chapters. This will be a book that proves the value of certain kinds of attitudes and life-choices.


BROADSIDE/POSTER

several


These are all my own works as a writer plus a couple of anthologies for which I tend to write lengthy introductions and make the selections regarding the poems we publish.

Additionally, I am publishing the works of others through Pudding House Publications and currently have about 400 titles in print, which you can see at our website at www.puddinghouse.com. Most of my individual poems are published by presses other than my own. And we shouldn't forget Pudding Magazine: The International Journal of Applied Poetry.

My books are for sale through Pudding House, through our website (by VISA or MC or check in the mail), from Amazon.com. However, you might be able to get our anthologies from a library through interlibrary loan. But I doubt it because I've done a terrible job of trying to get them placed in libraries. Most of my work sells when I give readings, lectures, and workshops all over the country. I don't like dealing with "the media monopoly" and big business and that's what most bookstores are now days. Macs Backs bookstore in Cleveland Heights at one time had some of my books but I don't know if they do now. My samples page on the website might be what best addresses your needs. Feel free to ask follow-up questions.

Friendliest wishes,
Jennifer Bosveld


_______________________________________________

January 2000 Hello! My name is Cynthia Lima and I am an undergraduate fiction writing student at Columbia College. I am doing a report and was wondering if you would answer a few questions. I am interested in finding out more about your press.

We have just started a new page on our website at www.puddinghouse.com called "Dear Jessica"--for students. I'm happy to take the time to answer student questions especially if we can post your email and my response on this new webpage.


What was the first book you published and why? [by someone else]

Minestrone by Fred Waage. Fred taught at Eastern Tennessee State University and might still. Minestrone won our first National Looking Glass Poetry Chapbook Competition around 1981. Our press is 20 years old in 2000 and started with our magazine, Pudding Magazine: The International Journal of Applied Poetry. We weren't into chapbooks immediately.


What is your editing process?

If you mean editing as in for the press including everything we're open to publishing/considering and from start to finish, here goes:
Open all mail every day; read all mail every day; thoughtfully consider all submissions every day; set aside all submissions that offer me anything at all interesting for another read-through when all other mail is read/answered that day. Go back through the "possibilities" pile that day, set aside any remaining "maybe"; read the maybe aloud with an open mind. Decide that day if I can use it or not. Get closure on each day's mail that day because we get so much mail that we don't dare let it pile up. Upon rare occasion there is s piece I'm not sure about, that I think might be of interest to one of the other editors here, mostly either Steve Abbott, Jim Bosveld, or Doug Swisher. Usually when that happens I'll run it past Jim first because he's right here at Pudding House every day. This happens for maybe one poem out of 5000. If I still don't know, I'll put it in Steve's mailbox for the next time he's here on-site. This happens for about one poem out of 20,000. Steve comes here on an average of about once a month. Pudding House is about 22 miles from where he lives in Columbus.

If you mean editing as in proofreading to actual substantive changes in the text: If I'm sure that a word isn't spelled correctly, I go ahead and change it. If I question, or if I want to suggest a substantive change, I mark the copy, send it to the author, and ask the author's opinion. Sometimes publication might depend on making those changes. Sometimes it doesn't. We are a very author-friendly press and go with the author's wishes if possible.

What common mistakes do you see in manuscripts?

Stilted dialogue
and speech patterns that don't ring true. Old fashioned "he said" "she replied" "he remarked" "she responded" tags on quotes/dialogue.

Cliches,
words that have always been used together. As bad,trite concepts to begin with. Even if you cleaned up other problems the underlying premise or story line would be trite or worn out.

Old stories and old ways of telling them.
If the poem/story takes place today, I want to feel surrounded by the stuff of today, the people, issues, names, places of today, or experience something fresh here. If it IS a story about an earlier time like Cider House Rules or Snow Falling on Cedars give me a new message--A major revelation on a subject we might have previously felt worn out about, as is the case in Cider House Rules. Or uncover a new story about something that hasn't been told well or enough in the first place, as is the case in Snow Falling on Cedars. If writing screenplays, poetry, and fiction forms for novels or short stories, take some risks in order to give us a brand new experience, as in Being John Malkovich. The biggest mistake writers make is not reading or exposing themselves to enough of other writers' works. If one hasn't read a great deal she is tempted to think her own thoughts are major revelations because they are to her. If you're a poet you should read massive amounts of contemporary work during the week while simultaneously and cyclicly going back to revisit the classics. Some writers complain today that there's "so much crap being published today." Well, there is, because there is MORE being published today period. This means there is also more good and even great stuff. One has to read more and work harder to find it because there IS so much. This isn't anything we should complain about; this is something to be grateful for. The poet should also read in every other medium as well because poetry is contained in them all. Poets and writers can only identify cliches if they know what's out there this year, last year, last decade, the century, and throughout the classics.

Not thoroughly reading/understanding the guidelines nor taking them seriously. Especially now with the internet and WWW more wanna-be writers are attempting the instant-gratification responses. I don't care WHO is publishing on the WWW, if they are only, or primarily, publishing there they are FOOLS and you can tell anyone I said so. All of that material WILL BE GONE sooner or later and probably sooner. Damn soon. Like yesterday. Do not send us emailed material (unless in direct response to a specific request for such) and when you send via realMail do not forget SASE with adequate postage for return of your work plus a couple of pieces of information from the publisher. No postcards. Not ever. You will not hear back from us.

The author hasn't taken time to get to know the publisher, or rather, the publication.
It is unbelievable how many novels I'm sent in a year, which is nothing but a waste of the author's time. We don't publish novels and nowhere in any of our listings do we say we want novels. So these writers waste all that time, copying, preparation, and send&return postage because they didn't thoroughly read our guidelines. What's really sad is when they go to all that effort and only enclose a postcard. They never hear back in response to that, perhaps, 200 page book and all that effort.

Do you prefer to work with agents or the authors themselves?

I will not work with agents at all. I insist on only 1-on-1 relationships with authors.


I know that you are busy, but I would appreciate any insight you could give me on how you and your staff runs the press. Please let me know if you are not willing to answer some or all of these questions. Thank you for your time.

Hope the above helps.
Jennifer Bosveld
Pudding House Publications.