Guest Posts

Please join me today in welcoming poet Matthew Thorburn, author of Dear Almost to the blog today.  I reviewed Matthew’s collection yesterday (my review) and was really touched by it.  Today Matthew is going to talk about his sideline in interviewing authors as part of his tour with Poetic Book Tours. Enjoy and please be sure to enter to win a copy of Matthew’s poetry collection for yourself.

Thanks so much to Peeking Between the Pages for inviting me to share a guest post as part of my Poetic Book Tour in support of my new book of poetry, Dear Almost. I’m excited to be here and to talk a bit about my sideline in interviewing authors, in response to your question:

In addition to being a poet and having a job in corporate communications, you also interview other writers for a monthly feature in Ploughshares. What’s it like being on the other side of the interview table and how does your experience as a poet and interviewee inform your question choices and preparation?

I started interviewing writers a few years ago—first on my own website, and now for the Ploughshares blog. (You can find all those interviews here and here.) I have to tell you, I love being on “the other side of the interviewing table,” as you put it, for several reasons.

Asking questions. When I really enjoy a book, I almost always have questions I’d love to ask the author. Why did she decide to write her novel from the daughter-in-law’s perspective? What kind of research did he do for those poems about 19th-century eye doctors? Her play makes me think of that story by Flannery O’Connor—did she have it in mind when she was writing? Not keep-you-up-all-night questions, it’s true, but things I’d wonder about and wish I could ask.

Having an excuse to reach out. Being an interviewer—even if only for my own personal website—is the perfect reason to reach out and talk to writers about their work. For instance, I loved reading John Gallaher’s book-length poem In A Landscape. Once I started it, I found it very hard to put down—and honestly, when was the last time I felt that way about a poetry book? Asking him some questions enriched my reading experience, giving me more insight into why I liked the book so much.

Helping books find readers—and vice versa. While personal curiosity was the initial spark, I also like having the chance to help good books reach a larger audience. And especially with poetry, I think books often need some word-of-mouth momentum to help them connect with readers. I occasionally write book reviews for much the same reason, but have found interviews are a more effective way for me to help shine some extra light on books I admire.

Getting in touch with other writers. I have to admit, wearing my interviewer’s hat is the perfect excuse to get in touch with writers I don’t know. Forging ties with these writers, even just via email, makes me feel like I’m part of the conversation, and makes the reading-writing world feel a little smaller to me.

After reading two knockout poems by Kerrin McCadden in American Poetry Review, I was thrilled to get in touch and have the chance to interview her about her debut collection, Landscape with Plywood Silhouettes. And one of my upcoming interviews for the Ploughshares blog is with Margaret Rhee. Her chapbook of poems, Radio Heart; or, How Robots Fall Out of Love, is surprising, strange, fascinating, beautiful, mysterious—really unlike anything else I’ve read lately. Talking about it with her was a real treat.

Being an active audience member. Writing is a solitary business. Whether we do our work at a computer or in a notebook, we usually do it alone. Once the writing is done, though, it’s a pleasure (for me, anyway) to share the work with other people, and sometimes even have the chance to talk with them about it. I like having the chance to start that conversation.

As a writer, I also enjoy answering questions about my own work. Earlier this year I was interviewed by Jessie Serfilipi for Pine Hills Review, for instance, and welcomed the chance to talk about my work and tell some of the stories behind my books. Especially when it comes to poems, which are often such brief, fleeting things, it can be helpful for readers to have some backstory and context in which to ground their reading experience.

Being an engaged reader. I hope that being a writer myself helps me ask better questions, or at least stay sensitive to the fact that time spent answering interview questions is time spent not writing. Most of all, though, I just try to approach my interviews as a thoughtful, engaged reader—someone who’s spent time with this particular writer’s work, who has gained something from it, and wants to give something back to it. I try to be the kind of reader I hope to find for my own writing.

About the Book

Dear Almost is a book-length poem addressed to an unborn child lost in miscarriage. Beginning with the hope and promise of springtime, the poet traces the course of a year with sections set in each of the four seasons. Part book of days, part meditative prayer, part travelogue, the poem details a would-be father’s wanderings through the figurative landscapes of memory and imagination as well as the literal landscapes of the Bronx, Shanghai, suburban New Jersey, and the Japanese island of Miyajima.

As the speaker navigates his days, he attempts to show his unborn daughter “what life is like / here where you ought to be / with us, but aren’t.” His experiences recall other deaths and uncover the different ways we remember and forget. Grief forces him to consider a question he never imagined asking: how do you mourn for someone you loved but never truly knew, never met or saw? In candid, meditative verse, Dear Almost seeks to resolve this painful question, honoring the memory of a child who both was and wasn’t there.

Praise for Dear Almost

“Like a modern-day Basho, Matthew Thorburn travels on a year-long journey through grief over the ‘almost girl’ he and his wife lose to miscarriage. Here, in artful, haibun-like free verse, the timely and timeless merge: geese are sucked into an Airbus engine, forcing an emergency landing; the poet contemplates the moon as he carries out a bag of garbage in the Bronx. The result is clear, mysterious, original, and ultimately hope-filled. Dear Almost might be the truest poem about miscarriage I’ve ever read.” —Katrina Vandenberg, author of The Alphabet Not Unlike the World

“Matthew Thorburn’s Dear Almost is a meditation on our lives and their impermanence, the miracle that we exist at all. The ghost of an unborn child hovers like a breath over these supple lines, but Thorburn finds room for food and prayer, for work and love, for keen observation of the twin worlds we inhabit, the one inside us and the one where our daily lives take place. I am glad to have Dear Almost in both of these worlds.” —Al Maginnes, author of Music from Small Towns

“One poem written across seasons, Matthew Thorburn’s Dear Almost is an elegy for an unborn child written out of love, kindness, and ultimately hope. There is sadness everywhere here that lives among the dailiness of our lives at home, around the world, and at work. What a capacious gift this poet has for perception, keen observation, and the written word, but even more so, a great gift for understanding all of the tangled cross-stitching of the human heart.” —Victoria Chang, author of The Boss

About the Author

Matthew Thorburn is the author of six collections of poetry, including the book-length poem Dear Almost (Louisiana State University Press, 2016) and the chapbook A Green River in Spring(Autumn House Press, 2015), winner of the Coal Hill Review chapbook competition. His previous collections include This Time Tomorrow (Waywiser Press, 2013), Every Possible Blue (CW Books, 2012), Subject to Change, and an earlier chapbook, the long poem Disappears in the Rain (Parlor City Press, 2009). His work has been recognized with a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, as well as fellowships from the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. His interviews with writers appear on the Ploughshares blog as a monthly feature. He lives in New York City, where he works in corporate communications.

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GIVEAWAY – OPEN TO US & CANADIAN RESIDENTS
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*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter
Draw Date November 19/16

Source: All post information received from the author and tour company. Giveaway sponsored by the author. No compensation was received.

I’ve got a guest post for you today by Hassan El-Tayyab, author of Composing Temple Sunrise: Overcoming Writer’s Block at Burning Man.  He’s touring with Poetic Book Tours and today he’s talking about the differences and similarities in writing songs and writing a memoir. Enjoy…

I think my goal is the same for both my prose and songwriting. I want to hold my audience’s attention and communicate my message with clarity, passion, and emotion. Something I do with songwriting and prose writing is constantly asking why to every line during my editing process. Why is this line important? How does that advance the story? Could I phrase that in a more direct way? I think that is a universal goal for all writers. How am I impacting my audience? I believe you never want to give someone the opportunity to put down the book or stop listening to your song. A songwriter friend once told me, “If they turn off the song within the first 30 seconds, that’s the listener’s fault. If they turn it off after 30 seconds, then you’re at fault.” I interpret that to mean that you can’t help if someone does not like your particular genre. But if you don’t have your craft down, you can easily miss a chance to connect with the listener.

In both prose and songwriting, it’s all about the main idea and supporting details. What is it that you are trying to communicate and how do you support it? Using clear actions, images, and descriptions is something I always attempt to do when writing. I want people to feel like a movie is playing in their head or that they are in the scene I’m describing.

A major way these two mediums are different is that prose is way more tedious. It took me seven years to complete my book. That was from beginning to end, including research and the editing process. In that time, I had to learn how to write long-form narrative and learn about what makes a compelling memoir. Luckily, I had tremendous support from editors all through the process. I think there are usually more cooks in the kitchen with writing a book, be it your publisher, first readers, or editors. I worked with three different editors over the seven years it took to write Composing Temple Sunrise. And while I do get feedback on my tunes, songwriting is more of an isolated process for me. I have never really been into co-writing as I know many songwriters are. For me, writing a tune is very personal and private.

Another difference stems from the mediums being so different. You don’t have to be as concise in a memoir as you do in a song. I feel freer writing prose because there is plenty of space to keep going as long as the content is relevant to the story. You can take each chapter a hundred different directions and they could all work. When writing a song, you have three or so minutes to get your point across musically and lyrically. And those two elements have to blend together seamlessly. I see each of my tunes as a little puzzle that I’m trying to solve. On a good day, walking out my door is like a big treasure hunt for lyric and hook ideas.

What I think really helped me write the book is that I identify more as a songwriter than a memoirist. I learned to write through this book because I had a story to tell. Not the other way around. I think whenever you put a lot of pressure on yourself and tie your self-worth and identity into your art, it’s easy to get blocked. The process becomes very tied to your emotional state, which can fluctuate from day to day. I’m a lot harder on myself when writing songs.

While writing Composing Temple Sunrise, believe it or not, I had fun the whole time. There was rarely a moment during the seven-year writing process that left me in doubt about what to do next. The book in a way wrote itself. I had a very clear sense of my purpose. I actually loved the process of working with skilled editors that pushed me to do better as well. If only my songwriting process was like that! Often times, I used the book as an escape from the songwriting. I think the hardest part was the final edit to get the book ready for publishing. That to me was very stressful. And even though I labored over every word for such a long time, I still find mistakes. At a certain point, you just have to let go and let it be what it is.

About the Book

Composing Temple Sunrise is a coming-of-age memoir about a 26-year-old songwriter’s journey across America to find his lost muse.

Triggered by the Great Recession of 2008, Hassan El-Tayyab loses his special education teaching job in Boston and sets out on a cross-country adventure with a woman named Hope Rideout, determined to find his lost muse. His journey brings him to Berkeley, CA, where he befriends a female metal art collective constructing a 37-foot Burning Man art sculpture named “Fishbug.” What follows is a life-changing odyssey through Burning Man that helps Hassan harness his creative spirit, overcome his self-critic, confront his childhood trauma, and realize the healing power of musical expression.

In this candid, inspiring memoir, singer-songwriter Hassan El-Tayyab of the Bay Area’s American Nomad takes us deep into the heart of what it means to chase a creative dream.

After experiencing multiple losses (family, home, love, job, self-confidence) , El-Tayyab sets out on a transcontinental quest that eventually lands him in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. His vivid descriptions capture both the vast, surreal landscapes of the Burning Man festival and the hard practice of making art.

Other tour stops with Poetic Book Tours
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Advance Praise

“Going to Burning Man for the first time can be a powerful, life-changing experience. That’s particularly true when someone is involved with building a major art installation, and even more
so when that person is wrestling with personal demons and searching for a new life path…” –Steven T. Jones, How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping Author of The Tribes of Burning Man: the New American Counterculture

“Composing Temple Sunrise is both a page turning adventure and a road map for anyone struggling to forge their way.” –Faith Adiele, Author of Meeting Faith: An Inward Odyssey

Literary Nonfiction. Music. Arab American Studies. California Interest. “In this candid, inspiring memoir, singer-songwriter Hassan El-Tayyab of American Nomad takes us deep into the heart of what it means to chase a creative dream. After experiencing multiple losses (family, home, love, job, self- confidence), El-Tayyab sets out on a transcontinental quest that eventually lands him in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. His vivid descriptions, paired with artist’s renderings, capture both the vast, surreal landscapes of the Burning Man festival and the hard practice of art-making. Composing Temple Sunrise is both a page- turning adventure and a road map for anyone struggling to forge their way.”—Faith Adiele

About the Author

Hassan El-Tayyab is an award-winning singer/songwriter, author, teacher, and cultural activist currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. His critically acclaimed Americana act American Nomad performs regularly at festivals and venues up and down the West Coast and beyond and he teaches music in the Bay Area.

Source: Post information provided by the author and Poetic Book Tours. No compensation was received.