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Recently, I had the great pleasure to speak with Literary Titan about my writing path, what inspired me to write my latest poetry book, what I hope readers will take away from my work, and what I’m most recently working on.
Path of Discovery Interview at Literary Titan Clickety-Click!
Looking for a riveting read and a great holiday gift for the readers in your life? Copies of Does It Look Like Her? are available now at Amazon or for signed copies, check out my Write Path Productions Etsy page.
Thrilled to announce that my poem. “Legacy,” was published today in Dulcet! My poem is on page 44. The theme is “Moonglades: A Reflective Issue.”
It’s also a great joy to be publication twins with my talented friend, Terri McCord; check out her amazing poem, “the world turns pointillist,” on page 21!
Dulcet is open for submissions. Check out their theme calls and submission guidelines at: clickety-click.
Photo courtesy of Camille Brodard at Unsplash.com.
Splendid news! I’m excited that my craft article, “Build Better Beginnings: from Throat-Clearing to Motor-Running Fiction,” was published today as part of the WOW! Women on Writing Market Newsletter.
Also, check out the amazing interview with Paula Munier (by Donna Judith Essner), the literary markets actively seeking submissions of writing, and so many more literary resources to spark your writing.
I also had the chance to contribute two seasonal photos to the article, including this one.
Here’s a fun excerpt. “First drafts of narratives frequently gain momentum a few pages or a chapter in, but readers must be entertained from the start or else they don’t continue reading. Let’s take a few looks at some splendid, sure-fire ideas for building beginnings that reel in readers.
Don’t hold off. Want, want, want, immediately! Unmet desires and needs give the protagonist something to act on and to react against from the get-go. Instead of leading up slowly to the protagonist’s struggle, show the character already struggling in the first scene. Even better if they struggle from the first page.
Limit your number of characters in the first pages. A deeper dive into one character—rather than a slower, cocktail-party-style, round-robin introduction—gives your readers a chance to shadow your protagonist and to feel firmly situated into their life and limitations before meeting the entire cast of characters. It’s great to introduce the antagonist early, though, as pushback motivates the protagonist’s need to act.“
Read the rest at: the WOW! Market Newsletter. 🎃
Photos by yours truly. 🤗
Splendid news to share: two of my poems, “Yellow,” and “Listening to a Grandfather-Clock ASMR Recording after Reading a Short Poem by Lorine Niedecker” were just published in the latest issue of October Hill Magazine!
Check out the opening lines of “Yellow” below, and clickey-click on this link to read the two full poems at the issue, as well as the work of many talented fellow authors as well. Also, consider submitting your own work—they were wonderful to work with.
“Yellow”
today it feels exceptionally good
to use this yellow
marker, to draw it across
the lightly lined page,
just to run as heavy as possible a line
with the fine nib
pressed into the thinner gray line
to mark it off that I’ve already
answered early work emails, had
lunch, cleaned up after, organized
my desk, sorted through a stack of books
for donation, and it feels good, too,
to hover in the air above the page
to think about drawing a sun with wavy rays,
the petals of a sprightly daisy, a compact car
negotiating a curvy road, but then…
[continued at October Hill Magazine: clicky]
I recently had the joy of meeting fellow fictionist and flash writer Jason Brick for a delightful conversation we shared via messages about this art form we love.
Read on for a few excerpts of our lively conversation about flash fiction—including the coolest place Jason’s newsletter has gone and Jason’s bio. Then, check out his newsletter and submit your flash fiction.
Also, my In a Flash craft book from Vine Leaves Press is the perfect holiday gift for yourself and your writer friends for the upcoming holidays! Buy In a Flash! Writing & Publishing Dynamic Flash Prose by Melanie at: Vine Leaves Press website
or at: Amazon
Or, for signed copies, Melanie’s Etsy page
Without further ado, the discussion about flash fiction:
Q: What drew you to flash fiction?
Jason: It’s the variety. For the reader and the writer, you’re not committing to a long narrative, so you get to play with genres, styles, crossovers, characters, languages, tropes you otherwise wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pencil.
Melanie: Flash is super flexible—it combines the narrative and action elements of fiction with attention to poetic language. It’s also compact and helps writers learn compression (which I always need!), integrating language like dynamic verbs and precise imagery, which I find exciting.
Q: What makes flash special or stand out from other literary genres?
Jason: Sort of what I mentioned above. It’s super-short, so there’s more room for variety and creativity than with other lengths of fiction.
Melanie: It combines the best elements of fiction and poetry and yet brings its own special qualities to the table, including a variety of formats and styles.
Q: Tell us about your book in a sentence or two, as if it were a birthday present you were describing.
Jason: Flash in a Flash is just the coolest gift, because I get to open it twice a week! It’s a literary newsletter that puts a super short story - under 1,000 words - in my mailbox every Monday and Thursday! All kinds of genres. All kinds of styles.
And it gets better! I’m a writer, and they’re seeking submissions. So with a little luck I can have my own micro-stories get out into the world. They’re a paying market, too!
Melanie: Very cool. Always great to learn about writing markets, especially those which pay. My book, In a Flash, sizzles the pen and sparks a thunderstorm of dazzly new ideas that have never crossed your mind before and will continue to deliver awesome exercises and fabulous flash examples that you can return to again and again, at any season of your writing life ahead. You’ll want to keep it handy and gift a friend interested in the genre. 😊
Q: What’s the coolest or wackiest place(s) your book has been read OR where would you like your book to be read?
Jason: The easy answer is that many people tell me, because of the short time commitment, they keep and read their copy in the bathroom. Besides that, I compiled the first volume in the series while living in Malaysia, so I read several of the submissions while on a boat in a river in Borneo.
Melanie: Wow! Malaysia and a boat in Borneo—so awesome! My favorite place readers have told me my book has traveled is in a gift bag to encourage a friend who has hit writer’s block or who isn’t familiar yet with the joys of flash. Writers are incredibly supportive and kind friends, and I love hearing that my book resonated with a reader so much that they want to gift it to a friend.
Q: Does your book contain exercises for writers? If so, what’s your favorite one that you’d like to share now?
Jason: Not exactly, but anybody can submit…and there is no better writing exercise that finishing a story and submitting it.
Melanie: I love what you say about finishing a story and submitting it. Very encouraging! My book contains a bunch of exercises that writers can use on days when they’re not sure what to write and how to even begin. I love hearing that someone used my exercises to draft a story, submit it for publication, and subsequently received an acceptance letter.
Q: What’s your favorite flash story? Or a flash story that you remember reading and being excited about exploring more in your own writing?
Jason: As of this writing, my favorite remains “The Apocalypse According to Dogs” from my first anthology. It just tickles me.
Melanie: I look forward to checking out that story you mention. The first flash I remember reading and thinking about how amazing it was and wanting to explore more in my own writing was the one often attributed to Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” That just hits me in the gut. As a poet as well, the imagery just says it all. That so very much emotions could be contained in six short words is super inspiring and challenging. Every time I read it, I both get the chills AND want to write something that eloquent and that compact.
Bio:
Jason Brick is the skipper at Flash in a Flash, a biweekly newsletter delivering fiction to mailboxes all over the world. When not writing and editing, he travels, cooks, practices martial arts, and spoils his wife and two sons. He lives in Oregon.
Connect with Jason:
https://www.facebook.com/brickcommajason
Contact Jason: brickcommajason@gmail.com
Happy weekend, everyone!
Two quick updates: one, I’m delighted that more of my very fun conversation with talented poet and artist @gilliancourtneypoetry about my poetry and writing experiences was featured this week at @theporchswingpoetry on Instagram. Stop by to peruse and like the posts.
Subscribe to read more amazing content by talented authors (and some fresh poems from yours truly) in the near future! 🍂
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Check out my latest poetry book, Does It Look Like Her? Available now at Amazon or for signed copies, check out my Write Path Productions Etsy page.
I also wrote an amazing craft book called Poetry Power with tons of exercises and inspiration to keep your poetry pens moving; available through my awesome publisher, Vine Leaves Press.
#writeeveryday #ThePorchSwing #WomenPoets #PoetryCommunity #WomensVoices #CreativeExpression #SupportWomenWriters #PoetryJournal #Inspiration #WomenInArt #PoetryLove #WriteHer #FemaleVoices #CateAlicePoetry #IndiePoetry #poetryislife #poetryislove❤️❤️❤️ #poetryislove
Super excited that my article about exploring theme in poetry was published today at Women on Writing. Check it out! I’m also taking sign-ups for my fun class that begins on Friday, October 18th—more details below about that and my latest poetry book as well. Read on! 😊
3 Significant Ways to Explore Theme in Poetry
By Melanie Faith
First whirly-twirly leaf of the season. Photographed by yours truly. 😁💗
Poetry is an evocative, word-rich art. It’s compressed language that so often tells a much, much wider, deeper, bigger story about the human journey. Read on for three tips that will make discovering and deepening themes within this art form a motivating voyage for you as a writer and a meaningful experience for your readers as well.
Write a poem where an object expresses so much more than the sum of its parts. Think for a moment of the top two or three objects that have made a difference in your life. Maybe you still own them, or maybe you’ve lost them in a move or sold them years ago, like a first car. Maybe it’s a Christmas or birthday gift you still have that someone you love gave to you, or maybe it’s something you bought with your first or last paycheck from a job, Or perhaps it’s a commonplace item, like a pencil or pen, that has nonetheless figured prominently in your life in recent years. Describe the particulars of this object.
Poetry thrives on attention to imagery, with attention to detail. Our lives are terribly rushed, even on the “slow” days, and poetry encourages us both to slow down and to notice our world. Poetry also makes us feel gratitude for what we have and where we are in our lives at this very moment. Describing objects can be as short as a three-line haiku or a five-line tanka or as long as a sonnet or even an epic poem of many pages. Word count or style of poem is not nearly as important as being as vivid, visceral, and specific about the object and its meaning to you as possible. Write about the object as if either someone who has seen this fill-in-the-blank commonplace object a million times and even owns one can appreciate it at a whole new level, or as if someone who has never seen your unique object can intuit its worth and see it in their mind’s eye clearly. The object you choose—whether a pair of roller skates, say, or a key to your first car—will remind readers of their own experiences with roller skates or their first car. That magic connection between poet and reader shines through in object poems.
Write a persona poem. Just like fiction, poetry can be a container for speaking in another character’s voice. Just because a poem is written in first-person POV doesn’t mean it has to be from the lens of your own life experience. Wonderful poems have been written in first-person from the point of view of fictional characters, historical leaders, artists real or imagined, you name it. You can also write a persona poem from the perspective of a non-famous, everyday person. They can be set in ancient history, modern history, present-day, or even a future we’ve not reached yet. Science-fiction or fantasy poetry? Why not?! Persona poems allow the writer to explore character creation, historical or present or future time periods, the timeless struggles and joys of being human, setting, and so much more within a compact poem.
Many of the poems in my current collection, Does It Look Like Her? are persona poems from the POV of a painter and her young son; I’m neither a painter nor do I have a son. I found, though, while exploring my protagonist’s and her son’s lives, that through these characters I could say resonant things about being an artist, caregiver, and member of a family than I likely would have explored if writing from my own limited timeline. It’s often easier to tap into universal human experience through a character than relying solely on my own lens and experiences. Readers, too, often connect quite deeply with characters—it’s ingrained in us to put ourselves into the place of characters from the first reading we experience as small children who are being read to until we can read on our own.
Write a poem to celebrate a special occasion or to commemorate a milestone, whether yours or someone else’s. Great poems have been written to honor work anniversaries, engagements, marriage anniversaries, wedding receptions, births, retirement, graduations from kindergarten, high school, college and university, grad school, and first and last days of work. The poem can be in honor of a national holiday, an international event, a religious celebration, a place-centered poem such as celebrating the opening or anniversary of the founding of a school or organization or charity. You name it. Options abound! Any person, place, group, or stage of life is well worth exploring poetically, whether you write it for your own satisfaction, share it with a friend or partner, share at an in-person or online venue, or publish with a literary journal with thousands of readers.
Enjoy the exercise below, and please join me for my October poetry-writing course where we’ll explore even more themes within this thought-provoking genre.
Try this exercise: Start with choosing the type of thematic poem from the three above that most interests you. Make a quick list of three or four topic ideas. Have a friend give you an idea or two as well, to lengthen your list of options. Then pick one of your ideas and write a poem draft in fifteen minutes. I recommend setting a timer—there’s something about writing a first draft with a time limit that tends to get words flowing. You can always set the timer for fifteen more minutes to expand the time for drafting if you want. Use this list to write more poems on other days. Go!
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Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver on Unsplash
Threading the Needle—Writing Thematic Poetry
Instructor: Melanie Faith
Start Date: Friday, October 18, 2024
Duration: 4 Weeks
Class Type: Asynchronous; it can be studied from anywhere in the world, in different time zones.
Location: Private Facebook group and email student provides when registering for the class.
Feedback: Weekly instructor feedback of exercises.
Description: Themes are important in vivid writing. Strong poetry often explores specific themes, from poems to celebrate special occasions and the natural world to poems that celebrate art and other beloved objects. In this class, students will read about 9 forms of poetry in our class texts (one craft book, How to Write Poetry: A Guided Journal of Prompts, and poetry books: Owls and Other Fantasies, The Optimist Shelters in Place, and Does It Look Like Her?, and one optional book: Letters to Joan), and then pick from the weekly themes to pen a poem for personalized instructor feedback on what is working well in their poem and what they might revisit/revise.
Weekly topics include: Nature Poetry, Occasional Poetry, Ekphrastic [Arts] Poetry, Found Poetry, Persona Poems, Narrative Poems, and more! There will also be an optional private class group for classmates to share shop talk and the instructor will provide posts of poetry-writing and literary links to inspire the writing process. Join us for this inspiring poetry course!
View the full listing for the curriculum and testimonials.
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Check out my latest poetry book, Does It Look Like Her? Available now at Amazon or for signed copies, check out my Write Path Productions Etsy page.
I also wrote an amazing craft book called Poetry Power with tons of exercises and inspiration to keep your poetry pens moving; available through my awesome publisher, Vine Leaves Press. Signed copies also available at my Etsy, Write Path Productions.
So pleased to announce that I was recently interviewed by super talented @gilliancourtneypoetry about my poetry and writing experiences and will be featured this week, along with poetry, at @theporchswingpoetry on Instagram!
Check out the first part of our interview today and return later this week for poems by yours truly. 😊
Read more work at this amazing new poetry venue and return often for inspiring poems, interviews, and posts by many talented poets. 🍁
Photo courtesy of Alex Geerts on Unsplash.com.
Happy Fall! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve leapt onto this blog, and I wanted to pause to share best wishes and some poetry from my latest collection, Does It Look Like Her? as well as some insights and the link to my awesome new online poetry class that begins Friday, October 18th.
Playing with imagery is a must-have when I pen poems.
This poem stacks imagery to create tension, a scene, and to introduce the reader to the protagonist:
Photo courtesy of Ryan Stone on Unsplash.
Art Fair
a barebones cabin
last night was sickle moonlight, I took a drive
I’m just trying to make a concert out of it
it’s very good you are where you are
today: a canopy with paintings in the sun, open-air
I took home the canvas of the floating arm, palm open
I carried it in both hands like a heavy sack of groceries
I wonder if you’d like me here
Making characters is such a fun part of writing linked narrative poems. Here’s a fun one, about my artist protagonist’s son:
Sam Speaks of Demeter, the Famous Portrait of His Mother, Part One
Age 8:
Photo courtesy of Aedrian Salazar on Unsplash.com.
My mommy
is in this picture
in a museum
that this man painted.
It’s kind of a big deal.
He’s a real artist.
Last week, we went
to see it. It was kind of funny
to see Mommy’s face
there on the wall. I waved
when we walked in, and
Mommy said, “I’m the real one,
over here,” and she made
our special scrunched face,
and we laughed about it.
Part of the joy of this collection of poems is that I drop hints about what the painting and the woman may or may not look like, such as in this poem, while giving some wiggle room for the readers to imagine the protagonist in their own ways:
Why You Love Her
Imagine a painting
on a wall above a sofa
where you cannot recall later
if the sofa was gray, bright,
plain or a floral or striped or
Photo courtesy of Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash.com.
if it had any pattern
or pillows. Imagine a figure
so occupying your senses:
a woman, middle-aged, beginning
to soften at the mouth,
her eyelids a little sleepy, her neck
starting to striate with pin-fine lines
you barely notice. Her eyes are alert,
her chin slightly resistant. A woman
prepared.
Design courtesy of Women on Writing. Photo by moi.
Want to read more: get a copy of Does It Look Like Her? today:
or, for signed copies, at my Etsy page: clickety-click
Super excited to be teaching a brand-new, fun online poetry-writing course through Women on Writing. Sign-ups now; class begins on Friday, October 18th!
Learn more at Women on Writing: clickety-click-click
I also wrote a book called Poetry Power with tons of exercises and inspiration to keep your poetry pens moving. Signed copies also available at my Etsy, WritePathProductions.
To autumn and poetry! ✍️🍂
Courtesy of WOW! Women on Writing
Super excited that my article with tips for getting unstuck from a creative slump was published today at Women on Writing Markets Newsletter . Read an excerpt (below), and then clicky to check out amazing literary markets for your latest projects!
My beautiful buttons. 💗
Seek the Superb Small: Years ago, I wrote a poem about a glass jar of buttons I deeply regretted not buying after they were sold. I shared that poem at readings and found that the seemingly effortless poem about the buttons was the one readers connected with most and even asked about later. What is it about the buttons that inspired? It’s sensory: we’d all worn (and lost) buttons, touched their worn or burnished surfaces. The buttons expressed bigger themes of family, care, childhood, regret, hindsight, loss, and much more. Small items carry big resonance. It’s the same reason “Bus Stop” by The Hollies with its umbrella imagery is such a timeless lyric. Take a walk through an antique shop or look through your kitchen junk drawer or boxes in the garage and spot the many ordinary treasures you could write about today. P.S. All’s well that ends well: last week, a canning jar of blue and green beauties entered my writing life via a local consignment shop.
Seek Creative Community. Attending readings, taking classes or workshops, scheduling a lunch out at a coffeehouse with a creative pal to free-write and then sharing: all encourage your muse to get active, pronto. You’re giving the muse a deadline as well as offering it the supportive presence of another maker. Win-win.
Seek a Prompt. Arriving blank to the blank screen can be intimidating; prompts set you up for success. Choices abound: lines from your favorite song or poem, a movie scene, or a quote you find online, such as at Brainy Quote. Or have friends send quotes or photos they like. I’ve also used paintings and figurines as prompts. Respond directly to the prompt—or don’t. You’re allowed to go with first thoughts; veer in any direction you wish. Prompts launch you to where you will do your best work. No need to keep it all. Write now; sculpt later.
Seek Another Medium. My writing has immensely deepened with my photography and drawing practices. Dabbling in other arts has taught me a ton about myself as a creative thinker. Try painting, hand-making paper, or puppetry. Pottery, dance, stained-glass making, or create music. Return to collage or scrapbooking. Start a YouTube channel. Cross-stitch, design a mural, or get an inexpensive sketchbook to fill. Or try a few. Investments in creating in any media enrich our writing and encourage fun and growth.
If you’d like to have fun creating in another medium, check out my new online course that begins Friday, August 2nd. I’d love to work with you and a friend. Art Making for Authors—clickety-click!