Month: December 2021

Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? I felt this poem coming during a walk on a beautiful November day, the tranquility of a valley, the happening upon an old deserted graveyard, then looking down within a…… Continue reading #333 Backstory of the Poem “Small Journey in a Time of Plague” by Joyce Brown

Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? I keep a poetry journal with first drafts of much of my work. This poem appeared there first. I often write poems about my family members on their birthdays. These…… Continue reading #332 BACKSTORY OF THE POEM “On My Mother’s Birthday (haibun)” by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson

Name of fiction work? And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us?  DOWN A DARK RIVER. For the first time ever, I knew the title from very early on, and I never changed it. Not so for my first book, A Lady in the Smoke, about a young…… Continue reading #274 Inside the Emotion of Fiction Karen Odden’s DOWN A DARK RIVER

Middle: Marilyn L. Davis in 2018. Copyright by Marilyn L. Davis What is the date you began writing this memoir and the date when you completed the memoir? Without being facetious, I started my memoir as a nine-year-old struggling with bullying in school. My pediatrician suggested to my mother that I write in a diary…… Continue reading #023 Magnification of One Memory In Memoir: Marilyn L. Davis’s FINDING NORTH: A JOURNEY FROM ADDICT TO ADVOCATE

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I thought I was finished with stories set in Cuba and the baseball and political worlds there. After all, I had already published a novel (CASTRO’S CURVEBALL) and a novella (HABANA LIBRE) set…… Continue reading #273 Inside the Emotion of Fiction Tim Wendel’s Escape From Castro’s Cuba

*This was first published on June 23, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  I must have watched SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN with my children a hundred times.  So linkin the quotation from Cosmo Brown (Donald…… Continue reading #20 Backstory of the Poem “At Least I Can Start Suffering” by Charles Rammelkamp

Alexis Rhone Fancher on March 11, 2018. Credit and Copyright by Alexis Rhone Fancher *This was first published on June 9, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  I read about the murder in an online…… Continue reading #19 Backstory of the Poem “STILETTO KILLER… A Surmise” by Alexis Rhone Fancher

*This was first published on May 25, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?   I can’t be step-by-step process about it, because it was written several years ago, and I have memory issues, as well as…… Continue reading #18 Backstory of the Poem “ARTERIAL DISCOMBOBULATION” by Juliet Cook

*This was first published on May 12, 2018. Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  In the summer of 2017, I was in Barcelona for three months. One day I saw a very old man sitting on…… Continue reading #17 Backstory of the Poem “The Swallows of Barcelona” by Marlon Fick

*This was first published in April 28, 2018.   Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?   When my mother died five years ago, I inherited a cedar chest my grandfather made for her. At the time, women…… Continue reading #16 Backstory of the Poem “Reliquary” by Beth Copeland

Marilyn Kallet in France in June of 2016. Copyright by Marilyn Kallet *This was first published on April 4, 2018. Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  Where were you when you started to actually write the…… Continue reading #015 Backstory of the Poem “Ode to Disappointment” by Marilyn Kallet

*This was first published on March 31, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  I developed the first draft while driving to work one morning. Every time I stopped at a red light I quickly scribbled…… Continue reading #014 Backstory of the Poem “Colors” by Ibrahim Honjo

*This was first published on March 24, 2018. Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?   I have several Latino neighbors with small children, and one of them was the model for the child in this poem. The…… Continue reading #013 Backstory of the Poem Jan Steckel’s “Holiday on ICE”

Angela Narciso Torres. Attributed to Marlene del Rosari *This was first published on March 17, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  The kernel for this poem came from a William Stafford poem I’d read years…… Continue reading #012 Backstory of the Poem Angela Narciso Torres’s “What I Learned This Week”

*This was first published on March 10, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?   “History Abandoned,” is an Ekphrastic poem written after a photograph by the same name by photographer Diane Beatty. Her photograph was part…… Continue reading 011 Backstory of the Poem “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph, “History Abandoned” by Arya Francis Jenkins

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I have no idea what date I began writing this collection of stories, but I can tell you that the oldest story in the collection, “Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter,” is a piece…… Continue reading #272 Inside the Emotion of Fiction: Michelle Ross’s short story “Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter,” from her short story collection SHAPESHIFTING

Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  I’ve chosen the poem “Migrations.” The poem began by thinking about differences people may have in a relationship.  Some are more challenging than others.  The bird image and the title…… Continue reading #331 Backstory of the Poem: Ken Pobo’s “Migrations”

*This was first published on March 03, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  I’ve been residing in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, Georgia for the past several years. Two of my favorite activities are walking…… Continue reading #010 Backstory of the Poem “Natural Reflection of Your Palms” by Scott Thomas Outlar

*This was first published on February 24, 2018 What was your grandmother’s full name?  Her birthdate? And the day she died?   Hazie Hestine Stager-Justice (BELOW).  She was the only daughter among five brothers, born on February 2, 1925 and died on December 9, 2013.  She was brought up tough, and as much as she loved…… Continue reading #009 Backstory of the Poem Charles Clifford Brooks III’s “The Gift of the Year with Granny”

*This was first published on February 17, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?  I met June Fairchild less than a year before she died on Feb. 17th, 2015. My husband and I, then living in…… Continue reading #008 Backstory of the Poem Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”

*This was first published on February 09, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?   The form came pretty quickly to me. I was struck by the word “shot” (I am very much a language poet). I…… Continue reading #007 Backstory of the Poem Leslea Newman’s “That Night”

*This was first published on February 03, 2018 Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? On my blog, back in March of 2013 when I first posted this poem, I mention that it came to me in…… Continue reading #006 Backstory of the Poem Susan Sundwall’s “The Ringmaster”