Interview with Kelli Russell Agodon on the writing life, balance, and more

Today’s Summer Interview series is with Kelli Russell Agodon, whose recent book (Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room) just won the Foreward Magazine Gold Book of the Year Award, is also a good friend and a constant encourager. Here’s what I said about her second book:

“Agodon’s book is a bright, funny, touching meditation on loss, love, and the power of words. Her genius is in the interweaving of God and Vodka, bees and bras, astronomy and astrology, quotes from Einstein and Dickinson, a world in which gossip rags in checkout lines and Neruda hum in the writer’s mind with equal intensity.”

Kelli Russell Agodon’s current book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize) was recently named Book of the Year in Poetry by ForeWord Magazine. She is also the author of Small Knots (2004), Geography (2003) and an editor at Crab Creek Review. She lives in a small seaside town in the Northwest where she’s an avid mountain biker, hiker, kayaker, and is a new fan of longboarding (stand-up paddle surfing).

She blogs about living & writing creatively here: Book of Kells www.ofkells.blogspot.com

Connect with her on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/agodon and find her on Twitter here: kelliagodon. Her main homepage: www.agodon.com.

Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize) (2010)

Small Knots (2003)

Jeannine Hall Gailey: First of all, congratulations on winning the Gold Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award in Poetry for your new book, Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room!

You’ve always inspired me by having a practical and hardworking approach to the impractical art of poetry. Could you talk a little bit about your goals over the past ten years and how you set them? What is your approach to the art of poetry submissions?

Kelli Russell Agodon: Thanks, Jeannine! It’s was incredibly exciting learning about the Foreword Prize, I’m still in disbelief of it, but feel very honored having been chosen.

As for my practical approach to the impractical art of poetry, I have always believed I go about things differently in my writing life because of my Capricorn nature. Many artists are right brain thinkers, some artists are messy and enjoy chaos, but as someone who has always been stronger at math and making lists, I have a lot of left-brain elements that have helped me organize my writing life, both in making time for it and setting goals.

My main goal for my poetry has always been to write a good poem, only to be followed by try to write a poem better than the last poem I’ve written. But I’m someone who looks at things in small steps—write a poem, submit a poem, put strongest poems together, write a poem in a similar theme, organize manuscript, submit manuscript, etc—and see them lead to larger projects.

Also, I have a great group of friends who I email my goals to as I realize I am more accountable to others if I have to report back whether I made my goals or not. It’s kind of a mind-trick, but it’s a good way for me to stay on track and get things done.

One way my goals have changed over the past ten years is that I’m not as attached to outcome as I have been in the past. My goal is write and complete good work. I am less concerned if these works go on to be published or win awards (though I do like this when it happens) and more concerned about the joy and satisfaction I get with the act of writing.

As for poetry submissions, my routine is random and haphazard, and I wouldn’t recommend it. I can go months upon months without submitting poetry. I believe in regards to submissions, the smartest writers have some sort of schedule like “submit one batch of poems every Friday.” This is what I’d recommend to poets who want to get their work published and out in the world.

My way is to neglect submissions until I realize I have nothing out to literary journals then send out a huge batch and neglect it again until I have nothing out. I find I become overly critical with my own work when I’m submitting it, so I have to put on my Personal Assistant hat and literally tell myself that I am Kelli Agodon’s assistant who is just submitting poems, not revising them. As I type this, I’m seeing a lot of the art in poetry goals and submissions are to play a lot of tricks on myself.

JHG: As one of the editors-in-chief of Crab Creek Review, could you tell us what the magazine is looking for, and what in direction you see it heading? What advice would you give poets trying to have their work published in literary journals? What’s the biggest mistake beginning poets make when they send work in?

KRA: Crab Creek Review is definitely working toward a more national presence. We’ve been in print since 1984 and have no plans of going out of print or becoming an online journal. We have a strong group of donors, subscribers, readers and writers who keep us going and we are so thankful for this. We’ve added some new features such as interviews (our current issue has interviews with Mark Doty & Todd Davis and our next issue will feature Nin Andrews), but we always focus on our goal of publishing the best writing from the Northwest and beyond.

For poets trying to publish their work, my advice would be—

1) Submit your best work and submit finished poems. That might sound funny to read, but you’d be surprised how many poets send off their poems prematurely. They are very close to being done, but had the poet done one or two final revisions before sending it off, it could have made the difference.

2) Learn about the journal you’re submitting to and what kind of work they publish, don’t just send blindly to places you’re not familiar with.

3) Don’t let rejections get you down. We all get rejected. If someone says they never get rejections, they are lying. It’s part of the deal with being a writer. Realize your work may have been rejected merely because the editor was tired when she read it or the issue was already full—don’t assume it was rejected because it was of poor quality.

As for the biggest mistake new poets make, here’s some do’s (and a don’t or two) I’d recommend (along with some mistakes I made myself when I was a beginning poet)—

1) Don’t trying to be cute, quirky, or whimsical in their cover letter or with their submission. As a younger poet, I have done very dumb things like handwrote “Enjoy!” with some weird cloud scene on a cover letter as if this is what would get me noticed. It probably did, but not in a good way.

2) Do start with your favorite regional magazines. Many times if you are published with them, you’ll be invited to their release party as a reader; this is a great way to learn about publishing and get a chance to read for an audience.

3) Do be humble and professional. Send a cover letter with any publication credits you may have, maybe something about yourself or something you like about the last issue.

I once wrote on my cover letter to The Paris Review something like, “I have returned to writing poetry and I wanted your magazine to be the first place I submitted.” I’m sure they were thrilled with this–Oh great, a new poet sending us her horrible poems. I never considered that this statement from me was probably a huge red flag that I had no idea what I was doing.

4) Don’t follow-up too quickly or be upset if it takes a while to get back to you. Remember that many literary journals are run by volunteers who are writers themselves and we have to balance our own lives, other jobs, family and our writing as well. We do our very best to respond in a timely manner.

5) Do read and follow the submission guidelines. If you don’t follow them, your work may not even be considered. Each journal is different and have certain ways they do things; they will look at your work with happy eyes if you’ve paid attention to these.

JHG: I ran into some recently graduated MFA students the other weekend, and I noticed a lot of them were a bit down and disoriented after graduation. They had stopped writing, stopped sending out, and felt discouraged and overwhelmed by trying to publish their theses. What three suggestions do have for post-graduate MFA students that you wish someone had told you before graduating?

KRA: One is that is okay to take a few months off and not write. I took quite a few months where I reconnected with friends, went out to lunch, and just enjoyed not writing. Getting an MFA is a lot of work and it’s okay to rest afterwards.

The second advice I’d give is to find a schedule that works for you and stick to it. You earned this degree for a reason—to be a better writer—now it’s your job to find time to do it on your own.

My final suggestion would be to find a group of writers who will be your support. They can be friends from your MFA program or other writers you know. Stay in touch, set goals, and hold each other accountable. Because the writing life is so solitary, it’s good to have a community after graduation to offer support and help each other out.

JHG: On your blog you often talk about trying to balance art with life. What advice would you give someone about trying to build more time for art into their already hectic schedule?

KRA: My main advice would be to simplify your life to what is important. I’m always surprised when writers say, “I don’t have time to write” and then in the next breath ask me if I saw The Biggest Loser last night or I see them posting on Facebook. It’s definitely challenging with all the distractions the world offers and the internet, while a very handy research tool, is also a tempting way for writers to lose a lot of time that could have been spent for writing.

But we each have the same amount of time and we each choose what we want to do with it. Choose your priorities. If writing is a priority for you, you’ll make time for it. It’s kind of tough love advice, but I truly believe it.

JHG: Any final words you’d give writers making their way in the world?

KRA: I recently read a quote I loved from Stephen Prossfield’s The War of Art—”If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” Chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

Doubt always exists in writers and artists. I read that John Berryman would wake up feeling like a genius and go to bed feeling like a fraud. It’s the negative voices we need to turn away from. But deep inside us, I have always believed that each of us knows exactly what we should be doing if we listen closely enough.

My inner compass has always been what’s directed my life and it’s always pointed towards writing. Every time I listened to my head, I was wrong. I chose the wrong jobs, the wrong everything. Every time I listened to that inner voice no matter how ridiculous it seemed, it’s always led me to where I needed to be.

As writers, we just have to trust that our paths can be quite different than the rest of the world. Sometimes we just have to trust it will all work out.

Thanks, Jeannine!