Author: ameliaofthenorth

An Interview with Maria James-Thiaw

“A health care system built on bias and inequity, a system of policing that snatches our sons & daughters from our arms, and a pandemic painting a target on our backs – this is 2020 through the eyes of a black woman with chronic illness.

If you’ve ever been dismissed, ignored, suspected, or accused by a healthcare provider, you will relate to these verses.”

In this “Corona-cation”-created collection, Maria James-Thiaw delivers personal poetic reflections on chronic illness and mortality, race relations, and family history. The speaker’s experiences form a colored chronicle of “Despair-ities” as fluidly surreal as Dali’s melting clocks, in which she “folds up her somedays” in response to an immune system that “unpeels her like fresh fruit,” yet conjures music even from suffering (“My sister’s cells sickle”). Her pain-pricked body is a voodoo doll. Even a right-wing white supremacist becomes a left-handed kindred soul whose “nerves burn like crosses on each vertebra.” Count Each Breath scrapes the poem-bone raw. Its verses burn with rage, against an uncertain future, an unredeemed past, and a bruised and bruising, black and blue-and white-America.

– Vernita Hall, author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color

Maria James-Thiaw published her third book of poetry, Count Each Breath, this September through Wild Ink Publishing. You can find Count Each Breath here.

This May, Maria’s choreopoem, Hair Story, will hit the stage in Harrisburg, PA. You can find out more on the Reclaim Artist Collective website.

HairStory follows the journey of a young ambitious Black woman, Aleyah, who is working all the angles to make a name for herself as a hard-hitting journalist. Imagine her surprise when her editor assigns her a “fluff” story about Black-owned beauty salons. Her journey takes her back to ancient stories and rituals woven into African people. Aleyah encounters many deep-rooted stories of how Black and Brown people have been ostracized and objectified for their hair. She is pulled into memories of sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and aunties who lovingly and sternly braided traditions, demands, and power into each other’s hair. Will Aleyah see herself in these stories or will she refuse to look in the mirror?

What inspired you to start writing?

I was surrounded by readers and writers. My dad was a poet and would read his work aloud. I knew as a toddler that when I learned to write, I would write poems.

What inspired you to write this Count Each Breath?

Count Each Breath was inspired by the realization that my story was not just my own. Women and people of color face racial bias in healthcare and that can lead to negative health outcomes, lower quality of life or even death. It is wrong. I saw what was happening in 2020 and I felt so vulnerable as a woman of color with chronic health problems. I knew I had to document this strange time we were living through. And they wonder why black people rose up in 2020. And it wasn’t only us. A whole host of people of all colors rose with us. There were people marching for black lives in small towns that had zero black residents. This was revolutionary. I had to document the moment with poetry.

What is one thing you really want readers to know about your book?

I think even though it deals with an issue that is specific to people of color, women of any race are also marginalized by the healthcare industry and they can relate to this poetry as well. It takes four or more years to get an accurate diagnosis of an autoimmune disease, in med schools the male body is often studied while women bodies are not. We aren’t just little men with boobs! (LOL) We are often dismissed as emotional when we know our bodies and we know something is going on. We have to advocate for ourselves.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing habit or the process you took in writing this book?

When the shutdown first happened I couldn’t create. I was extremely anxious and trying to self medicate that…I mean, my husband was trapped behind closed borders and couldn’t get home for nearly 6 months and my kids have special needs. It was really difficult. But eventually I started watching documentaries – Margaret Attwood was a really important one – they started unlocking my “poem bone” as I say in the book. I started attending online poetry gatherings and that helped. Eventually I was writing nearly every day in between Cuomo’s press conference
and the Trump Show. (Was it a comedy show, or a horror show? Definitely the Twilight Zone) All of that was inspiration. Readers will see when they read “The First Fourteen” about the first two weeks of the pandemic.

What piece of advice would you give aspiring authors?

Hone your craft. Be open to criticism. Read other poets so you know what is out there. Stretch the limits of what you are doing now. When you see what a Patricia Smith, or Jericho Brown, or Ross Gaye can do, then you will know that you can do more as well. Take risks, be inventive, and never stop growing.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

My poetry always leans toward social justice. I’m a daughter of Civil Rights Activists and I believe that poetry is my sword in the fight against ignorance, racism, and inequality. They’ll see that in my choreopoems as well.

An Interview with Melissa R. Mendelson

“This Will Remain With Us is a collection of poems written during the Covid-19 pandemic when Melissa Mendelson suddenly found herself declared an “essential worker.”

In the midst of the turmoil, she turned to poetry to document and cope with the challenge of the lockdown, and isolation.

A philosophical, liminal, insightful collection of poetry from a difficult time for the collective soul.”

Melissa R. Mendelson is a Poet and Horror, Science-Fiction and Dystopian Short Story Author.  Her stories have been published by Sirens Call Publications, Dark Helix Press, Altered Reality Magazine, Transmundane Press, Owl Canyon Press, and Wild Ink Publishing. She also won second place in the WritersWeekly.com 24-Hour Short Story Contest.

Her book of poetry, This Will Remain With Us was published in December 2022.

What inspired you to start writing?

I love movies and television shows. I have watched so many of them since I was a kid, and I always wanted to write my own. I would be so fascinated with worlds such as in Blade Runner, Dark City and Terminator, or ideas like with Powder, Flatliners and Fallen. I want to introduce my own worlds, characters and ideas to people, and maybe, that’s what fuels me to write, especially in high school. I didn’t want to write about my life. I just wanted to find escape like how I escaped in all those movies and tv shows.

What inspired you to write this book?

When 2020 arrived, I was still dealing with gynecological issues. Then, the pandemic happened. I was designated as a Frontline Worker. My father got really sick, and thank God, he’s better now. It was A LOT. I love writing, especially in my favorite genres of Horror, Dystopian and Science-Fiction, but I have become comfortable also writing Drama. And I needed to write, and not just short stories. I needed to write poetry. I needed to write to survive everything that was happening around me, inside of me, and the website, Medium became a home for all that writing. But looking back on everything that I wrote, I didn’t want it to just stay on Medium, so I was inspired to put the short stories together in a self-published collection and create a poetry collection that was published by Wild Ink Publishing.

What is one thing you really want readers to know about your book?

We all experienced the pandemic and 2020 in our own way, especially frontline workers, and maybe, my experience is not like theirs. But I want readers to still connect with my words, my thoughts and feelings, and maybe they will find inspiration too. Maybe, they will want to tell their story, whether it is a short story or poetry.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing habit or the process you took in writing this book?

I combed through Medium, pulling out any poem about being on the frontline. I debated on the political ones, but I didn’t want this book to be politically driven, especially with such a divide in this country. I wanted human connection, but there are some poems with political undertones. When I had the poems picked out, I organized them by the date that they were written, and I felt that the last poem should be, This Is How We Remember Them. We need to remember those that were on the frontline and how they risked their lives for us.

What piece of advice would you give aspiring authors?

I allowed depression once to convince me to stop writing, and I lost a lot of time in doing that. And I’m sorry that I had stopped writing. I didn’t have a support structure or anyone in my corner to push me to keep writing. Eventually, I returned to it on my own, but I will always regret not writing. So, no matter how hard things are or how lost you feel, please don’t give up. Don’t stop writing.

An Interview with Johnny Francis Wolf

“No rhyme or reason as to who is next to whom. Worthy subjects, apart or together, for Norman Rockwell’s brush, Saul Bass’s graphic hand, or Johnny Francis Wolf’s quill.

A battered, old homeless man is given wide berth. Young gay couple share a giggle, scantily clad and on their way to a Pride event. Little boy in Mother’s lap staring, charmed by a face. Blind man pets the dog asleep between familiar legs.

Businessman, NY Times spread wide, is distracted by the shirtless lads laughing to his right. Ladyboy prostitute in daring dress and heels hangs dearly on a subway handgrip. Priest standing, facing door, eyes averted toward our hooker, wondering if the cleavage real, ignores the beggar reaching out a hand for help.

Way over to our left, a bearded man in red. Santa hat adorns his head.

No one is on their device.”

Johnny Francis Wolf describes himself as a Poet, Actor, Ranch Hand.. and a whole bunch else.

Below Johnny’s interview answers is the query letter I received from him when I first started Wild Ink Publishing. It didn’t fit the template of what publishers and agents shackle everyone to. And that is precisely why Wild Ink decided to publish him. Why start a new publishing company if you aren’t willing to take chances on nontraditional stylings? Why try to make waves in an industry if you don’t accept work that will make waves? Johnny does not disappoint!

You can purchase Men Unlike Others, Vol 1 here.

What inspired you to start writing?

Still trying to make it as an actor, I went the Billy Bob Thornton route. I attempted to write my own SLINGBLADE. Though, I do believe it was Sylvester Stallone who initially established this ‘pen your own first film’ with ROCKY.

Mine, called JELLY DONUTS, was a fun write.. took me three years.

Tiny back story, I was living in an under-code poolhouse in LA, with lots of exposed fiberglass lining the ceiling (more a garage with a tiny carve-out for pool supplies and one tenant). The fiberglass did little for warmth, but lots (of bad) to my lungs. And don’t let them fool you, fiberglass is as dangerous as asbestos.

The script, about a middle-aged Cerebral Palsy ‘kid’, occupied the healing years that followed — in the High Desert, north of LA. And it was during that more sedentary life, while getting back my breathing, that my homelessness began. My storied ‘massage’ career, my acting pursuits, my ability for side employment, all came to a hard stop during those years.

WRITING became HEALING. And I’ve plenty more of both in me, and needed. My lungs are better. My head, my demons, my past.. all mending. My search for a home, ongoing.

P.S. The script received little attention. But I haven’t given up on it.

What inspired you to write this book?

I had been amassing quite a library of stories and poems — written during and after the screenplay process — and thought they might have worth. A friend on Facebook just published her own and was doing quite well.

I endeavored to try the same. MEN UNLIKE OTHERS was born. The title purposely, tongue-in-cheek-ly ominous.

What is one thing you really want readers to know about your book?

It is me spitting out moments remembered, imagined, bent, and embellished. Some nice. Some bile. None bitter. No order (other than alphabetical).

Just when you think you have me pegged, I might hit you with a one-eighty.Of the two volumes — and by luck of the alphabetical draw — I think Vol. 2 is the meatier one. Though Vol. 1 is no slouch.

The two together are inseparable. One really needs both in their library.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing habit or the process you took in writing this book?

I write morning ‘til night, whenever I can squeeze in time. I seem to gravitate toward very early AND very late.

More, specific to the book, below.

What piece of advice would you give aspiring authors?

Please, please, please edit yourself carefully before showing the world. Misspellings and bad grammar lose eyes quickly. Awkward phrasing, even faster.

And lose my eyes, instantly.

Don’t ever think close enough is good enough.

It. Never. Is.

Ever.

MEN UNLIKE OTHERS took 18+ months just to cull, organize, proof, polish.. even AFTER it was already written, and BEFORE it was sent to prospective agents and publishers. Definitely polished well PRIOR to presenting it to Ian Tan for proper book editing.

Lastly. Get yourself a good laptop. IMHO, so much better for writing than an iPhone. I can’t even effin’ imagine. Set your damn bar higher.

What would you like to highlight about your writing career?

Below is my first reaching out, following my finish of the book… August, 2021.
I, initially, was looking for an Agent. (Ha!!)

You, Abigail, received my more Frankenstein Cover Letter, curated several times by the time I got around to you.. lots of fun cut-and-pastes. Too unwieldly for this exercise. But THIS Cover Letter might insinuate a little more about me. The ‘IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT’ preamble was, in fact, part of that letter.

The letter starts here:

––––––––––––

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

– Unpublished Author looking for representation.

– I’ve recently completed a manuscript of 160 poems and short stories.

– Men Unlike Others pontificates plenty on men. Plenty, too, on the more frothy affairs I deem related.

– I’d love to send you a sampling.

Below is a dizzyingly circuitous missive written to engage, amuse, beguile. (Stop reading here if not easily engaged, amused, beguiled.)

––––––––––––

August 1, 2021

Submission Query

–––––

Dear Mr. Literary Agent (name changed),

A part of me will ever be this way.

I look for pretty pictures. Handsome faces. Men.

–––––

An unrelated –– maybe –– googling of poetry publishers yielded too many blazoners of books… too beaucoup a band of bard boosters and backers to imagine tendering that many cover letters.

Muckraking cross the top ten aggregate sites (who each offered a collated top fifty), purging the duplicates, I weeded out well more than half those left as self–publishing (with me not interested).

Eliminating the survivors requiring contest submissions (often with entry fees), culling through printers who have long since abandoned poesy as a promotable literary genre, curating the few remaining classic compositors accepting unsolicited words, turns out exactly one is yet open to verse proffers –– bidding welcome Christian odes only. Of course, I embroider some of the particulars.

But left me thinking, “A better life through representation.”

Engaging someone who knows how best to find and forge a publisher/author relationship just sounds smart. Having dabbled in acting over the years, I recall how ably a talent agent aided my seeking auditions and thespian employment.

Perhaps the same would work here.

–––––

Returning to my initial tease apropos of men and handsome faces, I began a new and pioneering online search. This time for literary agent. I ordained that pictures helped –– furthered my examen –– and divined good–looking male headshots seemed draw.

Yours, Mr. Literary Agent, stood top of that list.

Googling you, your works, your wedding earlier this Century, made for a well–rounded and deep dive into the sort you are, attendant the type of person who might be interested in representing an idiosyncratic poet (check), who is similarly gay (check), and not 19 (check, check).

Anything further and personal beyond those three is irrelevant. So stated to assuage any fears about my predilection to a nice visage. Specifically yours..

Simply trying to address the probing in your Agency’s submission guidelines as to, “how you heard about TCA.”

–––––

I am a homeless gypsy –– an artist, actor, unpublished writer –– making little money and currently living in my brother’s attic.

I am autistic and savant.

Acting classes helped enormously deciphering how to bide in genteel society… imparting methods that accorded me the means to ‘fake it’ when my own cerebral editor could not feel for best practices.

Withal, I am still very much a loner. And, as this introductory email reveals, can be quite prone to gaffes.. verbal as well as writ… precipitously impromptu else laggardly circumspect.

A dangerous hallmark to lay claim to (and clear proof of) when hastening headlong unto a description of one’s manuscript ––

–––––

My book is comprised of 160 poems and short stories.

Men Unlike Others is not devoted expressly to males but to all the subjects this gay man enjoys expounding upon –– men, beasts, writing, men, life, family, aging, men, angels, gods and men. Did I mention men?

And any the shades of gray and light betwixt.

Whilst marbled and layered and oozing deep thoughts (SNL’s Jack Handey would approve), I aver my tales are firstly entertaining… deceptively lean and airy.

With gaffes edited out, except when felicitous.

I’d love to share more. I beg you consider asking me this very thing.

Yours faithfully,

Johnny Francis Wolf

–––––

P.S. A dear friend once described my wordplay in a way I thought both crudely apt and much too kind. I paraphrase ––

Three grains of sand and fuck the rest..

plumb as they ford, if solely but then…

the narrowest cut of an hourglass stem.

–––––

P.S.S. Whilst unpublished in a very real sense, a few of my earliest poetic swings (and misses) can still be found on social media.

Some wide–eyed and cringeworthy verses, I fear.

(I’ve nothing against ‘wide-eyed’ as a style. I wield it often. I find fault when it belies a slapdash effort. And a goodly bestirred ‘cringe’ can be lovely. When deliberate.)

There even exists a handful of primordial odes commandeered by sweet and self–published friends for their anthologies / blogs.

Ignoble attempts mine, these originations.

If 2 years of self–editing has taught me anything, it is to never hence present works–in–progress for public consumption.

No wine before its time.

Best save them for a thirsty compositor.

An Interview with S.E. Reed

Jinny Buffett is lonely…

She’s never had the comfort of a white picket fence with a loving family. Her subsidized apartment in Hollywood Florida echoes with the void of her dead Daddy, and the nights drag long into twilight while her Mama works the block outside the Margaritaville resort.

It’s idealistic Ms. Fleming, who’s brave enough to come knocking first. She wants to see Jinny rise up and use her ace scores to escape the wheel of poverty, convincing Jinny to start a school book club, where she finds the friends and boyfriend she never knew she needed.

But when her Mama spirals out of control and threatens her entire existence, it’s Jinny’s Everglade ancestors who arrive in a mist of magic, bringing the swamp and hope with them.

Author Interview with S.E. Reed, Author of “My Heart Is Hurting”

Q: Bookmark your page or dog ear it?

A: Dog ear. I move my books around the house with me too much, bookmarks tend to fall out.

Q: Re-read books or read a book once and move on?

A: Looooove the re-reads! I’ll go back just to read memorable scenes in my favorite books.

Q: Do you prefer reading books from debut authors or more seasoned authors?

A: I buy a mixture of both. The problem with debut authors… I fall in love with them and have to wait FOREVER for their next book to come out.

Q: Adult or YA?

A: Mostly YA… but I do love the Outlander series!

Q: Do you prefer single POV or dual POV novels?

A: Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the last time I read a dual POV. BUT… I write a lot of dual POV. Soooo, there’s that!

Q: Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

A: I write in various genres. My Heart is Hurting is contemporary YA set in South Florida. My 2nd novel releasing with Wild Ink Publishing is also a contemporary YA set in South Florida. The two stories aren’t connected, but they have some of the same vibes. I write a lot of short stories in the same area with similar themes. BUT– shift gears to my sci-fi/fantasy… I have a trilogy coming out that is a dystopian retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Which means, not in Florida. So, I have range. 🙂

Q: How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

A: I totally pantsed My Heart is Hurting. Since then, I’ve started drafting outlines and keeping more detailed chapter notes as I go along. Having worked with an editor, I’m more well equipped now to know what to look for and how to track my own progress.

Q: How many hours a day do you write?

A: I spend about 2 hours each weekday and 4-5 hours a day on the weekends. More if I can squeeze it in. Writing is addicting.

Q: How long on average does it take you to write a book?

A: On average about 6-8 weeks. It’s the revising, editing, querying, revise & resubmits that take all the time. I prefer just to write. The other stuff is my frenemy. 😉

Q: What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?

A: Stick to the standards within the genre you are writing. They are there for a reason.

Q: How do you select the names of your characters?

A: It’s weird to think about naming people. But, they just pop into my head. I honestly don’t have to think about it much, the character forms and the name is just part of them. I named my kids that way, like, I just knew their names early in my pregnancies. Maybe they are the ones who told me– I try to listen to my peeps.

Q: How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

A: Oh god, do you really want to know? Let me count… brb…

Okay, so I have 2 contemporary YA’s signed for upcoming publication. I have 3 sci-fi YA signed for upcoming publication. 1 NF signed for publication.

That leaves 5 completed YA fantasy manuscripts without homes. And I have 4 in-progress YA manuscripts of various genres. Oh, 1 completed unsigned sci-fi novella. AND about 50 short stories.

(Did I mention I’m addicted to writing?)

p.s. sorry to any books of mine I’ve forgotten… I still got love for you bro.

Q: Have you ever named a child or a pet after a character you love?

A: No, but I named the lead characters in my YA Fantasy series after my children.

Q: How old were you when you fell in love with reading?

A: In elementary school I used to hide in my closet and read for hours. Soooo… that was probably the start of it. I’m not ashamed to say, I’ve stood in line at midnight to buy a book the second it was released.

Q: Is there a genre you have never read?

A: I’m not a blood/guts/horror movie fan, so I don’t intentionally read graphic horror novels. I like thrillers and creepy/spooky, just not icky bloody freak show stuff.

Q: What type of book do you prefer? Ebook, Paperback, Hardback, Audiobook

A: I like paperback or hardback. I write so much on a computer, I don’t care to read leisurely on a screen. And I’ve never listened to an audiobook! I know, I’m horrible.

Purchase My Heart is Hurting by S.E. Reed here.