Midwest Writing Center 2012 Chapbook Contest Winner
My manuscript, Apple Season, was selected as the winner of the Midwest Writing Center's 2012 Chapbook Contest, judged by Shane McCrae. Apple Season is about my grandma, and about our time together at my grandparents' apple orchard.
"The Next Big Thing" (I’ve also heard it called "One Big Thing") is a self-interview in which writers answer eight questions about forthcoming or recent books, chapbooks, and other projects. Ryan Collins, executive director of the Midwest Writing Center, asked me to answer these questions about Apple Season.
1. What is the working title of the (chap)book?
Apple Season
2. Where did the idea come from for the (chap)book?
I’ve always known I would write about my grandma, and about the farm she shared with my grandpa. For a while, I wasn’t ready to do that, and during that time when I didn’t feel ready, I wrote many other poems. Some of them are collected in my first chapbook, The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker. That book has 28 poems in it, and each one is about an imagined person. The poems in Apple Season are not, for the most part, imagined. They are quite accurate…unusually so for poetry, maybe. But it felt important to me to get it right. To get it right, but also to create poetry, not memoir.
3. What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry
4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
My grandma: How can anyone else play the role of someone you love? No, there is no pretending, and there are no substitutes. But, if I must pick: Jessica Tandy. Except that’s not possible either…
Me: Oh, I can’t cast myself. And even if I did, I’d need a few different actresses of different ages. The poems in this chapbook span many years. I’m not sure this will be evident to a reader unfamiliar with the relationship my grandma and I shared (and it doesn’t need to be evident), but I felt that span of years as I wrote. My grandma died when I was 30.
5. What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Apple Season is about love – my love for my grandmother and my love for a place we shared.
6. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript(s)?
This one came quickly…a sort of flood. It began with one poem, “Hay Season,” which I wrote a full year before I turned my attention to the manuscript. “Hay Season” was the first poem I’d written in a long time from the first-person perspective. I didn’t know when I wrote it that it would someday be part of a manuscript, but later it felt right to include it in Apple Season. “Hay Season” was published by The Michigan Poet as a broadside, so it had a little more visibility than some poems. It was fun to share it with people, and by sharing it, something shifted in me. I realized, in some deeper place, that I had written a poem about my time at my grandparents’ farm, and I was ready to write more. I wrote most of the other poems in the chapbook in November of 2011. A couple more in the spring of 2012.
7. Who or what inspired you to write this (chap)book?
My grandma. (See #2) Also my mom and dad. Early on, years ago, they shared a love of making with me. I make poems, my dad makes things out of wood, and my mom makes quilts and rugs, but the joy of creation is similar, and it is that joy they shared with me. My son figures in here too. I wanted him to have this book, this little bit of my history and of family history, which mostly came before him. He knew some of it. He knew my grandpa and knew the farm, and he loved helping with work, which was, by his time, mostly cutting wood. He carried it and stacked it and loved being a part of that labor. Others inspired me, too: aunts, uncles, cousins. My friend Maureen Abood, who writes about food and family. My friend Karin Gottshall, a poet and friend whom I admire very much. Her grandparents were great friends with my grandparents, and Karin was the first person to read my manuscript. And then there are all of the writers I've never met, but whose work has certainly shaped me: Jane Hirshfield, Dan Gerber, Wendell Berry, Jack Gilbert, Linda Pastan, Verlyn Klinkenborg….and many, many more.
8. What else about your (chap)book might pique the reader’s interest?
There is, I think, great love in it: for a person and a place and a way of life. I hope, after you read it, some of that love will be inside you. Also, you’ll find wild flowers and darning floss in this book, and the scent of apples.
"The Next Big Thing" (I’ve also heard it called "One Big Thing") is a self-interview in which writers answer eight questions about forthcoming or recent books, chapbooks, and other projects. Ryan Collins, executive director of the Midwest Writing Center, asked me to answer these questions about Apple Season.
1. What is the working title of the (chap)book?
Apple Season
2. Where did the idea come from for the (chap)book?
I’ve always known I would write about my grandma, and about the farm she shared with my grandpa. For a while, I wasn’t ready to do that, and during that time when I didn’t feel ready, I wrote many other poems. Some of them are collected in my first chapbook, The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker. That book has 28 poems in it, and each one is about an imagined person. The poems in Apple Season are not, for the most part, imagined. They are quite accurate…unusually so for poetry, maybe. But it felt important to me to get it right. To get it right, but also to create poetry, not memoir.
3. What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry
4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
My grandma: How can anyone else play the role of someone you love? No, there is no pretending, and there are no substitutes. But, if I must pick: Jessica Tandy. Except that’s not possible either…
Me: Oh, I can’t cast myself. And even if I did, I’d need a few different actresses of different ages. The poems in this chapbook span many years. I’m not sure this will be evident to a reader unfamiliar with the relationship my grandma and I shared (and it doesn’t need to be evident), but I felt that span of years as I wrote. My grandma died when I was 30.
5. What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Apple Season is about love – my love for my grandmother and my love for a place we shared.
6. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript(s)?
This one came quickly…a sort of flood. It began with one poem, “Hay Season,” which I wrote a full year before I turned my attention to the manuscript. “Hay Season” was the first poem I’d written in a long time from the first-person perspective. I didn’t know when I wrote it that it would someday be part of a manuscript, but later it felt right to include it in Apple Season. “Hay Season” was published by The Michigan Poet as a broadside, so it had a little more visibility than some poems. It was fun to share it with people, and by sharing it, something shifted in me. I realized, in some deeper place, that I had written a poem about my time at my grandparents’ farm, and I was ready to write more. I wrote most of the other poems in the chapbook in November of 2011. A couple more in the spring of 2012.
7. Who or what inspired you to write this (chap)book?
My grandma. (See #2) Also my mom and dad. Early on, years ago, they shared a love of making with me. I make poems, my dad makes things out of wood, and my mom makes quilts and rugs, but the joy of creation is similar, and it is that joy they shared with me. My son figures in here too. I wanted him to have this book, this little bit of my history and of family history, which mostly came before him. He knew some of it. He knew my grandpa and knew the farm, and he loved helping with work, which was, by his time, mostly cutting wood. He carried it and stacked it and loved being a part of that labor. Others inspired me, too: aunts, uncles, cousins. My friend Maureen Abood, who writes about food and family. My friend Karin Gottshall, a poet and friend whom I admire very much. Her grandparents were great friends with my grandparents, and Karin was the first person to read my manuscript. And then there are all of the writers I've never met, but whose work has certainly shaped me: Jane Hirshfield, Dan Gerber, Wendell Berry, Jack Gilbert, Linda Pastan, Verlyn Klinkenborg….and many, many more.
8. What else about your (chap)book might pique the reader’s interest?
There is, I think, great love in it: for a person and a place and a way of life. I hope, after you read it, some of that love will be inside you. Also, you’ll find wild flowers and darning floss in this book, and the scent of apples.