Leslie Pietrzyk – C.M. Mayo's Book Notes & Convos

Newsletter: C.M. Mayo’s Podcasts, Publications, and Workshops, Plus Cyberflanerie (Corona Virus-Free Edition!)

My writing assistants Uliberto Quetzalpugtl and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl snoofling at the mysteries.

For those interested in my publications, podcasts, and writing workshops, after a loooooong hiatus, I am resuming the newsletter, herewith commencing a new schedule of posting it on Madam Mayo blog every fifth Monday of the month (when there is a fifth Monday, that is to say, a few times a year).

I will also be sending out the newsletter to subscribers via email. If you would like to receive only the emailed newsletter, just zap me an email, I’ll be delighted to add you to my list. (If you’ve already signed up, stay tuned. I’ve had to switch my emailing service from Mailchimp to Mad Mimi, a bit of a process. Long story short, I give Mailchimp a black banana. Mashed in the noggin!)

If in addition or instead you’d like to sign up for the Madam Mayo blog post alerts every Monday via email, just hie on over to the sidebar (or, if you’re on an iphone, scroll down to the end of this post) for the signup. Welcome!

PODCASTS

“WORDS ON A WIRE”: Award-winning writer and Chair of the UTEP Creative Writing Department Daniel Chacón interviews me about my book Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (which includes my translation of Madero’s 1911 book). This interview with Daniel Chacón was a special honor and delight for me because while my book is a work of scholarship, it is at the same time a work of creative nonfiction. It turned out to be a very fun interview, if I do say myself. >> Listen in anytime here.

Still in production, but allllllllmost ready: The MARFA MONDAYS Podcasting Project resumes with #21: a reading of my longform essay “Miss Charles Emily Wilson: Great Power in One.” Researching and writing this rearranged all the furniture in my mind about Texas, the US-Mexico border, Florida, the Indian Wars, and much more… Miss Charles is someone everyone should know about.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

“Majesty,” one of the stories from my collection Sky Over El Nido (U Georgia Press, 1996), appears in Down on the Sidewalk: Stories About Children and Childhood from the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, edited by Ethan Laughman.

My gosh, it’s unsettling to read a story I wrote so long ago (maybe 1993 or 1994?). And “Majesty” is a strange story, and stranger still to be rereading in this age of the iPhone. It’s set in an Arizona luxury golf resort / spa in the late 1980s / early 1990s–another world, so to say, and on multiple levels. I recall the fun I had playing with the Alice in Wonderland imagery– I had recently been introduced by Douglas Glover to the German novel The Quest for Christa T. and the idea of the story as a net, an important influence on my fiction writing ever since.

Get your copy from all the usual suspects, including amazon.com

GIVAL PRESS POETRY AWARD CONTEST
JUDGED BY YOURS TRULY

Back in January, as the winner of the most recent Gival Press Poetry Award (for Meteor), I selected the winner for this year from an excellent batch of anonymous manuscripts. Here’s the press release from Gival Press:

February 6, 2020
For Immediate Release
Contact: Robert L. Giron

(Arlington, VA) Gival Press is pleased to announce that Matthew Pennock has won the Gival Press Poetry Award for his collected titled The Miracle Machine. The collection was chosen by judge C.M. Mayo. The award has a cash prize of $1,000.00 and the collection will be published this fall.

“With a craftsman’s deftest precision and a thunder-powered imagination on DaVinci wings, the author recreates a lost world within a lost world that yet—when we look—shimmers with life within our world. Elegant, wondrously strange, The Miracle Machine is at once an elegy and a celebration, tick-tock of the tao.”
—C.M. Mayo, author of Meteor

About the Author

Matthew Pennock is the author of Sudden Dog (Alice James Books, 2012), which won the Kinereth-Gensler Award. As per the terms of that award, he joined the board of Alice James Books in 2011, In 2014, he co-created AJB’s editorial board with executive editor Carey Salerno, and then became the board’s first chairperson, a position he held until 2020. He received his MFA from Columbia University and his PhD from the University of Cincinnati. His poems have been widely published in such journals as Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics, New York Quarterly, LIT, and elsewhere. He currently owns and operates a learning center outside of Washington, D.C.

In case you missed it, here’s all the info about my poetry collection Meteor, which was published by Gival Press last spring, 2019.

SELECTED RECENT MADAM MAYO BLOG POSTS

Patti Smith’s Just Kids and David M. Wrobel’s Global West, American Frontier

Oscar Wilde in West Point, Honey & Wax in Brooklyn

Workshop Posts (every second Monday of the month):

Donald M. Rattner’s My Creative Space

This Writer’s PFWP and NTDN Lists: Two Tools for Resilience and Focus

A Refreshing Tweak: The Palomino Blackwing Pencil

Q & A

Q & A with Joanna Hershon on her New Novel St. Ivo

WORKSHOPS

I am working on a book so I have no workshops yet scheduled for 2020. For my students, and anyone else interested in creative writing, I will continue to post on some aspect of craft and/or creative process here at Madam Mayo blog on the second Monday of the month.

> View the archive of Madam Mayo workshop posts here.

Meanwhile, I’m putting together a new workshop on applying poetic techniques to fiction and creative nonfiction… More news about that in the next newsletter.

# # #

CYBERFLANERIE
(INSPIRING, INTERESTING, AND/OR USEFUL GLEANINGS)

My typosphere guru, philosopher Richard Polt, has posted about the dance based on his “Typewriter Manifesto”!

How to smombify millions of otherwise healthy, active, and creative people or, electrical failure as last defense: Nicholas Carr on TikTok.

Let’s be frank, shall we? Leslie Pietrzyk offers tips on post-MFA etiquette at Work-in-Progress.

BRAAAAAAAVOOOOOOOOOO, Judith Boyd!!!! What to Wear in Honor of the Death of a Significant Friend is a highly unusual essay well worth reading thrice.

Patricia Dubrava on Little Women

Andrea Jones “On Not Riding”

Philosopher Jeremy Naydler on light and thought. Poets and literary writers may find this especially energizing. (Not for those who get cooties from any whiff of woowoo, however.)

Clifford Garstang, who did a Q & A for this blog in 2019, has posted his annual Literary Magazine rankings. Dear writerly readers looking to publish, while of course his, mine, yours, or anyone’s rankings of literary magazines are subject to debate, take this as a valuable and free resource!

Speaking of publishing, that usually involves a heaping helping of rejections. Well, I say, micro freaking deal! Rev that sense of humor! Need some assistance in that department? Here’s what Jia Jiang learned from 100 days of rejection:

There’s more to Mexico than beaches & pyramids & Frida chunches… (Chunches: That’s Mexican for tchotchkes. Not to be confused with Ughyur raisin-drying facilities.) For anyone interested in the rich cultural heritage of Mexico, check out Richard Perry’s long-ongoing blog, Arts of Colonial Mexico. Richard writes: “For the New Year, we plan to highlight monuments and art works in Oaxaca and Yucatan as well as in Guanajuato, Puebla and Tlaxcala.”

An email from Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka, editor of Loch Raven Review:

Dear Fellow Translators,

I want to spread the word about Loch Raven Review’s role in showcasing poetry translated from a variety of languages, featuring as a rule one language per each issue’s bilingual section. Since 2011, when I accepted the responsibility of the Poetry Translations Editor, Loch Raven Review has featured 21 sections of poetry in translation. I’ve compiled a list of all the sections, starting with the Spanish language, followed by the expected and unexpected languages, such as Catalan, Mayan or Kurdish, at http://danutakk.wordpress.com/loch-raven-review/

I’ve made it a point to engage local area translators, starting with Yvette Neisser and Patricia Bejarano Fisher, then Nancy Naomi Carlson, Barbara Goldberg, Katherine E. Young, Nancy Arbuthnot, Zeina Azzam, and then Zackary Sholem Berger, Xuhua Lucia Liang, and Maritza Rivera in the most recent LRR Volume 15, No. 2, 2019.

Also, since 2018 we’ve been busy catching up with LRR print volumes. In 2019 we published Volumes 10-13!
You may enjoy them at http://thelochravenreview.net/loch-raven-press-books/ and on our Facebook page.

Vol. 14 is going to press soon.

Starting in 2018 we have nominated four translations for the Pushcart Award.

I feel proud and happy to be able to bring together poets who write in such a variety of languages, and the translators who make the poems available to the English language readers.

Wishing you all a peaceful, creative, and joyful 2020,

Danka

Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka

Emma Lawton on “What Parkinson’s Taught Me”:

There is nothing you cannot do! Says Tao Porchon-Lynch, the world’s oldest yoga teacher– who recently passed away at 101. She made 98 look like 18. Bless you, Tao.

Cyberflanerie: Bill Cunningham, Brattlecast,
Rudy Rucker, Sturmfrei & More

“The Typewriter Manifesto” by Richard Polt,
Plus Cyberflanerie on Technology

Remembering Ann L. McLaughlin

Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

AWP 2019 (Think No One Is Reading Books and Litmags Anymore?)

After attending for more years than I can count, in 2014 I swore off the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in lieu of fewer, more narrowly focused, and smaller writers conferences.* If you’re not familiar with it, AWP is huger than HUUUUGE, with an eye-addling and foot blister-inducing bookfair, plus endless panels, scads of receptions (free cheese cubes!), readings, and more readings, and even more readings. Finding friends at AWP oftentimes feels like trying to meet up at Grand Central Station at rush hour. Of the panels that appeal, dagnabbit, they somehow occupy the same time slot. Then try finding a table for an impromptu group of 13 on Friday at 7 PM! But sometimes, never mind, it all aligns beautifully and you can find friends and inspiration and new friends and all whatnot!

*For example, the American Literary Translators Association; Biographers International; Center for Big Bend Studies; Texas Institute of Letters; Women Writing the West.

Never say never. What brought me back to AWP this last weekend in March of 2019 was to celebrate Gival Press’s 20th anniversary with a reading from my book Meteor, which won the Gival Press Poetry Award, and a booksigning at the Gival Press table in the bookfair. I also went to see friends and to scout out who’s publishing translations these days, since I have a couple of manuscripts of contemporary Mexican fiction that I’m aiming to place. Yet another reason was for a spritz of inspiration. (And I won’t go on about the lovely and fascinating city of Portland, since this is already a longish post.)

Think no one is reading books and literary magazines anymore? Here are just a few of the multitude of aisles of the 2019 AWP bookfair this year in Portland’s Oregon Convention Center:

The above views are typical, in my experience from AWPs in Austin, Chicago, Palm Springs, New York City, Denver, Seattle… I’m sure I left one out… they all kinda meld together in my memories…

Robert Giron, Founding Editor of Gival Press at AWP 2019

I spent most of my time at AWP this year in the bookfair. Among the shining highlights for me was finding Alexandra van de Kamp, one of my favorite poets, and a fellow literary editor and Spanish translator– we met at a book fair in New York City back when she was editing Terra Incognita and I, Tameme, and we’ve kept in touch for all these years. I think it’s been (ayy) 20. Alexandra now teaches poetry workshops at Gemini Ink, the literary arts center in San Antonio, Texas, where she also serves as Executive Director.

Here’s my favorite table in the bookfair, a cozy red tent constructed by Nicholas Adamski, poet and Chief Creative Officer of The Poetry Society of New York. We had a most excellently awesome conversation about typewriters.

Nicholas Adamski, Chief Creative Officer, The Poetry Society of New York.

What I had not seen before at an AWP bookfair was this central platform for filming author interviews:

WHY ATTEND AWP?

It takes a pile of clams to attend AWP, plus travel costs, plus time– and that includes recovery time. Everyone has their own reasons for attending, and these might vary from year to year. I’ll speak for myself: In early years I attended AWP in order to promote my literary magazine, Tameme, and that meant standing at the table in the bookfair all day every day– which was fun, mostly, but exhausting (I developed an immense respect for vegetable sellers, I am not kidding). Later, after Tameme danced its jig over the litmag rainbow, I focused on participating on and attending panels as a writer (here’s one I did in for AWP on writers blogs in Seattle 2014; in previous years I participated on panels on writing travel memoir; writing across cultures; translating Mexican writers; and audio CDs– the latter on the eve of the advent of podcasting); exploring the bookfair (among other benefits, you can pitch editors sometimes, and sometimes it actually works); and meeting up with my editors, and with fellow poets and writers and translators. (The American Literary Translators Asociation, which has its own annual conference, also runs a mini-conference within the AWP conference. Ditto the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, for which many editors and marketing staff attend.)

AWP is the MFA scene (Masters in Fine Arts in Writing). Most of the people attending seem to me to be students, graduates, or faculty of MFA programs. Those who are not, such as myself, are literary writers, poets, translators, and editors, and some staff of university-affliated conferences and independent nonprofit literary centers and organizations. While books and magazines are sold at AWP, this is not the commercial publishing scene. The publishers in the bookfair are for the most part university presses and university-associated literary magazines, and small independent presses and literary organizations. It’s not unheard of at AWP but extremely rare (as in albino antelope) to encounter an agent, or any commercial genre writing (romances, mystery, detective). You certainly won’t find much if anything in the way of the business books, commercial fiction, and celebrity tell-alls that are stock-in-trade for most bookstores.

OFF-SITERIE

A big draw for AWP is the delicious menu of off-site events, which are listed in the conference catalogue. The first night I arrived, I attended the readings by Leslie Pietrzyk from This Angel on My Chest, and Brad Felver, from The Dogs of Detroit, both winners of the University of Pittsburgh Press Drue Heinz Award for Short Fiction, at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop — a charming venue for two brilliant readings. Here’s my amiga Leslie:

Leslie Pietrzyk reads at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop, Portland, Oregon, 2019

Another offsite event was the Gival Press 20th Anniversary Celebration at the Hotel Rose, in which I participated with a batch of poems from Meteor. (No photos of Yours Truly. Bad hair day.)

Here’s Thaddeus Rutkowski reading his poem, “White and Wong”:

Thaddeus Rutkowski reads his poetry, and brilliantly, at the Gival Press 20th Anniversary Reading.

PANELS

Only two panels for me to attend this year. First, an homage to the late John Oliver Simon, a fine poet, translator, and teacher. (I published some his work in Tameme and the second Tameme chapbook, his translation of Mexican poet Jorge Fernández Granados’ Ghosts of the Blue Palace.) Here are the panelists with Simon’s portrait:

On the right is Arlyn Miller, founding poet of Poetic License.

And here is my amigo novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary activist Sergio Troncoso talking about “How to Overcome Discouragement and Use It as a Motivating Tool”:

AWP Panelists Sergio Troncoso at the podium, left, Charles Salzberg; right, panel chair Christina Chiu and M. M. De Voe. This was my favorite AWP panel ever. And M.M. De Voe’s talk was hilarious, a grand performance. Thank you all! I walked out feeling like the Energizer Bunny! And I think everyone else did, too!

AT THE AWP BOOKFAIR

Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal, established in 1889. That’s Emily Holland on the left; Zack Powers on the right.

The Paris Review and assistant on-line editor Brian Ransom. One of my short stories appeared in this venerable litmag one waaaaay back in… I think it was 1996, the issue with the naked Egyptian lady on the cover. I actually spoke to George Plimpton on the phone once!

Cecilia Martínez-Gil with her book of poetry, Psaltery and Serpentines, at the Gival Press table. Love the ice-blue suit! Viva!

Another amiga, poet and teacher Karen Benke. One of my poems is in her rip-roaring anthology for children, Rip the Page!

Karen Benke (right) shared a booth with Albert Flynn DeSilver, author of Writing as a Path to Awakening. They both traveled from northern California. DeSilver is also the author of the memoir Beamish Boy.

Another Californian here in Oregon: Catherine Segurson, founding editor of Catamaran Literary Reader. Recent issues include my translations of stories by Mexican writer Rosemary Salum and my essay “Tulpa Max or, the Afterlife of a Resurrection.” I felt like I had already met Catherine, we had corresponded so many times, but this was the first time we met in person. Another shining highlight of AWP 2019!

All the way from Virginia: Stan Galloway, Director of the Brigewater International Poetry Festival. Note his T-shirt that says “Pay the Poet.” Viva!

All the way from Maryland: Potomac Review: Another litmag that published one of my stories waaaay back… maybe 2010? They are going strong!

Host Publications is doing good things in Austin, Texas.

From Washington DC: My amigos Richard Peabody, poet, writer and editor of Gargoyle Magazine, with Karren Alenier, poet and editor of WordWorks. Everytime I see Karren she is wearing that fabulous chapeau. Viva!

From Buffalo, New York: Dennis Maloney, editor/ publisher of White Pine Press. My sincere respects for so many years of publishing such high quality literature in translation.

Howdy there, Elizabeth Geoghegan and Richard Peabody!

Free buttons! And plenty of Hersheys Kisses, Tootsie Rolls, Sweet & Sours, Starbursts, free pens, more pens, calls for submissions…

All the way from Michigan! Fourth Genre— a new generation keeps this grand journal of creative nonfiction cooking. (Years ago, ayyyy, 2002, Fourth Genre published my essay about Tijuana, “A Touch of Evil.” )

Giant toy chick head, yes! Beautiful books at the Berfrois table. On the left is Calliope Michail; on the right is S. Cearley, poet and ghostwriter.

Hippocampus Magazine and Books by Hippocampus. Their debut title is Air: A Radio Anthology. Check out what they’re publishing–a cornucopia of creative nonfiction– at www.hippocampusmagazine.com. Pictured right is founding editor Donna Talarico.

An eyecatching cover for Alison C. Rollins’ book, Library of Small Catastrophes at the Copper Canyon Press table.

Another inspiration: Joseph Bednarik at Copper Canyon Press shows me how Alison Rollins signs her books: a stamp, a blue date stamp, and grape-colored ink. Yes!

Typosphere alert! This is the table for Hugo House of Seattle.

BatCat Press: This is run by highschool students in Pennsylvania and damned if it wasn’t the most energetically staffed and one of the most altogether impressive tables in the entire bookfair. Their handmade chapbooks are gorgeous. Plus they sell haiku pins!

Ghost Woodpecker by Dustin Nightingale, a fine letterpress chapbook from BatCat Press.

Best no-show table. The message in crayon on the top informs passerby that UPS lost their books. (I hope they had as much fun as I did butterflying about the bookfair.)

Natural Bridge. Shown here is my copy of issue 40 that arrived at my house before AWP.

The Natural Bridge table was one of many that I missed visiting at the bookfair. Alas, ever and always, there are dear friends, fabulous events, and necessary bookfair tables that one ends up missing at such a hugely huger than huge conference. AWP is not for the FOMO-ly challenged.

UPDATE: Karren Alenier has a fascinating post about AWP 2019, from the point of view of a poetry publisher. If you’re at all interested in the literary magazine and small press poetry scene, this is a must-read.

Meteor, Influences, Ambience

“Silence” and “Poem” on the 1967 Hermes

Notes on Stephen L. Talbott’s The Future Does Not Compute

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.

Meteor (Gival Press Poetry Award) to Launch at AWP

My book Meteor, which won the Gival Press Award for Poetry, and was orginally scheduled to be published in late 2018, has been delayed slightly; it will be out in early 2019. I’m thrilled to see the cover, designed by Kenn Schellenberg, and to announce that Meteor will launch at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Portland, Oregon this March. If you’re going to the conference, come on by my reading which will be part of Gival Press’ 20th Anniversary Celebration, and also to my booksigning the following day in the AWP Bookfair (details below).

Check out Leslie Pietrzyk’s interview with me about Meteor for her excellent blog, Work-in-Progress.

Visit Meteor’s webpage here. All of the poems in Meteor have been published, but only a few are online, among them: “In the Garden of Lope de Vega,” “Stay West” and “Bank.”

I’d be the first to say many of these poems could be considered flash fictions, and in fact, a number of them were originally published in literary magazines (e.g., Exquisite Corpse, Gargoyle, Kenyon Review), as fiction. But as I like to say, it’s all poetry– or at least, it should aspire to be.

March 29, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference off-site event
Hotel Rose
7 – 10 PM
C.M. Mayo, author of Meteor, to participate in Gival Press 20th Anniversray Celebration Reading. More details to be announced.

March 30, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference
Oregon Convention Center
Book Fair, Gival Press, Table # 8063
10-11:30 AM
C.M. Mayo will be signing Meteor.

Yep, I am still at work on the book about Far West Texas. I aim to post a podcast apropos of that shortly, however next Monday’s post– the month’s fourth– is dedicated, as ever, to a Q & A with another writer: David A. Taylor, who will be talking about his intriguing Cork Wars.

Meteor, Ambiance, Influences

Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on My 1961 Hermes 3000

From the Typosphere: “Bank”

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

Q & A: Novelist Leslie Pietrzyk on Writers Groups, the Siren Song of the Online World & on Writing “Silver Girl”

eA bouquet of bienvenidos for new readers of this blog in 2018. And as you long-time readers know, I post here at “Madam Mayo” blog on Mondays. For 2018, Monday is still the magic day, and every fourth Monday of the month will feature either a post on cyberflanerie or a Q & A with another writer, poet, and/or literary translator.

This first Q & A for 2018 is with crackerjack literary novelist, short story writer, and essayist Leslie Pietrzyk who has a new novel out this month, which I cannot wait to read. Silver Girl is the title, and it has already been garnering outstanding reviews, including a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. (For the unititiated, a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly is a B-Freaking-D for which, lest you own a wine shop, you do not have enough champagne.)

Pietrzyk is also the author of This Angel on My Chest, winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for Short Fiction; and the novels A Year and a Day and Pears on a Willow Tree.

C.M. MAYO: You have been a consistently productive literary writer for many years. How has the digital revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, Facebook, Twitter, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?

LELSIE PIETRZYK: Oh, yes, yes, yes…I’m a sucker for that siren song of the online world. I’m not sure I’ve come up with the answer for maintaining focus, but sometimes I’ll try setting timers (say, no Facebook until two hours have passed) or working late at night (fewer people online to chat with). I don’t answer email on the weekends.

But what works better for me (unless I’m kidding myself), is that I’ve become more open to working WITH social media and the wide world of Google available while I’m writing. Why knock myself out trying to imagine the color of nail polishes in 1982 when I can simply Google for an answer and see an array before me? Why berate myself for dipping into Facebook for five minutes? Why not just accept that distractions are part of our world now and try to retrain myself to write deeply amidst them?

CM: Are you in a writing group? If so, can you talk about the members, the process, and the value for you?*

LP: For many years I was in an incredible, high-level writing group of 6 women who shared novels-in-progress…dear Madam Mayo belonged to this group! I think I learned how to write a novel from these monthly meetings.

When the group dissipated after 10 years, I was—honestly—tired of having critical voices in my head. Plus, I was in the beginning phases of putting together a story collection that was linked unconventionally, by incident (in each story, a young husband dies suddenly; the book became This Angel on My Chest). Because what I was doing was so difficult, and because I didn’t know how on earth I was going to make this premise work, and because I didn’t want to hear one word about my flailing, I decided that it was time for a different kind of group.

I started my neighborhood prompt writing group, and we meet once a month and write for 30 minutes to open-ended, one-word prompts. We can read out loud or not, and there are no critiques, only admiration. We’ve been meeting for more than 5 years now, and chunks of Silver Girl emerged from these meetings.

(Here’s an article about how to start your own prompt writing group: http://www.workinprogressinprogress.com/2015/02/whatever-works-works-start-your-own.html )

CM: Did you experience any blocks while writing this novel, and if so, how did you break through them?

LP: My biggest block actually came right at the beginning. I had been writing character sketches and scenes in my prompt group for at least eighteen months before I started the book in earnest, so I had all this material. My two college girl characters were dark and edgy and complicated, and I’d teased out a ton of fascinating history to their relationship. When I finally finished This Angel on My Chest I thought it would be a simple glide right into the new book…but I realized immediately that my complicated, interesting characters had no plot! It was a humbling moment.

I started doing more research into the Tylenol murders in the early 80s (which is the backdrop for the book) and focused on brainstorming potential connections between my girls and that event. I won’t say I ended up with an outline per se, but eventually I found a path for the book’s events. (Nor will I say that anything about writing this book was a “simple glide”!)

CM: Back to a digital question. At what point, if any, were you working on paper for this novel? Was working on paper necessary for you, or problematic?

LP: I never thought I’d say this, but paper was very important! I’m usually all-computer-all-the-time, but I’ve found that writing to prompts on paper feels freeing and takes my mind to riskier, more interesting places. So I wrote about Jess and the unnamed narrator many, many times across several little notebooks. The problematic parts came in trying to locate scenes I was sure I’d remembered writing, and when I had to type into the computer, a task I despise. Perhaps even more problematic is the constant fear that I’ll lose one of my notebooks to carelessness or fire before I transcribe its contents!

CM: Do you keep in active touch with your readers? If so, do you prefer hearing from them by email, sending a newsletter, a conversation via social media, or some combination?

LP: I’m far too disorganized to send a newsletter. Also, I retain enough Midwestern upbringing to wonder, who wants to hear from me? An email from a reader is always a fun surprise or a tweet…but I’m still loyal to Facebook. I generally post publically so anyone can follow me. I’ve actually come to know many readers and writers through my FB scroll. And for real old-school types, I’ve still got my literary blog!** I used to be very reliable about posting and am erratic now, but I hope the site still retains a scrap of personal flair: www.workinprogressinprogress.com

Email access is on my website (along with some of my favorite recipes): www.lesliepietrzyk.com

*CM: I too left our writing group, and for similar reasons. (I was about half way into an epic and epically complex historical novel, and after I got rolling with that, receiving critiques from other writers who were, of necessity, reading 30 pages out of context, was turning into more trouble than it was worth to me– and, to further complicate matters, I was transitioning to living in Mexico City again.) Nontheless I remain immensely grateful for members’ critiques of the beginning drafts of this novel, as well as of several other short stories and literary essays. And I miss the comraderie of those meetings with such excellent friends and esteemed colleagues. Those years for me personally, and for my writing, were a rare blessing.

**CM: For anyone interested in writing and publishing literary fiction, Leslie Pietrzyk’s Work-in-Progress blog is a read well worth your while.

P.S. Blast from 2008! Leslie Pietrzyk’s Guestblog Post for Madam Mayo
on the Top 5 Guestblog posts for her blog, Work-in-Progress