Interview with Martha Ronk

LH: How did you get interested in writing?
MR: I read a great deal as a child, taking books from the public library to read in stacks through the hot Ohio summers. I liked creating sentences and diagramming sentences and rearranging sentences and analyzing literature and studying Latin. I wrote a dissertation on Milton for my PhD and have taught Shakespeare at Occidental College for many years; teaching literature has made me awed by writing.

LH: What was your first success?
MR: My first book, “Desire in LA,” was selected at random for a contest sponsored by the University of Georgia, published 1991. A recent success: I had work chosen for a Norton Anthology, “American Hybrid.”

LH: What kind of books or articles do you most enjoy writing?
MR: I like conceiving of an entire project in which the poems are all related to one another by theme, approach, style, or form. At the moment I am working on “Transfer of Qualities” (quotation from Henry James) in which people and objects transfer qualities with one another—the manuscript is made up of prose poems, short essays, and short “fiction” pieces. In an earlier book, “Why/Why Not” (Univ. of CA Press), I had Hamlet and the phrase “to be or not to be” in mind for each of the sections. In fiction, I like obsessive narrators.

LH: Do you have an agent? Tell us about your experiences with/without agents.
MR: Poets mostly don’t have agents. My work has been published by means of literary contests offered by University Presses or by request from a publisher. If I try for another work of fiction, I would ask all the fiction writers I know for advice; my own fiction, “Glass Grapes and other stories” was published by a small press, BOA Editions, because one of the editors had published one of the stories in his anthology.

LH: What are your thoughts about marketing? Do you have any great tips on how to do it well?
MR: For publishing poems in literary journals, it is most important to know the journal and the editorial approach so that the work you send is fitting and appropriate. Most journals have instructions on how many poems to submit and when. I also think that it is important for all authors to attend conferences, to read at bookstores (and other venues), to attend readings. For poets, the major meeting is the Associated Writing Programs meeting in spring every year. I have had the opportunity to be an editor for Littoral Books, a small press here in LA, but we published 10 books of poems, and for several literary magazines; I learned a great deal working with other writers.


LH: If you could go back in time and start over, tell us one thing you have learned that would help you to succeed better/faster/with less struggle.
MR: I would start earlier. It also helps to begin with a community formed in graduate school, in one’s city, in publishing ventures with others, in other projects. Writers help support one another and since there is little financial support, this aesthetic support is crucial. I also wish I had tried fiction earlier; it was writing my fictional memoir, “Displeasures of the Table,” that got me to thinking that I might try fiction. For me fiction offers more opportunities for the comic.

LH: Any other thoughts to share?
MR: Writing is the most interesting and exhausting thing I do. And every time I read a great piece, a poem (C.D. Wright, for example) or a novel (I just finished “The Book Shop” by Penelope Fitzgerald with ironic, wry sentences) I am eager to write more, to find yet another juxtaposition of words. Each one offers something of a solution to the mystery of how it is done.

I have chosen photographs for the covers of my books; I have written a number of poems about photographs and I love black and white photographs and decided early to use photographs on the covers (although I didn’t have a choice for my last, “Vertigo” from Coffee House Press). My website is through Occidental College, English and Literary Studies Department at

http://departments.oxy.edu/ecls/07%20webpage/ronk/. LH note: Martha Ronk's most recent poetry book, Vertigo, is a National Poetry Series winner, selected by CD Wright.

Interview with Kay Murphy

LH: How did you get interested in writing?
KM: In 1963, I was in the 4th grade. I was a withdrawn, insecure child with a dysfunctional family and a father who was dying. On every report card since 1st grade, I’d been criticized by my teachers for being “too shy.” Mrs. Walton, however, was a kind and maternal teacher who tried to encourage everyone in one way or another. That year, she taught us how to write dialogue correctly (in terms of punctuation), then she gave us an assignment to “write a story.” We had to include dialogue and it had to be punctuated correctly. (No ditto sheets for Mrs. W!) My story was several pages long. It was about a lonely, shy boy who uses parts in his dad’s garage to build a robot. It had humor and pathos, action and resolution, a beginning, a middle and an end. Mrs. Walton enjoyed it so much, she asked me if she could read it to the class. All these years later, I can still hear her voice—she had a Southern accent—reading it aloud. I can still feel the burn in my cheeks of embarrassment—and the thrill in my heart later when kids in my class said they liked it. I did something right for a change. I did something good for a change. I did something special and not something stupid. I had value as a person. I could create. Mrs. Walton told me that day, “You could be a writer.” I clung to her words like a life preserver in a vast turbulent sea.

I came home that day and told my mother, “I know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a writer.” Her response was, “Not everyone can be a writer….” So I didn’t get much support from her. Until my first book was published when I was 26. The day it came out, she bought four copies from four different bookstores. Talk about vindication and validation….

LH: What was your first success?
KM: When I was 21, I entered a writing contest sponsored by Decision, an international magazine with a circulation of six million. (Not bad for 1975.) I won third place (out of thousands of entries), and my story was published in the magazine. In addition, I was invited to attend a writers conference. My first writers conference… sigh… that’s when everything good began to break wide open in my writing. I learned how to write query letters, book proposals, and I learned all the basic marketing do’s and don’t’s.

LH: What kind of books or articles do you most enjoy writing?
KM: I enjoy writing nonfiction. I love reading fiction, but I’m too self-conscious, too self-absorbed to get outside myself enough to create interesting characters. I leave that to the professionals. I like to write pieces that involve universal human experiences, and I like to try, in my writing, to offer hope to those who navigating rough waters. (And I like ocean metaphors.)

LH: Do you have an agent? Tell us about your experiences with/without agents.
KM: Honestly, I have resented the idea of having to have an agent ever since I started writing 30 years ago. If a writer can’t represent herself—if she can’t say, ‘This is what my book is about, and here’s a sample of my writing,’ she may be in the wrong business. I sold my first book on my own—when I was 23. But when I wrote the second book—a True Crime/Memoir (because I discovered my great-grandmother had poisoned a number of people and may have been America’s first female serial killer)—I realized there were publishing houses that wouldn’t consider an “unsolicited” manuscript. So I found an agent who “loved” my manuscript—even though she admitted she’d only read the first few pages and ‘didn’t have time to read the rest’—who ‘presented’ the book proposal by simply emailing some publishers she knew with “Granny was a serial killer’ in the subject line. When she didn’t sell the manuscript in three months, she sent me an email apologizing and offering to let me out of our contract—an opportunity I promptly took her up on. (The book, Tainted Legacy, is now in print.)

LH: What are your thoughts about marketing? Do you have any great tips on how to do it well?
KM: The secret to effective marketing is knowing your audience. And let me just say, anyone who writes a book these days will need to do her own marketing. Unless your name is immediately recognized in literary circles, your book is not going to sell unless you sell it. Now let me be a heretic (my review “nickname” on Amazon is “Heretic”) and say that you should never, ever write a book with the idea in mind, “What is my target audience?” Magazine, newspaper, online writing, yes, you should. But if you have a book in your heart, just sit down at the keyboard and bring it forth; put all the ‘what ifs’ out of your head. For most writers, getting the first draft finished—all the way to the last page—is the toughest task they’ll face. Once it’s polished and published, you can begin to think about who you’d like to read it. If you write a book about business, contact local business groups, chambers of commerce, and other business organizations. Ask to be a guest speaker. If you write a novel that’s historical fiction, contact the museums and history clubs in your area and ask if you can come talk about the book. Marketing should be an ever-widening circle; create a fan base in your local area and it will eventually ripple out.

LH: If you could go back in time and start over, tell us one thing you have learned that would help you to succeed better/faster/with less struggle.
KM: At the risk of waxing philosophical here, I don’t think we can succeed with less struggle. Every success requires sacrifice. Every step forward results in some loss of energy, some part of ourselves given over to the desire to gain ground. Having said that, I will repeat what my buddy and fellow writer Douglas Clegg (The Hour Before Dark) told me years ago: A writer’s biggest challenge is overcoming self-doubt. If I’d had more support and encouragement early on, if I’d had the courage to keep sending things out despite the number of rejections, I know I would have been more prolific.

LH: Any other thoughts to share?
KM: Don’t give up. Don’t stop writing. If you read something you’ve written and it touches you, don’t ever let anyone make you feel inadequate as a writer. Write every day—even if it’s journal writing—and read every day. Send your work out constantly. When my kids were small, I wrote my first children’s story because my son said he couldn’t find anything ‘scary’ to read. He liked “Wolf Cry,” the story I wrote for him, so I sent it out to Child Life magazine. It was promptly rejected. For two years, I kept getting that story back and sending it out again—like a paper Frisbee game. Finally, when I’d exhausted all the children’s magazines, a friend suggested I send it back to Child Life. “After all,” she said, “chances are someone else is now the ‘first reader,’ and the manuscript might just get passed on.” She was right. I sent it again—and it just happened to arrive when the editors were planning a wolf-themed issue. The lesson here is that a rejection is not a statement about the quality of your writing. Write that on a Post-it note and stick it on your mirror. And chant it as a mantra: “A rejection is not a statement about the quality of my writing.”

INTERVIEW with CAMILLE MINICHINO/aka MARGARET GRACE

LH: How did you get interested in writing?
CM: At my liberal arts college, I was told I should do everything – be a Renaissance woman!
So I majored in math, got a PhD in physics, and thought – it's time to be a novelist.

LH: So, what was your first success?
CM: It was a "back page" piece in Ms. Magazine, on both partners keeping their names when they marry. (The piece is on my website, http://www.minichino.com)

LH: What kind of books or articles do you most enjoy writing?
CM: I love it all. I've written 13 mysteries, countless first person essays, blogs, a self-help book, short stories …

LH: Do you have an agent? Tell us about your experiences with/without agents.
CM: My first two novels were published by a small press, Avalon. After that, I found it easier to get an agent. I’ve been with my agent now for 11 books.

LH: What are the advantages and disadvantages to working with a small press?CM: The advantage is a lot of personal attention from your editors. The disadvantage is you don’t get a wide distribution: your press is a little fish in a big pond and you feel like that too.

LH: What are your thoughts about marketing? Do you have any great tips on how to do it well?
CM: Who knows? I do all the things the publishers suggest: website, blogging, visiting bookstores and libraries, courting a niche market, and social networking. So far, no one I know has been able to make a correlation between any of these and sales.

LH: How did you get the ideas for your two series of books?
CM: I'm a retired physicist, so the periodic table was a natural! And I've always loved and worked on dollhouses, so the second series was a natural too.

LH: If you could go back in time and start over, tell us one thing you have learned that would help you to succeed better/faster/with less struggle.
CM: Other than be born to rich, educated parents who were in the publishing business … again, who knows?

LH: Any other thoughts to share?
CM: For me the payoff is meeting with readers, hearing from people who've gotten something from my work, whether it's a bit of information, a chuckle, or a connection of some kind. Publishing one's writing is not for the weak. You have to be very persistent, bounce back after rejections, and – often – keep a day job. Fortunately I love my day jobs (teaching and scientific editing), so I'm not stressed out (well, not too much) when things don't gel quickly enough.
My three words of advice would be: KEEP AT IT.

Interview with Kathryn Wilkens

LH: Kathryn, how did you get interested in writing?

KW: I didn’t get interested in writing until my late 20s when I felt the urge to start a personal journal. I didn’t want to write for anyone else, only for my future self. A few times when I came to the end of a book I would consider abandoning the enterprise, but I always wound up buying a new book and filling it up. No one had ever encouraged me to write, so I had to encourage myself. My writing was a form of rebellion against my traditional, Midwestern, male-dominated upbringing. My journals taught me how to write and helped me become the kind of adult I wanted to be.

LH: What was your first success?

KW: My first paid acceptance was an essay in Walking magazine, followed closely by a personal essay in the Los Angeles Times and a travel article, also in the Times. For me the stumbling block was in mustering the audacity to send out queries and manuscripts. Once I got over that, publication came easily (not that I didn’t have rejections and rewrites). Of course, by this time I was in my 50s!

LH: What kind of books or articles do you most enjoy writing?

KW: I write short nonfiction—700 to 900-word personal essays or 1,000 to 1,200-word articles. I write about anything that interests me at the moment. In addition to travel articles, I’ve written about the English language, writing techniques and photography. I wrote several articles for the now-defunct Personal Journaling on topics such as nature writing and how to title your journals. I’ve had three essays published in anthologies, with another one coming out in 2010.

LH: What are your thoughts about marketing? Do you have any great tips on how to do it well?

KW: Only what everyone has heard a million times: Never give up. A story or article is only a failure if you quit sending it out. Of course, you may have to update, revise or re-purpose a piece of writing (by changing the angle or writing it for a different audience than you first envisioned). Also, I like to use the word “decline” rather than “reject” because it’s less emotionally loaded, as in “The editor declined my article, but I’m sending it out again.”

LH: If you could go back in time and start over, tell us one thing you have learned that would help you to succeed better/faster/with less struggle.

KW: I took an article-writing class at UC Riverside Extension with Mike Foley and he explained the marketing process (queries, cover letters, submission formats). I wish I had taken his class (or a similar one) at a younger age. I struggled with my own attitude for years and couldn’t accept that I was a real writer. Then I looked at all my journals and realized of course I’m a writer! Who but a writer would maintain a journal for so many years without a reason other than the desire to do it? Anyway, I think a certain amount of self-doubt is good if it motivates you to take writing classes, read writing magazines, learn how to research, revise and market.

LH: Any other thoughts to share?

KW: Join or start a critique group. Set up ground rules that everyone agrees to. Read your story aloud, then be still and listen to what others say, without jumping in to justify what you wrote. Accept both praise and criticism with equanimity. You don’t have to take everyone’s suggestions, but you should pay attention to what is working and what isn’t. And right before you send a manuscript, it’s a good idea to have someone proofread it. They will find little mistakes that you may have read right over several times!

Here is the link to my travel article about Egypt:

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-egypt7-2009jun07

Interview with Emily Rapp

LH: Emily, how did you get interested in writing?

ER: I’ve been writing since I was very little. My first crack at writing was a “rewriting” of the Christmas story! =) But I think I really became interested in writing when I learned to read. I have always been a voracious reader. Before I decided to pursue writing as a profession, I was a theologian and a pastor. My very first “shorts” were sermons!

LH: What was your first success?

ER: I actually think my very first story, called “Double Deception,” written in the third grade, was my first feeling of success. The story felt complete to me; in other words, I rewrote it several times and finally felt like it was done. And I still like the opening line, “A shot rang out in Beverly Hills.” Fun stuff. I think my first “taste” of adult writing success was being accepted into an MFA program.

LH: What kind of things do you most enjoy writing?

ER: I’m working on a novel at the moment, so I’m very most focused on long-form fiction. I also love to write letters.

LH: Do you have an agent? Tell us about your experiences with/without agents.

ER: I do. My experience with agents has been nothing but positive. An agent is a writer’s advocate, because the business of publishing has very little to do with the work of writing.

LH: What are your thoughts about marketing? Do you have any great tips on how to do it well?

ER: I think every writer has to find venues in which to promote her work. That said, I’m not inclined to focus a lot of energy on that. Sure, it’s great to make money as a writer, but I’ve never expected to make a living at it. A great deal of my life is devoted to teaching, which is much more up my alley than devising marketing strategies. I try to be strategic, but I don’t make myself crazy trying to figure out how to sell myself.

LH: If you could go back in time and start over, tell us one thing you have learned that would help you to succeed better/faster/with less struggle.

ER: I would not worry about what other people are doing, and focus on my own work. A thoroughbred runs her own race. Envy is a waste of time.

LH: Any other thoughts to share?

ER: If you want to be a good writer, read as much as you can, and learn how to be a fair and thoughtful critic of another person’s work.