What makes a writer turn to fiction vs. non-fiction? To poetry? Is it something internal or outside influences? How does the imagination form? For me, in high school, when I discovered poetry it was like being understood for the first time. And I barely understood what I was reading. I think it was like the way music makes sense to some people.

Do you know what I mean?

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I’m sorry, but it’s time to go back to basics. I have been receiving the most cuckoo for cocoa puffs query letters lately. It’s like watching a person shoot himself in the head instead of pitching his book. I can see the blood spatter on the wall.

I’ve said a zillion times: the letter has to be professional, but should give a sense of the writer’s style or sensibility. The letter should be three paragraphs: 1) introduce the project; 2) expand on it in an interesting way via the themes or good comps or most salient details  (no plot points please!);  and 3) your credentials. Writers often ask me, what if I don’t have any credentials? I always answer: get some! What if we can’t, they cry? It’s strange to think that you can sell a book before you’ve ever sold a story or an article. THough stranger things have happened. Nothing is impossible, but you will look a lot more attractive with some writing credentials. Remember too: We’re not best friends, this isn’t a grant proposal,  and I’m not your therapist. In other words, don’t act too chummy, don’t be flat, and don’t tell me your life story. Less is more when query letters are concerned. Oh, and have a memorable and selling title — this goes a long ways.

If you want to send in a query letter, I’ll critique it. And I will be brutal. 😉

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People these days talk about the journey, the process, they say that the journey is all that matters or matters most. I hate the whole idea of that. What’s so wrong with wanting results? With being result-oriented? People say that life is all about the journey. Who cares what life is all about anyway. Just do your fucking work and if you’re lucky enough to conceive of it as a journey, well keep it to yourself. Aren’t we kidding ourselves if we say the result doesn’t matter?  Aren’t we on a so-called journey because we are trying to get somewhere, accomplish something, great or small?

Have I lost the human thread?

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I’m being extremely promiscuous with my reading. Is it me or is them. Until very recently I was a monogamous reader. One book at a time. And I almost never put one down until I finished it. ANd I never skimmed. Now, I’ve gone wild. I’m in the middle of three books (William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, Adam Haslett’s novel Imagine me Gone, Lucia Berlin’s short stories A Manual for Cleaning Women). I actually feel like I’m cheating on one when I’m spending time with another. Is there something wrong with me?

What are your reading proclivities?

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I’m feeling kind of lost. I don’t have a new project. I call writing projects “imaginary friends.” They are always there for you, always beckoning.  I also feel exhausted, like I need an oil change or a transfusion. It’s been over three years with the Bridge Ladies. No what am I supposed to do, learn Mahjong? I have always counseled writers to start a new project before their book comes out. This is excellent advice. Having failed to follow it, I am sans friend. I am a girl without a hat.

Got any imaginary friends?

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Hey guys, here’s an article called, “Rock, Paper, Scissors” that I wrote for Poets & Writers Magazine. It’s about being tri-sexual: an editor, agent, and writer. I can’t tell if it’s true or wearing rosy glasses. It’s too breezy for me. Do I love what I do? Do I love my writers? Am I a happy Good ‘n Plenty dancing around in a pink box?  What do I prefer: editing, agenting or writing? What do I prefer a cheese burger deluxe, a pizza half meatballs, or a bucket of anything? Do I like espadrilles or maryjanes? Have I learned from my mistakes?

Do you have a calling?

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I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: I developed my voice on this blog and it carried forward into my book. For one year, I tried to write the Bridge Ladies as a kind of New Yorker essay. No first person writing at all. Everyone I shared it with told me (in polite terms) that is sucked. My husband kept saying, you have to use your blog voice. (My husband initially discouraged me from blogging because of certain impulse control problems I’m known for, eventually he saw that it was becoming something amazing in my life.) I kept resisting; I couldn’t see my “blog voice” as having anything to do with The BRidge Ladies. But when I finally shifted to first person, the pages started coming to life, my sense of humor got engaged, and more important, I was able to write more deeply than I had been.

What is voice? It’s one of the most important aspects in a piece of writing and yet it’s something of a chimera. You can’t teach it, you can’t describe it the way you can talk about craft, you can’t fuck it. You don’t have to write in first person; voice comes through in any pov, any tense, any style. Yet, how exactly is intelligence, humor, empathy, authority communicated? Can you add it after like a pinch of salt or does it have to emanate from the sentences from the get go? Is it in the DNA of your writing or can it be developed, manipulated, deployed? Is voice an extension of how you sound or is it developed independently through the language you use. What exactly do we mean when we say voice-driven prose?

How do you find your voice?

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Is the “impostor syndrome” real?  Not that I’m feeling fraudulent or anything. Not that I don’t leave a wonderful book event and remind myself that I’m a glorious piece of shit. Actually feeling like a fraud would be welcome compared to the number I do on myself. I could take a fraud vacation.

What’s your syndrome?

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Some years ago, I received a query from a writer who had written a book about dead girls. I knew we were made for each other. Even though I couldn’t find a publisher for the book, Mikita Brottman continued to write and write and write.  It’s not that rejection doesn’t bother her, but nothing stops her. She has to write. Sometimes I think the world exists so that she can write about it.

Now, she has produced a book I am so excited about: The Maximum Security Book Club. It’s about her experience running a book group in a men’s prison. It’s not about life lessons or how literature will save your life. Instead, Mikita brings us inside the prison and lets us get to know these men as individuals; they struggle with most of the books (Macbeth, Lolita, and Heart of Darkness to name a few); that struggle animates the chapters and illuminates their lives. You cannot help but look at each book anew and that is a bit of a miracle.

Here is a brief interview with Mikita:

Can you tell us how you chose the books for the club?

I didn’t sit down and plan carefully in advance. I just chose some of my favorite books – the ones I most wanted to think about and talk about. I didn’t think about whether they were suitable, or accessible, or appropriate. I didn’t want to pander or patronize.

Do you think literature has the power to change lives in 25 words or less?

Yes, but not in ways that are obvious, immediate, discernible, or even necessarily for the better.

What is your favorite prison movie?

I Want to Live!

You never seem frightened or threatened in the book club; can you say something about that?

The men were always calm, polite, and respectful. Most of them hadn’t committed an act of violence for 20 or 30 years. And the book club was the highlight of their week. None of them would have risked losing it, or the other volunteer programs, which are their only contact with the outside world.

Is the killer inside you?

Only in faculty meetings.

Dear Readers: what book would you teach in a prison??

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I had an epiphany on the Stairmaster yesterday. And, yes, that is my subtle way of slipping in that I have finally dragged my fat writer’s ass back to the gym. I realized that the Bridge Ladies isn’t the end. It didn’t make me and it can’t break me. I can do something else. I will have another idea. I have other ideas! I’m not a one man Bridge Lady band! I can go back to sestinas! I have two (two!) young adult ideas. I’ve never given up entirely on The Ring of Truth, or why people have mini-orgasms at poetry readings. The tree of life, the river of life, the capillaries in my brain, the sandbox, the shoe fits, the small, annoying person who says life is short doesn’t realize that it’s also long.

What you got up your sleeve?

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