Introducing Our 2015 Guest Prose Editor: An Interview with Chavisa Woods

Interview by Thomas Fucaloro

Chavisa Woods is great weather's guest prose editor for 2015. Submissions for our next anthology are open October 15th 2014 to January 15th 2015—so send her your best short stories, flash fiction, dramatic monologues, and creative non-fiction.

Chavisa is the author of two books of fiction: The Albino Album: A Novel (Seven Stories Press, 2013) and Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind (Fly by Night Press, 2009). The second edition of this book was released by Autonomedia Press under the Unbearables imprint in 2013. She was the recipient of the 2013 Cobalt Prize for fiction, a finalist (second nomination) for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award for fiction, and the recipient of the 2009 Jerome Foundation award for emerging authors. As a featured author, she has appeared a at such notable venues as The Whitney Museum of American Art, City Lights Bookstore, Town Hall Seattle, The Brecht Forum, The Cervantes Institute, and St. Mark’s Poetry Project. Her writing has appeared in such publications as The Evergreen Review, New York Quarterly, The Brooklyn Rail, Cleaver Magazine, and Jadaliyya. Chavisa has presented lectures and conducted workshops  on short fiction and poetry at a number of academic institutions, including: New York University (NYU), Penn State, Sarah Lawrence College, Bard College, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn Tech and the New School. She is currently completing her third work of full-length fiction. Website

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TF:  Since you will be the prose editor for our next anthology, we were wondering what your take on prose is? What gets you hot? What turns you off?

CW: I have a pretty wide range of styles and voices that, as you say, "get me hot." I think most of my favorite writers share a simultaneous attention to language paired with content that demands attention. When I read a piece, it matters to me that the person has a deep or urgent need to convey something. Whether that something is political, narrative-driven, or aesthetic, light or heavy—it doesn't matter. The fact that the writer itched to deliver this message, and the message is about something larger than themselves, that's what matters. Along with that, when I'm reading it's important to me to see that no other words could have been used to  express quite the same meaning as the words the writer chose. I like to know that there was no other way the writer could have said exactly what they did. I look for meaning, or layers of meaning, to not only be conveyed through words, but be embedded in the language itself.

TF: Who are some of your favorite prose writers and why?

CW: I just typed out this list off of the top of my head, and thought about paring it down, but I think I'll leave it in its entirety, because each of these writers brings something very specific to prose as an art form that will influence writers for generations to come. These are some big names; very heavy hitters, but these are the writers who have stayed with me and whom I return to again and again when I want inspiration, or just a terrific read.

My favorite prose writers are: Richard Brautigan, Harry Crews, Marguerite Yourcenar, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, David Foster Wallace, Jorge Luis Borges, Ralph Ellison, Eileen Myles, Michel Foucault, Angela Carter, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Harlan Ellison, Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, and Djuna Barnes.

If you pick up a book by any of these authors, you’re going to get language that pops or flows or grows off the page, and you're going to learn something about yourself, the universe, society, or discover a new aesthetic possibility. After I read any of these writers, I feel bettered. These writers make me feel brave, and existentially so. They expand me intellectually and emotionally. Even the bleakest stories and essays make me feel hopeful, because these writers remind me that we, as humans, have the capacity to create and shape entire worlds of ideas; worlds with their own rules, as weird as we want them to be; worlds whose boundaries are imminent, infinite or not existent at all. And that is what art is. And that is how I approach creative prose; not as simply a conveyer of literal information, but as an art piece.

TF:  Can you talk about your novel that was released last year called The Albino Album?

CW: The Albino Album took me five years to write, and was quite a departure from my first book, Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, which was more poetic and language driven, and also personally closer to me. I enjoyed writing The Albino Album, because I was able to step back and be a bit lighter for long periods of time. It's a big book, 550 pages, so it moves fast. It has to at that length. It's much more character and plot driven than my earlier writing. I love hearing and seeing people I dont know talking about the book, and talking about the main character, Mya, like she's a real person who they went through something with. I've seen many reader comments and heard people say things like "I couldn't put the book down," or, "I just had to know what happened next." I didn't really set out to write a "page turner" and didn't even know I could write a book like that. But when I got into it with the characters, parts of it almost wrote itself, like the characters started doing things, and there were parts I couldn't write fast enough.

I lived in this very exciting and sometimes painful world with these characters for five years. When it was out and published, it felt a little strange for me. Now other people get to go into the world of that book. They spend a couple of weeks in it. Which was the point for the book; to be read. But in a way, I do miss it. Five years is a long time to spend with a piece. When it was over and I sat down to write, it took me a while to figure out what to do with myself because I was alone again. Starting over with a blank page.

TF: What do you think are some good practices when submitting work to be published?

CW: It's always best to have read something produced by the press you're submitting to. Also, in the writer’s statement, remember, it's the submission that’s being considered, not the statement. Don't overthink it. Editors want to know why you are excited and confident about the piece, and in what context you see your work. There is a human being just like you; another writer on the other end, reading. Just relax and explain or contextualize the piece as you would in person to another writer.

TF:  What's next for you?

CW: I'm nearly finished with a collection of short fiction that is very political in theme, and am working slowly on a more personal novella.

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Submissions for great weather for MEDIA's next anthology are open October 15 2014 to January 15 2015

A Humble Barnacle: An Interview with Eric Alter

INTERVIEW BY THOMAS FUCALORO

Eric Alter is a poet who wrestles with cultural identity and truth—and tries to make them submit themselves to a laugh or a gasp from the audience. He is backed by the full credit and standing of Long Island University and holds a MFA in Creative Writing. His work has recently been published by Overpass Books, Brooklyn Paramount and great weatherfor MEDIA. He is also a 77.4 ton Sherman tank, editor of NYSAI press, and a bass player in the band Giga Herbs.

TF: So you recently made a poetry vid where you break down the borough of Staten Island called Where From or This Was Meant to Be a Pride Poem. How did it came to be? What did you hope to accomplish with it?

EA: "Where From or This Was Meant to Be a Pride Poem" started, like many of my poems, inside a car. I was driving and it was one of those moments where the words just came, seemingly out of nowhere, and were formed into the exact lines of poetry that the poem holds today. During the time that it was written I was focusing a lot on how people come to define themselves by way of their geographical setting. I had come to witness various moments of geographical pride and was intrigued, perplexed even. I thought to myself, How does a place define a people and how does it define the individual? Is it by choice or by circumstance?

Being from Staten Island causes many people to make assumptions about your character, personality and background. They fall into the stereotypes about mafia, the dump, the suburban endlessness of it all. And all this is true to an extent but also a faulty way of characterizing a person. I imagine it to be as reliable as judging the flavor of a pie while only tasting a crumb of it.

So this poem is attempting to put those stereotypes on the spot by bringing attention to the broken parts we actually can fix. Simply identifying it and saying, "Yes, I am from here, so what? Come and see for yourself." I was searching for a way to be prideful about the land mass I lived on but found it did not define me—yet it was how people on the outside defined me.

TF: Your poem "Driving" has just been published in the great weather anthology I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand. Can you talk a little about it?

EA: The poem "Driving" surprisingly was also written in a car. The first half was written during some travel I did from Wisconsin to New York. I was visiting a childhood friend, painter Dan Schein, and we took on the seventeen-hour journey in his little truck. The road, at long stretches, does something to your mind. The sitting still of it all. The fast movement of it all. The bad food rest stops and geography flying by. The kinship of taking on such madness with a handful of close friends. The first half of driving is attempting to link the sentiment of this Wisconsin to New York journey with the driving trip I was on a few weeks later while on tour with my band Giga Herbs.

The physical act of driving reminded me very much with the subconscious act of living. The ups and breakdowns. The beauty and the restlessness. The hunger for escape.

TF:  In "Driving" you have the line It's leaving home/ and inevitably/ It's coming back. What do these lines mean to you?

EA: That line is really focusing on the idea of escape. How we yearn for it. How it's been presented in writing. We are inundated with stories that call for shotgun movement.  And they appeal to a young and idealistic mind. Often what is lost in those stories is the need to reflect and return. So that line is a sort of call to self-reflection and the idea that we can find a home within ourselves.

TF: So you are an editor for the Staten Island based literary press NYSAI. What is your role?

EA: My role in NYSAI Press has been as a co-editor of the magazine and is beginning to grow into other roles, such as grant writer and slam host. The prospect of grant writing excites me greatly because funding for literary based arts on Staten Island has been lacking and the other editors and I want to change that. Helping create a slam team in Staten Island causes me to get goose bumps. I really look forward to providing a safe place for a slam to exist on the Island of Staten because I think there are actually hundreds of poets out there, with vibrant voices, who are just waiting for the right group of people to operate. Being a part of that team sort of gives me purpose for the moment. So look forward for the Staten Island Advanced Slam.

TF: You are becoming a figure in the slam scene. How has slam has influenced your writing and performance? Do you have any advice for young poets who want to get involved in slam?

EA: I had no idea that I was becoming a figure. There are so many amazing poets on the slam scene in New York City that I'd say I was more of a humble barnacle on the bottom hull of the massive ship known as Slam. Just last night I was at the Sidewalk Café, where the Urbana team hosts their weekly workshop, open mic, feature and slam.  I have grown to need the slam community, specifically Urbana, to the extent of carving Tuesday nights out of my work schedule in order to attend every week. Workshops with peers have propelled my writing and shown me the unlocking power of editing. Watching performers like Jared Singer, Jeanann Verlee, Omar Holman and Thomas Fucaloro has created a desire within myself that not only calls for meaningful writing but heartfelt, captivating performance. The slam scene really provides a continuation in the education of poetry for me. It's like an MFA but with way more booze and socially aware writers.

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Read Eric Alter's poem "Driving" in the great weather for MEDIA anthology I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand.

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