Ask the Author: Jennifer deBie
Answered Questions (4)
Jennifer deBie
It's the closest thing to magic we're ever going to get. If taking people from all across the earth into a world of my own making with nothing more than paper and ink isn't magic in the purest, truest sense of the world, I don't know what is.
Jennifer deBie
Read.
Read books you like and books you don't think you'll like and poetry and essays and newspapers and the backs of cereal boxes while you eat breakfast. Every page you read is another tool in your chest, it expands your perspective, your vocabulary, and your understanding of the way language works.
If you want to commit words to pages, then read as many pages as you can. If someday you want people to do you the courtesy of reading your words, then you should do the courtesy of reading theirs.
And then, when you've read the novels and essays and poetry collections and cereal boxes, start writing. Practice your craft, the first draft is crap? That's okay. That's what edits are for. Just get it down, you can make it better later.
Read books you like and books you don't think you'll like and poetry and essays and newspapers and the backs of cereal boxes while you eat breakfast. Every page you read is another tool in your chest, it expands your perspective, your vocabulary, and your understanding of the way language works.
If you want to commit words to pages, then read as many pages as you can. If someday you want people to do you the courtesy of reading your words, then you should do the courtesy of reading theirs.
And then, when you've read the novels and essays and poetry collections and cereal boxes, start writing. Practice your craft, the first draft is crap? That's okay. That's what edits are for. Just get it down, you can make it better later.
Jennifer deBie
Short answer? Too much.
The list is, my doctoral thesis/dissertation/project, a new novel, the occasional poem, and a podcast with a few friends.
The thesis is on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. The novel is probably a reaction to thesis and pandemic stress, and the podcast is about being in academia (obligatory check us out @PhDpending and on Spotify etc.), and the poetry is usually about dealing with all of that.
The list is, my doctoral thesis/dissertation/project, a new novel, the occasional poem, and a podcast with a few friends.
The thesis is on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. The novel is probably a reaction to thesis and pandemic stress, and the podcast is about being in academia (obligatory check us out @PhDpending and on Spotify etc.), and the poetry is usually about dealing with all of that.
Jennifer deBie
How about a micropoem instead?
Ghostship
And when you escape, surface, drown in dark air,
as your crew cries and dies on oil-slick waves,
scream for a rescue that isn't coming...
We'll be there, messmate,
we always need sailors.
Ghostship
And when you escape, surface, drown in dark air,
as your crew cries and dies on oil-slick waves,
scream for a rescue that isn't coming...
We'll be there, messmate,
we always need sailors.
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