Interview With An Author Featuring Amber Dawn

Today I am extremely honoured to be chatting with Amber Dawn, author of My Art Is Killing Me, Arsenal Pulp Press.

I reviewed this incredible collection of poems in The Minerva Reader:
“To put it simply, this collection of poems is outstanding. Heartbreaking, illuminating and ultimately healing, Amber Dawn’s insights and succinct, razor-sharp observations are so exquisite I wish I could tattoo them onto the insides of my eyeballs. But instead I will have to revisit this collection, often.”

So readers, I urge you to buy this collection. Thank you, Amber Dawn, for joining me today.

What inspired you to write this book?
My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems marks my fifth book, and in it I aimed take stock of the insidious expectations put on memoir-based or identity-based literary artists. I was also interested in the idea of the poem as a treaties; I wanted to write in a way that particularly exposes my poetry (and myself) to readers’ examination.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
I would have commissioned more artwork by Jaik Puppyteeth. His art appears on the front cover, and there are two black-and-white illustrations in the body of the book. I’m a huge Puppyteeth fan.

How did you come up with name of this book?
I write about trauma. About surviving sexual violence, sex work justice, about a kind of queerness that will never be side-kicked in movies.

These themes most notably show up in How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir, published in 2013. After that memoir came out, I was taken aback by how many literary colleagues and readers alike made assumptions about me: my life, my time and my personal boundaries. At times, these assumptions made me feel like a disposable pawn in the literary world. My Art Is Killing Me felt like an apt title.

What are you currently reading?
The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya

Do you believe in writer’s block?
I refuse to give the idea of writer’s block any traction. Not writing is a vital part of my process. I don’t need to be constantly producing words on a page to be creating.

What can we expect from you in the future?
My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems was a very challenging and unflinchingly personal book to write. My next book is going to be a YA romance. I need some tenderness and brevity in my writing practice for change.

Thank you so much, Amber Dawn, for joining me to day. My Art Is Killing Me is an outstanding collection of poem and I wish you all the very best for the future.