Monday, November 16, 2015

An Interview...

I may or may not have conducted this interview a month ago.(for your benefit, I will skip my lamentations over life) But anyway, my lovely friend Emma is a wonderful poet, and is publishing her poetry book, Flutterfly, this month! *cue celebrations and parades* So yes, here I have interviewed her.

When did you start writing?


   I started writing in second grade, when our school district had an essay contest. Now, I can't say I started writing /well/ at all then, but nevertheless, it was my hobby. In middle school and junior high I started writing a lot for magazines, until I joined OYAN in 2013, and my attention went to bigger projects. I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time that year also.


How long have you been writing poetry?

   Since junior high school.

What's your favorite genre to write?

   My favorite genre of prose to write is probably speculative fiction; I love being able to explore ideas. I also tend to write very character driven stories.

Are there genres of poems, would you say?


   Usually, I sort poems into stanza poems, meter poems, form poems, and free verse. For the most part, I write free verse. I appreciate innovative poems that bleed out emotions or resonating stories, and I find that poems with too strict of a format damper that. I know it's not the case with everyone, certainly not, just for my writing style.

Is there a sort of overall message that you hope your poetry book gives?

   I hope it shows that it is okay to deeply feel the entire spectrum of emotions; to embrace the little things in a life, and never stop finding beauty in pain and joy alike, because something good will come out of everything if you stick it through.


In story writing, do you consider yourself character-oriented, plot-oriented, or something else?

   Oh, definitely character-orientated, for sure.
In other people's writing, I do enjoy well plotted stories- I love seeing things click into place. I find most of the plot-based work I love, I love because it puts characters into situations that end up revealing human nature. Which is essentially character-driven anyway, so.

What's your favorite genre to read?

   Probably speculative fiction, coming of age stories (character driven, once again.) And I love a good sci-fi.

Who are some of your favorite book characters?

   Oh, I have so many. So many characters have impacted me in so many ways, and honestly, shaped who I am today.
I love Jo March. I love Clarisse, from Fahreinheit 451. I love Bean, from Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Shadow. Sherlock Holmes is a revolutionary character. Eleanor, from Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, and Jean Valjean, from Les Miserables, and of course Meg, from a Wrinkle in Time...that's just for starters.
What do you think of rhyming poems vs. free verse?

   I know some people who do rhyming poems very well. I usually don't read rhyming poems because I find them to painfully, obviously so; however, it may just be that those are bad rhyming poems. The good ones sweep you along into the story or idea and you don't even need to think about the rhyme scheme.
I usually write free verse, because I'm not one of the gifted people who can communicate their point in rhyme with ease. I find it distracts from what I am actually trying to get across.

Who's your main audience for Flutterfly?

   Hard question. I think anyone, adults or teens, with a listening ear who wants to see life from a different angle. I hope teens will read Flutterfly and find it relatable in unexpected ways, and adults will read it and remember the smaller things they often forget.

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If any of you want to stay posted on the publication of Flutterfly, or just read the meditations of Emma, here is the link to her blog: https://flutterflybook.wordpress.com/

Hope you all enjoyed that. :)

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