Author of “Listening to Beethoven (with Cochlear Implants)” (Volume XXX, 2026)

How have other authors influenced your own writing and style?

So many ways. Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita Paulann Petersen’s work was formative when I picked up writing again after almost 40 years away. I learn so much by studying other poets, how they start and end a poem, how they structure movement through the poem and play with words, how they organize their work into collections.

What advice would you give an aspiring writer who wants to put their work “out there”? 

I would ask if they are part of a writing group as the first step is to be comfortable with other people reading your work and responding to it—what works well, what is confusing, what feelings emerge reading or listing to your work. Revision is a critical part of the writing process, and it helps to have a sounding board.

Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

Often by reading other poets’ work aloud and discussing the poems with my writing partner. I have also dabbled in ekphrastic poetry, where the prompt is a piece of artwork—this is much harder for me but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what emerges. Beyond those two, it is, as poet Kim Stafford says, “the muses among us”—the noticing of everyday images, words, bits of dialogue. Like painting, poetry is about paying deep attention to the world.

Do you have any professional advice for prospective authors seeking to be published? What did the process of getting your first published work look like?

It’s important to develop (or find) a strong writing community that will be honest with you and also supportive. Once you have been working with a response group or critique group (they have various names) for a while, and you feel like your work is ready, it’s time to send it out. I often get ideas about where to send work by reading the acknowledgement sections of books by writers I admire. Also by talking with others in my writing groups.

Acceptance is a combination of skill, luck, and timing. All writers get rejections. You have to have a pretty thick skin to send your work out. I tell myself for every rejection, send out something new. For a time, I challenged myself to get 100 rejections as a way to get over the sting. (The Kurt Vonnegut museum in Indianapolis has a whole room of framed rejections.)