SmokeLong Quarterly

As an artist and writer, how do you think your work across different mediums speaks to each other (beyond having the same maker)?

Well, beyond the probably obvious answer having to do with creating place or story, or just invention/creation, I don’t know the answer to this question. I think it’s human nature to look for connections, and sometimes there aren’t necessarily any. I write, and write music, and paint, and I think those all come from different places within the same creative urge, so if there’s a connection, maybe that’s it: the need to create or maybe express ideas or sound or images. Some artists and writers are politically motivated—Banksy, for example—and so probably for them they create to express something ideologically or to make a statement or propitiate change. But I’m not sure I see artists, writers, and musicians as all that different really, maybe just that they use different tools.

What all are you currently working on?

I recently completed a prose poem collection, my first full length poetry collection. At any given time, I’ve got paintings in progress and a healthy stockpile of ideas for paintings yet to be started; some of those ideas are in a sketchbook, but many of them are in my head. My current painting in progress is a spiral staircase in blue, which is mainly intended to fill the void in my life left as a result of the sale of my first spiral staircase painting. And, because you asked what all I am working on, I also sing lead in a band and play keyboards. It’s tremendously fun.

What is the best book you’ve read so far this year? Why?

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, even though I’m not finished with it yet. I’m enthralled by Mitchell’s writing, beginning with the first book of his I read, Black Swan Green. After reading that, I knew I had to read everything he ever wrote. The only other writers that have grabbed me by the pearl necklace like that have been Joy Harjo and Peter Ackroyd. Anyway, as to the why regarding Cloud Atlas‘ utter brilliance, I have to quote Dave Eggers here: “how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it?”

If you were asked to put together a 4-week writing prompt series that only used images to inspire authors, which images would you select? Why?

I would probably choose extreme close-ups and images of the small world, the fabric of our reality that goes unseen except under a microscope. Besides the hidden beauty it contains, I find it fascinating on many other levels; for one, microbes and bacteria and DNA and cellular structures are impossibly small, and yet they form the foundation for all life. And then on a bit more macro level, close-ups of ordinary objects can shed new light on the world, and really get you thinking about what you see, what you don’t see, how close you are actually looking: a drop of water on a leaf, a single fish scale, a bed of moss as an unending forest.

As the Editor-in-Chief of Prick of the Spindle, what makes you automatically want to accept a story?

Attention to language and craft, and especially, brilliant or unique ways of seeing.