Tag Archives: Writing Advice

Author Patricia Engel Shares Writing Process and Advice During Campus Visit

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Author Patricia Engel visited Widener’s Main Campus Oct. 18 and 19 as a part of the English and creative writing department’s Distinguished Writers Series. The visit, scheduled after the recent publication of her novel and New York Times Editors’ Choice, “The Veins of the Ocean,” gave students the opportunity to question Engel about her writing process.

“Sometimes I have a sense of where the story is going, but it changes,” she said. “Once you lay down the groundwork for a story, the story starts to speak to you, and you have to give it that freedom to go where it wants to go.”

Published by Grove Press in May of 2016, “The Veins of the Ocean” details a “riveting story of a young woman’s journey away from her family’s painful past towards redemption and a freer future.”

Prior to “The Veins of the Ocean,” Engel published two other novels with Grove Press, including “Vida” in 2010 and “It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris” in 2013. She also has work appearing in the New York Times, The Atlantic, A Public Space, Boston Review and Harvard Review, among other publications.

“Each book is its own animal,” Engel said. “As I’m beginning a project, I really have to listen to it and feel what its needs are. Very often I have to change as a writer and as a person to meet those needs.”

Engel has already started thinking about her next novel focusing on a much broader and bigger family saga, though it is still considered to be in the very early stages. It will include similar themes to her previous novels, highlighting an interest in family and immigration.

“In order for me to actually finish writing a book, I have to be obsessed with it,” Engel said. “When it comes down to books that I think people love, that stay with them, that you remember years after years, it’s not a sentence, it’s not an image, it’s not a character, it’s the feeling that the book left you with. That’s what I aim for.”

Words of Wisdom for Widener’s Young Authors

During her Widener visit, Engel individually met with several students for tutorials and visited creative writing and English classes on campus.

“Having someone from a totally different background come in and look at my story offers new perspective I wouldn’t otherwise have,” said Kelsey Styles, a senior communication studies and creative writing major who met one-on-one with Engel.

The author concluded her Widener visit with a public reading of an excerpt from “The Veins of the Ocean.” She also answered questions. Speaking to aspiring writers, Engel emphasized, “Read absolutely everything you can get your hands on. Seek out books nobody is telling you to read. Feed your creative spirit in different ways. You have to be diligent about showing up for your writing. There’s a lot to be said for daydreaming, but it’s worthless if you don’t get it on a page.”

Written by Carlie Sisco

Content and image originally published by “What’s Up @ Widener.”

Meet Local Writers: Dr. Kenneth Pobo

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As part of a blog initiative started by this year’s FUSE conference on literary citizenship, The Blue Route is beginning a series of short author interviews with local writers. Our first interview begins as local as we can get, with Widener University’s own Dr. Pobo!

pobo

Dr. Kenneth Pobo is not only an English and Creative Writing professor at Widener University—he’s our self-proclaimed poet-in-residence! After receiving his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Pobo taught at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville before joining the Widener faculty in 1987.

Throughout his career, Pobo has published more than 25 books of poetry and short fiction in addition to countless poems and flash fiction pieces in literary journals and magazines such as Indiana Review, Mudfish, The Cider Press Review, The Fiddlehead, and Hawaii Review. In 2008, Pobo published Glass Garden with Wordtech Press followed by When The Light Turns Green with West Chester: Spruce Alley Press in 2014, and Bend of Quiet with San Francisco: Spruce Alley Press in 2015. He is the winner of the 2009 Main Street Rag Poetry Chapbook Contest, the 2011 Qarrtsiluni Poetry Chapbook Contest, and the 2013 Eastern Point Press Chapbook Award for his manuscript Dust And Chrysanthemums from Grey Borders Press, and has a new book of ekphrastic poems coming out in 2017 called Loplop in a Red City, from Circling Rivers Press.

Though he is not fond of machines, Pobo notes that he usually writes on the computer, finding it enhances his process. Some subjects are often present: the garden, music, environmental and human rights issues, particularly LGBTQ rights, his past, and art. “Inspiration for me is getting my butt in the chair—something will happen. I rarely have writer’s block, unless I’m just too tired from the day to focus,” he said.

Currently, Dr. Pobo is working on a few manuscripts, one of which, Sore Points, began as an exercise in one of his creative writing classes. In addition, he is revising Loplop in a Red City. “It may be a common misconception that once a book is accepted, the revision process is over, [but] this is not the case,” Pobo said. “Often, the most demanding revision occurs after acceptance.”

To creative writers struggling to find their voice Dr. Pobo emphasizes the importance of reading. “READ,” Pobo said. “Read for improving your thinking process. Read writers who can be guides for your own work, but not only them.” He also urges “to keep writing and don’t get discouraged. Don’t let the voices that say ‘There are many writers who are much better than I am’ block you. You have observations and things that need to be said—and only you can say them.”

A perfect Sunday afternoon for Dr. Pobo involves getting muddy in the garden and topping it off with Widecast Internet music show, Obscure Oldies. His favorite song of all time is “12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)” by The Mamas & The Papas released in 1967, however, he recently bought Micheal Bublé’s Nobody But Me. Dr. Pobo is also a tie-dye enthusiast and on the matter says, “I love color and I want color to slide all over me. Clothes should dream in color. No more coffin-esque flat colors afraid of their own energy.”

Learn more about Dr. Pobo’s work on the Widener English blog.

Written by Emma Irving.

(Image courtesy of Painters and Poets)

Moore, please!

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Dinty W. Moore recently visited Widener’s campus as part of the Distinguished Writers Series. Throughout the week he met with students who have been reading his creative nonfiction books and essays in class and a shared a few selections from his new book, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy, at a public reading on Wednesday. As a published author who has taught creative writing at multiple universities and has been writing for over 30 years, Moore had a lot of insightful advice for aspiring writers, which he generously shared:

1. What’s important about writers is what they say

Every writer has their own voice, “which is going to be different from any other voice,” said Moore. “That is something that can’t be taught. That we have to discover.” He also emphasized the importance of trial and error and repetition for a writer. “Your first draft is you wandering around the page trying to figure out what’s going on.” For him, the first few drafts are the hardest parts of the writing process. He writes the first draft of a book or essay solely to help him figure out what he is trying to say. Only during later drafts, when he understands what needs to be said, does he writes with the reader in mind.

2. You need curiosity to be a writer

To truly discover your own voice and figure out what it needs to say, you have to ask questions. “The trick,” he explained, “is not knowing what you want to say, but to be curious. Have questions. Discovery is starting with a question and working the answer out on the page.” Curiosity about a subject is a quality that all good writers have. One debate in the literary world is if creative writing is something that can be taught. Moore believes so. “There’s a lot about writing—including creative writing—that can and should be taught,” he said. “Students take math so they understand a little bit more about how mathematics works, and students take science classes to understand how science informs the world,” he said. “I think if you take a writing class, and you don’t end up being a writer, it still opens the mind and lets people see how a certain part of the world works and thinks…You can’t teach creativity, but you can encourage it.”

3. There’s no such thing as writer’s block

“Writer’s block is when you listen to the voices in your head that say you can’t do it,” Moore said. The solution? “Talk back to the voices. Say, ‘I hear you, but I’m going to ignore you and write this now.’”

That’s easier said than done. But in his book, Crafting the Personal Essay, Moore dedicates an entire chapter to the idea of writer’s block and how to push through it. You’ve got to “Expect the Negative Voices” and “Expect a Lousy First Draft” (literally the section headings of this chapter), and realize that “the true definition of writer’s block is when the writer gives up.” You’ve got to keep trying. Which brings us to our next writing tip:

4. Persistence

Moore has a busy life teaching, writing, traveling, and just living in general. In order to make time for his writing, he implements the “ass-in-chair” method; he gets up early in the morning, sits down, and makes himself write for two hours a day. It’s not easy, especially for college students, to make writing a part of our daily schedule. For some who juggle classes, work, and a social life, writing can get pushed to the background. Moore suggests that aspiring writers set goals for themselves. “Maybe watch 6 hours of football on the weekend instead of 10,” he joked. But he is right; schedule some time to sit down and focus on your writing. Make it a priority.

Another piece of advice Moore offered is to make a lot of mistakes. “Write a lot of failed poems or failed stories,” he said. “You learn the most from trial and error. It’s like trying to learn how to play tennis. You get out there and swat at the ball and make a total fool of yourself. If you do that for two or three days, you won’t become a wonderful tennis player, but you’ll start to get a little bit of control. Eventually you’ll hit something that goes straight over the net. If you practice long enough you may not become Serena Williams, but you’ll be able to play tennis, and as wonderful and mysterious as the art of literature is, writing is kind of the same.”

If you’re craving Moore, be sure to check out Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals, Moore’s newest book of and on essay writing, available now.

Written by Jennifer Rohrbach

AWP: An Undergraduate Newcomer’s Perspective

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Originally posted at The Ink Plot

Community, for a writer, is important. “Writer” is an identity often shunted aside in favor of more socially acceptable options, which means that finding others who share in your love of language and a well-crafted sentence is paramount. I have identified as a writer since grade school, so I have come to accept that people will raise eyebrows or hear “Starbucks Barista” dubbed over my words when I tell them what I want to do after graduation. While I do not believe, as they do, that my future in my field is nonexistent, it is frustrating to hear those doubts repeated so often. Occasionally, I struggle to remember that I am not the only person accustomed to hearing these remarks.

I went out to dinner on the last night of the conference with the other Widener students and faculty who attended the conference. (Photo courtesy of Michael Cocchiarale)

I went out to dinner on the last night of the conference with the other Widener students and faculty who attended the conference. The others were on the other side of the table. (Photo courtesy of Michael Cocchiarale)

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity, through the generosity of my university’s Creative Writing Department, to attend the largest annual gathering of writers in the country: the AWP Conference. There, I found a writing community that I could scarcely have dreamed existed.

I had heard stories of the conference from students who attended in past years, but being immersed in it was a wild experience. Here were people who have faced the same struggles as me; who strive toward the same dreams and goals; and who have found and succeeded at the very careers that some would have me believe cannot be found.

Better yet, some of those successful people were the panelists who shared their advice for writers aspiring to similar success (or just similar projects). I attended panels on careers in writing; on troubleshooting faulty plotlines; on writing unlikeable characters; on writing violence; on writing sex. No subject is taboo when you strive to allow the truth to leak from your pen. Authenticity supersedes awkwardness.

Even now, weeks after returning to the daily grind of my classes, I cannot quite force my thoughts on the conference to coalesce. They are like clouds I watch while lying in the grass, constantly shifting: first a rabbit, then a dog, then a lion. Even if I were to give a full account of every panel, interaction, booth at the Book Fair, even of the hours spent away from it all in the Caribou Coffee shop two blocks away from the Convention Center, I could not possibly convey the magnitude of the experience. The words overload and overwhelming fall short of the array of daily options, after which it was all I could do to drag myself into the shower and then collapse into bed, making sure to set my alarm early enough to do it all over again the next day.

Representing at the FUSE table with the other student editors from Widener: Autumn Heisler of Widener Ink and Emily DeFreitas of The Blue Route.

Representing at the FUSE table with the other student editors from Widener: Autumn Heisler of Widener Ink and Emily DeFreitas of The Blue Route. (Photo courtesy of Michael Cocchiarale)

The conference also allowed me to meet undergrads from writing programs around the country through the Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors (FUSE), and to plug into my own Widener writing community more. My professors have never exactly been boring suits in front of a blackboard, but I still learned a lot by going out to dinner with them and talking about something other than the book we’re reading in class or how to improve my story/poem/essay to earn an A. It’s good to be reminded every once in a while that “professors are people, too.”

I have been fortunate in my life to find support for my creativity first at home, and then in the small Creative Writing Department here at Widener, among the students with whom I workshop in classes and work on the literary journals, but that is a mere microcosm of the community I found at AWP.

by Sierra Offutt