Literary Citizenship in the Time of Coronavirus: Pragmatic Ways to Support Writers

Elizabeth de Cleyre

Six months ago I placed three pieces of writing. The first is still in revisions with a lovely editor who is very busy. The second was killed after the editor sat on the first draft for two months and then decided it wasn’t what they were looking for. The third was published and unpaid, and then an editor at another publication offered to re-print and pay me for it (reprints are a rarity). It was slated for publication March 18th. On March 17th, I received an email saying that they were holding the piece to prioritize coverage of the pandemic. 

I write this not to complain, but to demonstrate how even in a booming economy, the economics of writing are erratic at best. When I placed these three pieces around the same time, a friend and small business owner said it must have been nice to receive the influx of income. Ha! They were incredulous when I said I wouldn’t see a penny until the pieces were printed, and possibly not for another month afterward, as most publications have net-30 terms. (Allegra Hobbs elaborates on the industry standard in an article for Study Hall.)

“ I don’t know anyone who goes into writing for the money, and seasoned writers usually advise students to become anything but writers because it can be a long, hard road riddled with rejection. Writing is a long game. Rejection I was prepared for, but no one told me there’d be a pandemic too.”

I don’t know anyone who goes into writing for the money, and seasoned writers usually advise students to become anything but writers because it can be a long, hard road riddled with rejection. Writing is a long game. Rejection I was prepared for, but no one told me there’d be a pandemic too.

I hardly need to remind you that the future is a massive question mark for all of us, not just for writers, who often work behind the scenes, supporting and propping up other creatives, entrepreneurs, and businesses. Some of us went from writing press releases, promoting local events, reviewing albums, concerts, books, and gallery openings to crafting internal memos telling staff to work from home for the foreseeable future, or editing letters for layoffs. Publications cut freelance budgets first and those of us who work in restaurants or retail find our non-writing income either dramatically reduced or dried up.

But there’s a certain shade of irony in the fact that many of us are relying on writing now more than ever: from the latest news articles and updates that keep us informed, to the novels and stories that keep us company and offer a brief escape or respite, either in book form or adapted into binge-worthy shows and films.

‘Literary citizenship’ is a term loosely describing not just how to be a good writer, but also a good person, namely to other writers. It’s like ‘Midwest Nice’ but for publishing, and we’re lucky to live in a region that has an active community of writers and readers. Now that we’re all practicing physical distancing and self-isolation, we may not be able to support one another in the ways we’re used to. Thankfully, most of the suggestions for how to support writers (and the people who support them) in the Chippewa Valley and beyond can offer some solace for readers and non-writers alike. Books, essays, articles, podcasts can be a means of escape, a way to get lost in other lives, real or imagined.

 Below are some suggestions with links to further resources. Many of these are free! Some of these apply to other creative industries. And though it’s a lengthy list, meant to cover both writers of books and writers of short form or online content, it is by no means inexhaustible. If you have any innovative ideas please leave a comment!

We’re all in this together.

A Partial List of Ways to Support Writers:

First and foremost, do not remind your writer friend that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague. We know. And we’re perfectly fine at driving ourselves sick with comparison, thanks, because we are on the internet.

Now for some low-hanging fruit: READ! The nice thing about supporting writers is that it’s possible to do this while secluded at home. If you’re not already in a book club, start one with your pals.

If your library is closed, remember libraries often have extensive digital resources if you possess internet access. Read e-books online, or create a to-read list for when they reopen. While the library is physically closed, see if you can go online to request books or materials they don’t currently carry, helping them expand their offerings.

Dotters Books co-owners Margaret Leonard (left) and Jill Heinke Moen (right)

credit: Drew Kaiser

 Not sure what to read? Bookstores like Dotters Books often offer personal recommendations, reading lists, or subscriptions to relieve you of the burden of having to choose. Binge-watching a show that was based on a book? Read the book instead! (My Brilliant Friend, The Handmaid’s Tale, Game of Thrones...is it just me or is every show based on a book now?)

 Did you know you can travel without leaving your house? Armchair travel! If you had to cancel a trip or the sudden travel restrictions make you want to break out your passport, dip into an absorbing, transporting read. If you don’t like spending too much time in one country, check out Best American Travel Writing, subscribe to AFAR magazine, or catch up on George Saunders’ humorous travel essays for GQ, most of which are online and free. I’m partial to Thomas Swick, a former mentor of mine whose book The Joys of Travel is uplifting and heartfelt.

Support indie bookstores! Many-a bookstore employs writers, so continuing to buy from local booksellers keeps your money in the community and helps retain their well-read staff. Need more reasons to support local? According to IndieBound.org, when you spend $100 locally, $52 of that stays in your community (as opposed to $6.50 at a national chain, and $0 when you buy from a remote vendor that doesn’t collect sales tax).

Not sure where to find an indie bookseller? Bookshop.org allows you to buy online from local bookstores. According to LitHub (which has a very helpful article on supporting bookstores during the pandemic), “For the next eight weeks, [...] indie stores using Bookshop will receive 30% of the cover price of any sale, up from 25%. Bookshop will earn no revenue from those sales.”

More of an audiobook person? While many of us are familiar with Audible (an Amazon company), libro.fm allows you to listen to the same audiobooks and support local bookstores. Use their coupon code SHOPBOOKSTORESNOW for two-for-one deals, and explore their playlist that contributes 100% of proceeds to local bookstores. (Eau Claire’s own Dotters Books has a libro.fm link!) 

You know who else would love your support? Indie publishers! Graywolf Press is a small nonprofit in Minneapolis that offers a “Galley Club” subscription with access to new books before they’re officially released. And Other Stories is a not-for-profit publisher in the United Kingdom with fantastic books. Since bookshops are experiencing financial hardship due to closures, And Other Stories is currently donating 20% of subscriptions to independent booksellers.

If a writer has a backlist of titles, now is a great time to get caught up! With new books coming out all the time, it can be tempting to only read the latest and greatest. After you’ve combed through the doorstoppers and classics you’ve always meant to get around to (like this list by Chelsea Batten), see if an author you like has a previous title you could read. (I’ve been recommending Courtney Maum’s novel Touch; Maum published two books in 2019 and all of her novels are fantastic.)

Nickolas Butler at The Priory Writers’ Retreat

Credit: Justin Patchin

Does your favorite writer have a website? In addition to books, some writers like Nickolas Butler sell broadsides, while others sell mugs with clever (expletive-laced) phrases on it. (Not linking to those, because we’re family-friendly here.)

Occasionally writers will have a Patreon page where monthly subscribers support their work and have access to exclusive content. No Patreon? Ask if they have a Venmo or PayPal and send them $5 because you liked their latest article or (if you’re like me) finally read that article they wrote two years ago. For writers who don’t (yet) have published books, this is an easy way to support their work.

I’m not sure if you heard the buzz about newsletters, but a lot of writers have one (this writer included). They’re often free and full of knowledge, like Courtney Maum’s latest, which includes fourteen films to help you escape. Newsletters are helpful to emerging and established writers because publishers often look for authors with a “platform,” or an audience. A mailing list is the best way for writers to share recent publications or news, because they don’t have to worry about Facebook or Instagram messing with algorithmatics (or whatever they’re called).

Speaking of algorithms, leave a review! With all this reading you’ve been doing, you surely have an opinion or two (and hopefully a few nice ones). Write reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other outlets to help authors reach more readers.

Podcasts! Once you’ve listened to enough news and true crime podcasts to sufficiently terrify yourself for eternity, check out some fiction podcasts, like the ones Chelsea Batten mentions in this article for The Manual. For nonfiction, I’m partial to the Longform podcast. The New Yorker runs both fiction and poetry podcasts, while Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios features short episodes with one poem. Are you caught up on the Chippewa Valley’s own serialized radio drama Bend in the River? Or episodes of Oddly Enough? What are you waiting for?! They are all available online at Converge Radio!

Then tweet about it! Posting about your latest read on social media or sharing an interview (or podcast) with an author also helps writers connect with readers. Take to Facebook or wherever the kids are these days. Twitter? Instagram? Snapchat? TikTok? I can’t keep up. (Remember to tag them and give ‘em a follow while you’re at it.)

Speaking of platforms: Medium pays writers. There’s a free version so you can start finding writers or publications to follow. Then for $5 per month, you can read as many articles as you like, and Medium allocates funds directly to the writers of the articles you read. Every little bit counts!

And while we’re on the subject of subscribing, remember the little literary magazines and journals. If bookstores are closed and you can’t pick up the latest copy of The Paris Review (ahem, this is my current dilemma), sign up for a year’s subscription online. This guarantees patronage for the magazine and allows them to continue to pay their writers. Online mags like The Atavist feature absorbing longform content, with audio accompaniments as well. Back issues of the Chippewa Valley’s own Barstow & Grand are available on their website, and submissions are open through April 30.

It should go without saying that newspapers, magazines and media outlets providing comprehensive coverage on the pandemic (or a welcome escape from the constant news cycle) also offer subscriptions. While many publications removed their paywalls so citizens can access information, please remember that the writers and journalists who are on the frontlines researching and reporting are often putting themselves (and potentially their families) at risk so that we can remain informed and be prepared. Drops in advertising led to massive layoffs and cuts in media. Understaffed publications across the nation are struggling to keep up with coverage while experiencing a surge in readership (the SF Examiner saw 6,000 times average page views on a single day in March, while The Atlantic removed its paywall for coronavirus coverage and gained 36,000 subscribers, per Study Hall). Subscriptions and memberships are the best ways to support publications and journalists, which we need now more than ever. (Volume One recently launched their own Reader Membership for those of us in the Chippewa Valley.)

Christina Clancy

credit: Jimmy Bartelt

 Authors whose books are currently being released had to cancel launch events, book tours, signings, and speaking gigs. It can take years to go from idea to publication, with no way of predicting the cultural climate in which your book will debut, and no way to control it. Pre-ordering new books through indie booksellers is a great way to support debut or new titles. (Might I recommend Wisconsin’s own Christina Clancy, who visited the Guild’s Winter Writers’ Weekend at the Oxbow Hotel in February and has an absorbing novel coming out in June, The Second Home?)

 If an author had to cancel in-person readings, check out their social media or website to see if they’re offering any online events. When Rebecca Dinerstein Knight’s book tour for her second novel Hex was cancelled, she participated in a series of livestreams on Instagram, Facebook, and Zoom, where readers from all over the world could join. Author and musician Michael Perry is updating his website sneezingcow.com regularly with mini-concerts and readings “From the Little Writing Room Above the Garage.” In lieu of a tip jar, Perry is asking people to donate to the Feed My People Food Bank or the Chippewa Valley Artist Relief Fund (which includes funding for creative writers).

If you’re a writer and you’ve got a few extra hours in your day, sign up for a webinar or workshop, some of which are free! When author Lidia Yuknavitch cancelled and postponed in-person courses at her Portland-based school Corporeal Writing, they offered a free webinar to the first 100 newsletter subscribers to register. (The recorded session is available on their Facebook page for anyone to watch, and Corporeal Writing has online courses as well.) Old Town Books in Virginia is offering pay-what-you-can virtual workshops with writers to help the bookstore’s income while they’re closed. And publisher Catapult hosts online classes year-round.

Laura Jean Baker at a CVWG event.

Credit: Justin Patchin

Some writers are offering workshops and webinars for entrepreneurs and business owners who need help with copywriting or communications (like my good friend Chelsea Batten). Remember: even if you can’t pay for a writer’s services right now, signing up for a free webinar or newsletter means you’re on their list when they have a subsequent offering, like a course or a new book. It’s immensely valuable to both writers and publishers.

Last, and certainly not least, writing guilds exist in many communities, and have databases of local authors to read and support. We're lucky to have The Chippewa Valley Writers Guild, which pays writers for speaking, storytelling, presentations and panels. If events (which are usually free or by donation) were postponed or cancelled, consider donating or become a member to help the organization continue to offer literary programming in the future.

Though this lengthy list is meant to cover both writers of books and writers of short form or online content, it is by no means inexhaustible. If you have any innovative ideas please leave a comment! We’re all in this together. Stay healthy and safe, friends.

 Elizabeth de Cleyre is a writer and editor. Find her at cedecreative.com.

Constellation

Bruce Dethlefsen

one leaf is not a tree

one feather not a wing

no crown a king nor single

note a melody

from darkness are we made

and born alone     our light

our lonely stars though bright

and strong will quickly fade

unless we string the stars

together     choose illumination

then in constellation hope is ours

bring on another day

sing light in common song

shine for the night is long

and dawn is far away

shine for the night is long

and dawn is far away

Bruce Dethlefsen is a poet and the author of several books, most recently, Small Talk (2014). Bruce served at Wisconsin Poet Laureate from 2011-2012.

Hope is the Thing That Coughs up a Furball

Erin Stevens

On the fifth day of social distancing, I had my first breakdown. Always a rule follower, I was doing a great job of staying away from everyone, mainly because I live alone. It was just me, hanging out on my couch, in my tiny studio apartment, with a fictional series about aliens cued up on Netflix. 

Before transporting to Roswell, New Mexico for the evening, I gave a final scroll through Instagram. It seemed like every post I saw in my feed, every story I tapped on, everyone was with someone else 一 spouses or partners, family, children, roommates, friends, fugitives being shielded from the law, etc.

Everyone was with someone else but me. 

On any other night, my home-bodied-self would have been like wow, that’s really nice. Good for them! And then I’d go back to eating Izzy’s ice cream and watching an alien fall in love with a human without giving it a second thought.  

But this wasn’t just another night. This was the first Tuesday night of many that would be spent practicing the art of social distancing, and my mind was busier than normal with its incessant overthinking. Nighttime has a way of tricking us into believing the worst things about ourselves and our situations. The weight of an irrational fear I’d never had before tap danced like a hippo on my chest. It felt as if heavy words like “quarantine” and “social distancing” and “isolation” were trying to bust down my front door, three thieves in the night trying to steal my peace and my hope. 

I am so alone I thought, over and over and over. For about five long minutes I stared up at my apartment’s puckered ceiling and had a very uncute meltdown, letting the feeling of absolute loneliness unravel and weave through me - whether it was true or not didn’t matter. 

I needed to get a grip before my neighbors heard me through our shared, thin walls and called the cops or animal control. So I got up to make a cup of tea, because what else are you supposed to do when there’s an internal and external crisis at hand?

On my way to the kitchen, I almost stepped in a small, fresh pile of cat puke. 

Murphy sat next to it, blinking up at me. 

“Seriously?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Read the room, man.” 

More blinking. How dare you forget about me, he seemed to say. I’m here, too.

I grabbed the roll of paper towel and disinfectant that’s always within arms reach these days, then turned around to clean up the mess. 

It was gone. 

I looked at Murphy, confused, then repulsed.

“Did you just eat...” I started to ask. He answered by cleaning his mouth with his paws. I disinfected the area where I thought the puke had been, but couldn’t be certain. 

“You’re so gross,” I said to him.

And then, I laughed. 

Erin Stevens is a writer and cat mom living in Minnesota.

Hope Is The Thing That Lets Me See Them

Kaia Simon

You home?  my sister texts me, and then immediately follows with 😂😩. 

😂😩 because of course I’m home and she knows it. We have nowhere else to be. 

You betcha! I reply, tongue in Midwest cheek. 

One second later, my Google Hangouts app chimes. I click to join. My brother and my sister appear, each in their own box, be-headphoned and smiling at me from their living rooms. I am so happy to see them. 

My sister lives in New Rochelle, NY, the site of one of the first COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. My brother lives in Minneapolis, the last of the three of us to be officially ordered to #StayAtHome.

I try to remember to stare at the green light next to my webcam when I’m talking to my brother and sister, because that looks like I’m making eye contact with them. And all I want right now is contact. 

These daily conversations through our webcams help me focus within the radius of what’s most important. We affirm that we are all still symptom-free and feeling good, even if cooped up. While I stare at the webcam light and smile desperately, in my peripheral vision I see my three-year old niece’s quarantine fashion choices of the day. My seven-year-old nephew runs into view and asks me to give him a math problem to solve. “Tía Kaia, I like to add hundreds. So you can give me two numbers that go up to nine hundred and ninety-nine!” He writes the numbers on a folded up piece of paper, and dashes off-camera to solve them. My brother tells us about what it’s like to be the IT guy while his coworkers try to set up video conferences with clients from their own homes. And all the while I focus on the green webcam light, beaming my love through it, willing it to shine through the laptop screens on the other side, hoping they feel it.

I learned this trick—to make eye contact through the camera instead of by looking at their eyes on the screen—when I was applying for professor jobs a couple of years ago and many search committees did first round interviews over Skype. It felt unnatural then, and it still does now. Now, though, this isn’t about projecting a scholarly, put-together self who’d make a great colleague. This is about trying to keep myself steady amid the churn all around me. This is about using a webcam to do with my eyes what my arms cannot: gather my family up close to me, then step back, hold them at arm’s length, and squeeze their shoulders to confirm that they, that we, are okay. Until I can do this in person, I will focus on the green light that connects us. I am so grateful to be able to see them these days. 

Kaia Simon is a writer and professor in the English Department at UW-Eau Claire. 

hope is the thing that endures

Jamie Vue

I am a worst-case scenario, catastrophic-thinking kind of person, but hope is never a memory too far out of reach.   

One image comes to mind. My grandmother floating across the Mekong River, buoyed by two plastic bags, one tied to each arm to keep her above the murky waters, holding on for miles before reaching the refugee camps of Thailand.

Four decades later, and she’s nearly a century old, if not already. She is the element that carries the exhale of hope throughout the generations.

But amid the COVID-19 pandemic, some politicians have been entertaining the idea of saving the economy over human lives, offering up the older and elder generations.

I’m a byproduct of two cultures, one in which the sacrifice of life was given in the name of freedom, and one in which is now considering the sacrifice of life in the name of greed. I know what it means to be birthed out of honorable sacrifice. To know a generation was devastated, lives lost, so that the younger generations could have a future. That is hope that sustains me. That is hope that not even a virus can outlive.  

But to snuff out the light of my elders in exchange for money, that doesn’t resonate.

Growing up, on some days, I watched my parents survive on less than a few dollars with six kids. I know it’s possible. Times were not easy, but we do look back on it as a small fraction of our lives that taught us some big lessons.

It seems a lifetime ago when my siblings and I were sharing a pack of uncooked ramen noodles, as if breaking bread, on the kitchen floor. Now in self-isolation we catch up over virtual chats on the weekends. The nieces and nephew run abound in the background. We share photos of our favorite dishes. We clink beers through a computer screen. The six of us once at each other’s throats now closely bonded by the times we have survived together. Hope was hard to imagine as kids, but it must have planted itself, an intrinsic antidote to the hard times we’d face later in life as adults.

Now the children are watching. And one day when they’re older, they may need to rely on the history we have created to find a semblance of hope. And I know that while we are divided in some ways, they will find it in the compassion we give to others. In the lives we save. Because if given a fighting chance, it is likely that people will not give up on themselves.    

Jamie Vue is a Writing Coach at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Hope Is The Thing We Carry Within the Trunks Of Trees

Connor Drexler

After this is over,

all roads will just be waking 

from their first slumber. 

Worn bar stools, cafe chairs, picnic benches

thinking they’d had their last chance 

at kissing us with splinters, will rise gratefully up 

to embrace our prodigal legs. 

Down the trail where grass 

has finally outgrown our walking, I’ll meet you

at the oldest wood available. 

The long before long after kind of trees. 

The souls so wise I couldn’t know 

where to start with giving them names 

or asking questions worth their wisdom. 

When you meet me there, beneath

emerald leaves of another noisy summer, 

we’ll be reminded our best chance at peace 

was to simply outlive our next terror. 

To persistently take back 

the breath that escapes us. 

And what’s a greater joy than knowing

to survive any time at all is to win day after day 

against powers as big as stars

or too small to see? 

Perhaps only 

that what often comes with the willingness

to stand tall and rooted 

despite what seeks to break us over,

is the ancient mischief of turning

in the same direction 

any indomitable hand attempts 

to plunge us towards oblivion.

Threatening in each fresh moment

to take to that sky whether or not we

had wings. Whether or

not we had permission to

wield a magic this brave.

Connor Drexler lives in Madison, WI. He spends his quarantine time reading books, playing and singing songs, going on long runs, and petting his cat. His work has been featured in Black Horse Review,  Dovecote Magazine, Sky Island Journal, among others.

Hope Is The Thing With Callery Pears

Heather Lanier

The golf-cart-wide asphalt pathways should tip me off to this fact: the Tall Pines Nature Reserve in Gloucester County, New Jersey was not always a nature reserve. It was indeed a golf course. But as my family and I walk among the tall grasses and marshes and pines, I’m not thinking about the land, or its history. I’m thinking about the people, and how to protect them.

The parking lot here was more crowded than I’d hoped. Each time I spot a cluster of folks along the path—often couples, often senior citizens, the ones with the worst odds—my shoulders tighten. I grip the hand of the eight-year-old, the one doctors call “immunocompromised,” the one who greets strangers at restaurant tables like a manager asking How was the chowder? the lobster? the wine?

Tonight at 9:00 P.M., the governor will issue a new mandate, but he hasn’t yet. Which means it’s not officially state law to stay six feet apart. Still, my husband and I will try to keep two gregarious kids six feet from anyone, on an asphalt path the width of a golf-cart.

This is how we are trying to love the world right now: by not getting near.

An older couple walks toward us. I grip a hand. We widen our distance, say hello, move passed.

Almost all the deciduous trees here are bare, except the Callery Pears. They’re in full bloom, white puffs reaching upward. Their five-petaled flowers are delicate whispers, but their black-tipped stamens are coarse and suspicious as chin hairs.

“Smell it,” says my six-year-old, standing beneath one. “This one smells good.”

“Can’t fool me,” my husband says.

Yesterday, nose tilted toward her first Callery Pear blossom, she’d sniffed and was insulted. How could a flower smell this bad? A day later, she’s joined the trees in their cosmic prank.

We see a family of five. We widen our distance, say hello, move passed, steer clear.

We spot two geese beside a marsh, hear frogs croaking in a pond, cross a footbridge over a creek. And every few minutes, we see people, say hello, move passed, steer clear.

But it’s when we arrive at an expanse of trees, without people, that I stop, arrested.

“Look,” I say to my family.

The Callery Pears. Over a dozen of them are scattered across the acres, each separated by five or more dormant trees. They’re together in bloom; they’re apart in land, divided by hundreds of stark, naked branches. Amidst the winterish trees, they look snowed upon. Like the sky decided to blizzard, but only in surprising, joyous intervals.

The Callery Pears are too far right now to stink. Right now, they’re simple echoes of white across a landscape of scarcity. 

Eventually, this entire expanse will fill with lush green. Eventually, everything will be touching again. Eventually, the rest of this land will say it too is alive.

Heather Kirn Lanier is the author of the forthcoming memoir, Raising a Rare Girl (Penguin Press, 2020) along with two award-winning poetry chapbooks, Heart-Shaped Bed in Hiroshima and The Story You Tell Yourself. Her TED talk about raising a child with a rare syndrome has been viewed over two million times. She just moved from Vermont to New Jersey, where she works an assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University, and searches for good places to hike and roam.

Why The Chippewa Valley Writers Guild Is A Proud Supporter of Volume One's Reader Membership Program (And Why You Should Be, Too!)

B.J. Hollars

In February 2016, when a group of us first conceived of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild, we knew our kickoff event had to be held at the perfect location.  We wanted a place that people were familiar with, a place that was accessible to all, and, if possible, a place with some darn good A/V and lighting, too.

The Local Store—Volume One’s home turf—welcomed us with open arms.  Four years later, Volume One is still welcoming us.  Again and again and again.  

In the 20+ events we’ve held there—from craft talks, to 6x6 readings, to Barstow & Grand release parties—we’ve always had fantastic (if not magical!) experiences.  People come, they enjoy a wonderful event, and then they go home with a free, top-notch arts & culture magazine to boot.  In what universe is all of this given to us for free? 

 Beyond their hospitality in their physical space, Volume One is doubly generous on the page.  For over 400 issues, they’ve supported the local arts community in innumerable and immeasurable ways.  How many of us have had our work featured within its pages?  And how often have we enjoyed reading other writers’ work?  In addition to supporting a staff of 20, V1 also pays freelance writers for features and open letters.  Which is to say nothing of the mentorship they’ve offered hundreds of writers over the years, further professionalizing them as they continue moving forward in their careers.

Whenever I get a big idea, Nick Meyer and the Volume One team are the first people I call.  Not only because I know they can make the idea better, but because I know they can help transform the idea into a community-wide endeavor.  Volume One is the conduit that allows all of us to collaborate.  They’re the binding for the book our community’s writing together.  And we need that binding now more than ever.

credit: Mike Lunderbrek

Why do we support Volume One?  Because Volume One supports us.  And because we know that the future of our community depends on deepening and strengthening our connections, not losing them. 

Volume One inspired our town to grow into what it’s become today.  The best way to say thank you is to ensure that it can continue to inspire us for many years to come.

Please, if you’re able, join us in supporting V1’s Reader Membership program. The future of our community thanks you.

-BJ Hollars

Executive Director, Chippewa Valley Writers Guild

Hope Is A Wormhole In The Universe

Laura Jean Baker

Every pandemic requires a convincing argument, so this is what I tell myself as my husband Ryan and I dovetail at the kitchen sink. I am forearms deep in Palmolive suds. He is pantomiming flourishes of optimism, twirling the dry towel. Time has dilated and sucked us into a theoretical existence. Before COVID-19, we lived separately on the spacetime continuum of our everyday lives. Now we are metrics in Einstein’s field equations for gravity, cocooned in a worm-tunnel of love.

Since 1996, Ryan and I have navigated distances far longer than the stretch of a collapsible tape measure, used once by a seamstress to pattern my wedding dress, five times by a midwife to chart the bubble of my fundus. For four years and six months, we studied in separate cities, Ryan rock-steady in La Crosse while I sojourned from Boulder to Madison, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and back again. I’d often fall ill, homesick for my partner-in-crime. Longing for Ryan felt like it was a virus.

Marriage in 2001 delivered us to a shared domicile in Ann Arbor, but graduate school was ruthless as a melon baller, scooping out my insides. Ryan was living; I was just a hollow pumpkin earning a creative-writing degree.

By 2003, I’d recovered from my M.F.A., but then Ryan started law school. Everybody refers to law students’ partners as “widows” for a reason. Our lawyers-in-training curled cadaverous over books in far-flung libraries, earning their Juris Doctorates while we stayed home. In 2004, our first daughter was born, followed by a brood of siblings in ’06, ’08, ’10, ’13. As I breastfed “on demand,” Ryan and I didn’t often sleep in the same bed. We dreamed and woke six billion light years apart.

Before March 2020, on any given day, Ryan drove the boys to hockey; I drove the girls to music lessons. Or I chauffeured the boys to movies; he taxied the girls to Starbucks. Only a wormhole, a hypothetical shortcut in space and time, could unite us.

“See you in fifteen years,” we’d say.

Then on March 12, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh announced I’d begin teaching my courses in English online, and ten days later, on March 22, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended in-person proceedings state-wide. Slowly but predictably, everything closed, even the YMCA, our central hub for kids’ activities. We stopped forcing our cars to guzzle gasoline, and we all decelerated.

“Hey, you,” I said as if to a stranger in a cafe. I winked, and he smiled. This was our Corona-inspired meet-cute.

Against the backdrop of our own fear and vigilance, amid our children’s frustration and noise, Ryan and I had suddenly been thrust together again. We synced our lives, re-calibrated our designs on togetherness, began walking “five laps” a day – one for each child – around the mile-long neighborhood circle.

Governor Evers’s stay-at-home order has allowed us to merge with propulsive force. Despite all the dangers a wormhole presents – exotic matter, radiation, the threat of collapse – it’s unexpectedly radiant in here.

Laura Jean Baker is the author of The Motherhood Affidavits and Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. She is working hard to be optimistic, #safeathome with her husband and five children.

Hope Is A Clear Window

Peter Whitis

Many of the stories emerging from this imposed social isolation are of people crammed together. This is the other side of that.

My wife of 67 years is confined to her room at her nursing home due to "shelter in place” corona virus restrictions. The isolation, everyone required to wear masks, the absence of touch, the anxiety and sense of solitary confinement were overwhelming her. Her confusion mounted and she had brief periods of panic. I could no longer visit.

 Our solution was to meet at the window to her room and talk through our iPhones. We both remembered the time when our third son, Matthew was born in San Diego during a “Santa Ana”, a severe dust storm. The San Diego hospital closed to all visitors and our solution was to find a window to her room and “visit” that way. It wasn’t a dust storm grinding into our face this time but an invisible virus invading our community. My wife and I, in our mid-80s, were deemed especially vulnerable.

After several days of frustrated communication due to a screen that blocked clear vision, Denny, the maintenance chief, came out to see me at the window. He said he could fix that. The next day he had removed the screen and placed it on another window. He also succeeded in rearranging her room furniture so that she could get closer to the “good” window. Now we could clearly see one another and the solitary confinement no longer seemed so devastating. Hope is a clear window.

Peter Whitis is a writer in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Hope is the Thing that Grows

Meredith Ball

Over a week into social distancing and I am feeling the need to be alone. Having three children means that social distance equals family togetherness--a LOT of it. So, I go for a run. I go for a run in the rain with a hat pulled down over my face. I go for a run when the freeze comes back and I need extra layers. And also, I go for a run in the sunlight when it finally warms the air and the ground below.

On this day, the sunlight prevails. I head toward campus. Getting there, I see parents moving their children out of the dorms. It doesn’t seem like so long ago that my own parents did the same for me. Then, it was chaotic. People moving all around. Dads waiting in minivans for the spot closest to the door. Finally snagging a cart and throwing a bunch of junk into the bottom and a dirty carpet on top. But today, everything is subdued. Just a few families, and they all move quickly and efficiently. There is no socialization. There are few smiles. During move-in a few months back, nobody could have predicted that these students’ first-year of college would end like this--in March and from a distance of six feet away.

As I continue along my run, I see something that reminds me of the more recent past. Bulbs that were planted by groundskeepers who are now surely furloughed or unemployed are making their way toward sunlight. Soon, we will begin to see the beauty of spring as the daffodils and tulips bloom. Those daffodils and tulips should have been there for those college kids. They should have called them outside after a Wisconsin winter. They should have witnessed the parties, the flirting, the removing of layers that always occurs when the warmth returns to a college campus. Instead, the flowers will greet no one. 

But, like always, the first blooms of spring give me hope. This year, things look different, but I know that this, like a season, will pass. The college experience will go back to what it was before. The furloughed or unemployed workers will return to their jobs. Next year, there will most likely be day drinking and frisbee and, hopefully, tulips and daffodils to bear witness to it all. 

At the end of my run, I see my own children playing in the yard. And I know that this time--this virus--will change them, too. They might become a bit more afraid of germs. They won’t get to finish second grade or kindergarten. But, like the spring flowers, there is growth here. After this season of turmoil, we, too, will emerge from the soil, ready to reawaken and blossom.

Meredith Ball is a mom, teacher, and wife. She enjoys running, reading, and being with her family (but maybe not this much).

Hope is a Dad Dance

Matthew Guenette 

I was scrambling eggs for the kids

but I wanted something more, something epic like to take

the moon in my hands. What other powers do I have?

The kids, captive at home for at least

the next month, how to protect them when even the jungle

gyms are canceled and every cough inspires a nightmare.

What else should we do, send them out in hazmat suits

with their safety scissors? Vote? Haven’t we tried

all that? There’s a feeling I want to get us back to,

like when I was 13 and it hardly mattered

if Gorbachev and Reagan waived their intercontinental

pricks at each other, it was all the same

and nothing a game of H-O-R-S-E or Purple Rain

couldn’t fix. I had one job, I plated the eggs

and thought of us climbing back into the trees

to hurl water balloons at the suckers who think

they know better. That’s when I knew better, when I knew

I had another job. I hiked up my boxers like a thonged

superhero. The kids in the next room waiting at

the table: Are the eggs almost done? You have no idea,

I said. Hold tight! Then I tied on my little cape

of sunlight and danced their way.

Matthew Guenette is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Vasectomania (2017), American Busboy, chosen by Mary Biddinger as an Editor's Choice for the University of Akron Press and published in 2011, and Sudden Anthem, which was awarded Dream Horse Press's American Poetry Journal Book Prize and published in 2008. Sudden Anthem was also named an Outstanding Achievement in Poetry in 2009 by the Wisconsin Library Association. He has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and a fellow for the Hessen-Wisconsin Literary Exchange. He works at Madison College, and lives on the east side with his wife and two kids, who make sleep impossible…

Hope Is The Birth Plan

Stephanie Farrar

Last year about this time, in the three weeks leading up to my daughter’s birth, I spent a lot of time upside down.

The point was to turn the tide of the sea inside and flip this breach baby. I did so, again and again.

credit: Leslie Duffy

I was also having contractions every 3-4 minutes, for three weeks. All I could do was take very short walks, sit, and stand on my head. I knew from my previous experience I had a good chance of having life threatening complications that endangered both me and the baby, and I had spent a lot of time thinking about this. Because of my experience, because of my research, I had a stark birth plan: “Everybody Lives.” Nobody wants to hear a pregnant woman talk like this. Nobody is supposed to admit they might die, someday, or possibly soon.

It is so impolite to talk about death, so crass to talk about illness. Nobody is supposed to glimpse mortality as a fact. But this year, all any of us can do is take short walks, sit, and hold the world upside down, patiently for a few weeks.

So, hold it. Hold it, upside down, to turn this tide. Hold this blue pulsing world upside down in your hands because the best birth plan for the new world we will make is just: “Everybody Lives.”

Stephanie Farrar is a writer and professor at UW-Eau Claire, as well the co-editor of Dickinson In Her Own Time.

Hope Is Tying A Bear To A Porch Chair

Eric Rasmussen

In the early days of a shelter order, we desire to help, support, entertain, and distract. For a minute I toy with the idea of learning “The Hustle” on harmonica to accompany my son who is learning “The Hustle” on trombone so we can make some hilarious and unbelievably shareable video. My son is uninterested in that level of commitment. Honestly, so am I.

But soon an idea comes across my feed for a community-wide effort that is more our speed. A teddy bear scavenger hunt! Place a bear somewhere visible so families out on walks have something to search for. That is exactly the level of energy expenditure we can handle. My daughter fetches a bear and the kids and I collaborate over its placement in one of the chairs on the front porch.

 A short while later I take my own afternoon walk, and it amazes me how well the teddy bear scavenger hunt accomplishes its goal. Every stuffed animal peeking behind venetian blinds and hanging from a curtain rod is a little inside joke that feels like community. But this is not what gives me hope. I come from a city in a part of the world that usually does a pretty nice job of supporting our neighbors. Not everyone, and not easily, and not always right away, but for the most part, we’ve got each other’s backs.

 After my loop around the neighborhood I pass in front of my own house, with my daughter’s stuffed animal out front. As far as scavenger hunts go, ours is a bit of a challenge—the bear is the same color as the chair upholstery, and it can only be seen from a certain angle. But another thought occurs to me. Call it the jack-o-lantern concern. What if a bunch of neighborhood youths decide our bear is ripe for shenanigans?

“Get some rope,” I tell my son when I enter the house. “We have to tie up that bear.”

This is what gives me hope. Pranksters targeting our teddy bear. People on the internet griping about having to stay inside and arguing about what counts as an essential business. All the testimonials of rampant screen time and day drinking. Without discounting the need to take a pandemic seriously and act with each other in mind, I love that the fear doesn’t entirely consume us. The empty roads fill me with confidence that we shall weather this crisis. The occasional car does too.

From the sidewalk, you can’t tell that our bear is trussed up like a prisoner in a spy movie, but it’s there, representing both our nobler intentions and our basal instincts. We need both to get us through, adorable plush smiles on our faces, and double knots around our necks and paws.

Eric Rasmussen teaches English at Memorial High School in Eau Claire, serves as fiction editor for Sundog Lit, and edits the regional literary journal Barstow & Grand. Find more of his prose online at theotherericrasmussen.com.

Hope Is the Thing We Find In The Voids

Dan Lyksett

Last night, walking the old dog, her gray muzzle pressed against the molding leaves and grass just now emerging from their snowpack burial. For the moment all life in that ground is microscopic, invisible to me, but it is there. And if I wait through a few more turns of my world on its axis, the warmth from our sun will call the greening to life. I need only wait a few more turns of my world on its axis.

Deep, black night, no moon but living stars you know from astronomy may be just coming to life or dying but nonetheless offer their brilliance. No planes overhead, no blinking lights and no distant hum of jet engines, no travelers heading for Chicago with sales orders to be filled or back to Minneapolis with their straw sombreros, happily exhausted from their warm climes’ vacations. I recall another night standing on this very ground with the dark sky bereft of planes, Sept. 11, 2001. But the moving night lights and distant hum of jet engines eventually returned to that empty sky. I’m sure they will again. I need only wait for a few more turns of my world on its axis.

The old dog gives me the eye and points her gray muzzle back toward the house. She knows it is time for a treat. Just like she knows when it’s time for breakfast, and time for a nap, and time for a walk, and then another nap, and then dinner and another walk and then a treat and then to curl up at the foot of our bed and dream of chasing or being chased.

Throw in moments of belly rubs and ear massages and a lap where she can rest her head. There are no voids in this old dog’s life. It is how this old dog’s world turns on its axis.

I need only wait for a few more turns of my world on its axis.

Dan Lyksett is a retired reporter, editor and columnist who is tucked in at home south of Eau Claire with his wife, a pack of Labrador retrievers, a pug named Roy and a cat named Norm. He appreciates the virtual companionship and inspiration offered by our creative community, but he also misses having a couple beers with friends at the tavern.

Hope Is Nearly Nothing

Max Garland

I love Emily Dickinson’s famous poem on hope, but this morning, it’s her contemporary, Walt Whitman, who comes to mind. I bequeath myself to the dirt, he said. Look for me under your bootsoles, he said. I’m holding Walt to his words. Keep encouraged, he said. Missing me one place, search another.

This morning I’m searching another, and another after that. A cold gray sky hovers over this late March day, and our portion of the planet here in the Chippewa Valley is snow covered again. Snow raggedly outlines the otherwise bare trees, grants the evergreens a frosted look, a sort of senior moment, you might say.

I’m remembering what composes a snowflake. I mean, what’s at the crux of the crystal hexagon? Before it can form, briefly float, inevitably fall to outline and lightly weigh upon the branches? Before it can clot the treads of tires, whitecap the neighborhood houses? 

It’s just dirt, of course, that forms the nucleus, the cold heart of snow. A fleck of dust, speck of grit, maybe a discarded and upswept pollen grain. It takes nearly nothing, in fact, but nearly nothing is vastly different from nothing. It’s that cast-off floating particle of grit in the upper air that allows molecules of ice to be true to their hexagonal blueprint, branch and elaborate into the various shapes of snowflakes-- lattice, lace, diamond dust, aggregate, column, needle, or my personal favorite—the stellar dendrite.

In this season of viral distancing, quarantine, and genuine suffering, here, this morning, the 4th week of March (I’m going out on a limb here) comes the small gift of spring snow. I think of how something so tiny, nearly nothing, dust or pollen, is seized by the frigid upper air, then branches into performance mode, a kind of beatification of grit, that falls and now covers what I can see of my town from the window of my own isolation.

My hope on this crisis-ridden morning is the audacity of grit, those castaway particles of nearly nothing that allow the crystalline pattern of ice to launch into beauty, cold beauty, sure, but the point is that the smallest thing--dirt, dust, grit—seeds the miraculous, both outside of us, and inside.

I admire the acts of obvious heroism (doctors, nurses, emergency workers), but this snowy morning, it’s also the grit of the girl stocking grocery shelves, the trucker, baker, convenience store clerk, ordinary neighbors keeping the human grid alive-- repairing furnaces, feeding and dressing our quarantined elders who once did the same for us—that’s hope for me. That’s the human manifestation of the unspectacular grit at the heart of the snowflake.

I depart as air, Walt Whitman said. I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, he said. Keep encouraged, he said. I’m trying, Walt, remembering that it’s also words --empathetic, heartfelt, trivial, humorous, distracting; it’s the irrepressible grit of humanity at the core of our impulse to speak, write, sing, listen, to bridge the distance with words—that constitutes hope for me, and keeps me encouraged.

Max Garland is the former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin.

Hope Is Quiet, Hope Is Soft

Jim Alf

It’s the quietness. I ride on waves of it, like silent surf, over the deeps, to a beach of memories. A farm yard where I stood as a child, immersed in stillness, appreciative for the first time of the absence of noise. Not without sound, but sans the din and rattle of mechanical work. From the yard oak came a bird’s brief twit and far away a neighbor’s cow lowed, for a reason unknown. I drank the stillness then and going on a century later thirst for it yet. It gives me hope.

Now it’s here again, almost. It has been days since the car with the broken muffler has roared to life in the parking lot outside my window. Our television screen is dark and soundless, purposely, to keep out the endless and repetitive announcements, statistics, opinions and guesses and tomfoolery of the communication age. The radio hasn’t been on for weeks.

So I make sounds of my own liking. The soft tune of hot water in the sink, rattle of dishes being washed. The broom rubbing the floor, cupboard door shutting. Then, best of all, the barely audible turning of a page, newspaper folding open to the crossword and the pencil’s voice. In time I will seek the music of friend’s conversations or a favorite song on Youtube. As the sun mutely warms the air I will make some coffee and sandwiches and drive out to the Porterville Park, sit by the boat landing and listen for the faint swish of the Chippewa’s current. Maybe the dog on the other side of the river will bark softly, just once.

Jim Alf is the author of When The Ferries Still Ran: History and Stories From the Chippewa Bottoms.

Hope Is The Thing With Red Curls

Charlotte Kupsh

Hope enters my Zoom conference room sometime after 10:30 at night: red curls and a smile that breaks across a serious face. I’ve been alone in my apartment for four days, I’ve had a glass of wine and three (four?) Negronis, and rules have ceased to be relevant, so I’ve invited a man from an app on a digital first date. Hope is the way he sees I’m drunk but takes me seriously anyway, asking about my parents, how I’m doing, whether I want to take a walk tomorrow. 

A friend brings me lemon-infused simple syrup, fresh mint from her garden, and a purple, fragrant plant. “I’ve been buying plants to cope,” she says. We never meant to end up here, on this wide open plain where wind and weather and viruses rip across in what feels like only minutes. The syrup and the mint are to make gin cocktails. The plant is for me. 

Hope is driving out to 48th street and parking behind Mo Java, a coffeeshop that will close by this time next week. Red hair spirals out the front of a knit cap. A Columbia jacket, a soft, calm voice that talks and asks and prompts for three hours while we walk circles around the dilapidated houses north of Nebraska Wesleyan. Hope is the cautious space we hold between our bodies.

Text messages from loved ones beam through the sunny windows of my studio: “Tell me something happy about today.” “I’m worried about you.” “Call me!” A friend shows up at my door with groceries: eggs, almond milk, sweet potatoes. 

Hope is morning coffee in front of my laptop, red curls exploding across the screen. There are Halloween lights strung up in his background. He has a Cafe du Monde mug and I have Cafe du Monde coffee. I show him my map of Lincoln’s recreational trails, the ones I’ve run on colored in. He answers work emails, his face serious, twisting a mechanical pencil between his fingers. I draw anxious, angry characters and label them: “Day 8 of social distancing.” 

At times, especially at night, hope’s knees begin to buckle. “Can you talk? I need someone.” “I think I have a fever.” My mattress is wearing out from the way I roll across it over and over. “I feel alone.” We all cling tightly to its arms; we hoist hope up.  

Hope is setting up our camp chairs in the grass outside my apartment building, measured six feet apart by tape measure. We wrap up in fleece blankets and drink beer, the LED camping lamp my dad made me take “for emergencies” illuminating a red beard. It’s harder to hear his soft voice from this distance; I make myself quieter, stiller. We talk about breweries, bar hopping, and other things we might do one day, maybe. We listen to the birds and point out the bats, their rapidly flapping wings making jittery, uncertain trails across the sky.

Charlotte Kupsh is a teacher, writer, and doctoral student. Originally from the Driftless region of southwest Wisconsin, she now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her work has appeared in Writing on the Edge, The Madison Review, Pleiades Book Review, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @CharlotteKupsh.

Looking To Art And Community For Hope: A Conversation With Poet Angela Voras-Hills

by Angela Hugunin

For Angela Voras-Hills, community—whether in person or through books—is essential. An accomplished poet and wearer of multiple hats, Voras-Hills finds community to be valuable to the artistic process and life itself. Currently, she is organizing the Midwest Poetry Festival. This year, she released her debut poetry collection, Louder Birds , which was chosen by Traci Brimhall for the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review Online, New Ohio Review,  Memorious, Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, and Best New Poets, among other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded grants from The Sustainable Arts Foundation and Key West Literary Seminar, as well as a fellowship from Writers' Room of Boston.

I recently had the pleasure of sharing an Angela-Angela chat with Voras-Hills. She shared insight into her inspirations, her outlook on the current state of the environment, the planet’s relevance to creativity, and the wonders of community. Voras-Hills was originally scheduled to be at an event celebrating National Poetry Month and Earth Day in April along with poets Kathryn Nuernberger and Claire Wahmanholm. However, the event has since been canceled in an effort to limit the potential spread of COVID-19. Nevertheless, Voras-Hills is an important voice for these times. Her work is honest and thought-provoking, and her responses to the following questions brought me hope in the midst of uncertain times. Through her wise responses, Voras-Hills offers meaningful encouragement, sharing insight and reading suggestions perfect for social distancing.

Angela Hugunin: You have multiple important roles, including poet, community organizer, and mother. What connections have you found between art and ecology? With that, what role do you see poets playing in sustainability?

Angela Voras-Hills: Poets have always looked to nature for answers. I mean, people have always looked to nature for answers (I’m thinking augury, astrology, bestiaries, etc.) and to understand life. Artists spend a lot of time observing the world, so it makes sense that we try to make sense of it while it shifts around us. Whether blatantly or not, I think most artists are ecologists to some extent.

As poets, I think we keep conversations about sustainability and the natural world moving forward. We call attention to the way things are changing, we create and depict potential futures based on the present, and we reimagine the past for guidance. While some people are reluctant to hear scientific data about how the natural world is changing, reading a book or poem in which the reader identifies themselves in this changing world can potentially help them understand their role and what is at stake. The more artists can connect with people, the more willing (I hope) people will be to see themselves as part of the world around them.

AH: As we approach National Poetry Month, I’d love to hear about which poets have most inspired you!

 AVH: My first loves were Wislawa Szymborska, Louise Gluck, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, and Linda Gregg. And then Jane Hirshfield, Laura Kasischke, Ada Limon. I mean, this list could go on for so long (and it would consist primarily of female poets), but these are the poets I turn to when I forget why poetry matters and how good it can be.

AH: Earth Day always brings a renewed energy to the environmental movement, yet lately, it feels like a lot of the news we’ve gotten about the planet has been discouraging. Last month, the Clean Water Act was weakened, stripping previously protected waterways of that protection. In the midst of this sort of news, where do you turn for hope?

AVH: Ugh. Hope can be so hard. Honestly, because I have kids, and because I had them in the face of this knowledge, I have to hold onto the silliest things. In my poem “Never Eat a Polar Bear’s Liver,” I say “I find hope in tending/red worms digesting scraps in a bin/beneath my sink.” It’s crazy, the little things I will do for hope. Composting. Recycling. Until there is big change, I’m not sure how much any of these small things really matter, but it is something I can do, and that’s better than doing nothing? And, to be real, the work of poets and writers and artists—knowing that I’m not alone in my hopefulness—that helps tremendously. 

AH: A lot of times, poetry is thought of as a solitary pursuit, yet I see you’re also a passionate community organizer and the founder of Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison (which sounds like it could be an awesome cousin of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild!). How have you seen creativity and community work in tandem, either through that organization or elsewhere?

AVH: YES! Community is my favorite! Before I found community, I was an avid journaler, an angsty, solitary scrawler of nonsense, and also a teenage mom. Being alone for so long is hard, and it’s nice to know there are other people out there thinking things you are thinking and doing things you want to do. And organizations that bring literature into the community/invite the community into literature make people see that writing and thinking and art are for everyone. Having a space where we can all exchange ideas and collaborate, where we are learning and creating together, really changes the shape of and conversation throughout a community. These are spaces that connect people who may not otherwise ever meet each other, and isn’t that so great? I’m looking forward to getting to know more of the people involved with the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. Hooray, community!

 (That said, I think you can find community in books if that is who you are. But if you are not the kind of person who wants to Emily Dickinson their way through life, it’s so good to know other writers and readers.)

AH: You have a new poetry book out and I am intrigued just from the title, Louder Birds. Critics are already praising your ability to weave together Midwestern character with some of life’s biggest questions. Can you tell us a bit about what these poems collectively explore?

AVH: It’s funny, because a lot of people ask, “What is your book about?” and I never really have a great answer—it is decidedly not a “project book.” The book is definitely Midwestern. I was thinking a lot about home and what it means to be home (I started it while living in Boston), to come from a place. There is a lot of snow. There is a lot of blood. I spent so much of my childhood on my grandparents' farm and at my other grandparents' bar/resort, and this feeds a lot of the poems. During the time I was writing, my grandmother had Alzheimer’s, my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, my 8-year-old became a teenager, I had a baby. There is a lot of life existing alongside death. I'm into taxidermy. I'm terrified by climate change. A friend once said my poems are "the domestic gone feral," which I like. The collection is bleak, but I think hopeful, and maybe an argument for living, for seeing this mess through.

AH: Can you give us a sneak peek of what you hoped to share at the event?

 AVH: Sure! This was originally published in the Spring 2017 issue of Arkansas International.

Controlled Burn

The doe ran into the road, flipped

over our hood and dragged her back legs

across the highway into woods. The same day,

they were killing a man in Oklahoma

who wouldn’t die, they were deciding

when to try again, and men in masks

and bright orange suits set fire to the marsh—

the burning flesh of milkweed and switchgrass.

We are told to be fruitful. We are told

to rejoice. The next day, a hospital bed

is set up in the front room of the farmhouse

whose roof might collapse at any minute. As though

the heavens are aware of the weight

of a minute, as though each minute

responds solely to the sky. It’s illegal

to follow an injured deer

into woods with a gun,

but is it ok to tell a child about heaven

if you don’t believe it exists? Yes,

sing the chorus frogs,

who’d burrowed into the heart

of the marsh to escape the flames.

No, hisses the body

of a vole squashed flat,

perfectly filling

a crack in the blacktop.

AH: What are some words of wisdom you’d give to the aspiring poets out there?

AVH: I’ll yell again about community here, because finding people to support you feels so good. And read, read, read, read, read. Anything that speaks to you.

Chippewa Valley Writers Guild to Host The Priory Writers’ Retreat for Second Summer

credit: Justin Patchin

From June 25-28, 2020, the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild is thrilled to host The Priory Writers’ Retreat for a second year.  Retreat dates are June 25-28, 2020. 

Originally established as a monastery for Benedictine nuns in 1964, today The Priory serves as an ideal location for creativity to flourish.  Situated on 120 wooded acres just miles from downtown Eau Claire, the property features 48 single-occupancy dorm style, air-conditioned rooms, several common areas, and no shortage of natural splendor. 

This summer’s course offerings include:

• Tessa Fontaine’s “Beauty in Brevity: Finding Power in Flash Creative Nonfiction and Memoir"

• Nickolas Butler’s “Great Tales of Action and Adventure (and Horror, too…)”

• Kimberly Blaeser’s “Poetry of Spirit and Witness”

• Peter Geye’s “The First Chapter, the Last Chance: How The Opening Pages of Your Novel Can Make It Or Break It”

“This summer is poised to be our best yet,” said Guild executive director, B.J. Hollars.  “We’ve worked hard to bring participants our most unique offerings to date, including courses on flash nonfiction and memoir, action and adventure narratives, and more.  We hope there’s something for everyone.”

Hollars also noted that while the daily schedule will mostly remain the same (sustained creative time in the morning, workshopping in the afternoon, and celebratory readings, music and performances in the evening), the retreat will showcase some changes as well.  “We’ve overhauled our entire menu,” Hollars said, “and also secured partnerships with SHIFT Cyclery and Coffee Bar and The Brewing Projekt.  We want both local and out-of-town writers to enjoy some of Eau Claire’s local offerings.”

Additional sponsors include: the UW-Eau Claire Foundation, Pablo Center at the Confluence, Wisconsin Writers Association, Visit Eau Claire, Wisconsin Arts Board,  JAMF Software, and Write On, Door County.

In addition to robust writer-in-residence led workshops, participants will also enjoy craft talks from Nickolas Butler, Kimberly Blaeser, Peter Geye, as well as a keynote address from Tessa Fontaine.  On Saturday, June 27, The Priory Celebratory Reading will be held at Pablo Center at the Confluence.  Tickets will soon be available to the public.

Priory participant Erin Stevens recently commented on her experience during The Priory’s inaugural summer.  “What I love most about The Priory is the opportunity to learn from writers of all genres.  While I had signed up for and worked most closely with the essay group last year, it was incredibly beneficial to hear the craft talks from the fiction and poetry writers-in-residence.”

The cost is 480.00. This includes three-nights lodging, on-site meals and drinks, personalized instruction and critique, commemorative mug, craft talks and keynote address, bus transport to and from Pablo Center at the Confluence, complimentary ticket to the Writer-in-Residence Reading, and all other on-site events. For non-lodging participants, spots are available for 380.00.  Scholarships are available, including our “Writer Exchange Contest,” which provides a free stay at Write On, Door County’s retreat.

Applications open February 1.  To apply, prepare a 500-word writing statement, as well as a writing sample. For prose workshops (Nickolas Butler, Tessa Fontaine and Peter Geye), please submit no more than 10 double-spaced pages of a single piece (excerpts are fine) or multiple short pieces, if preferred.  For our poetry workshop (Kimberly Blaeser), please submit 3-5 poems. 

Be inspired, inspire others, and we hope to see you this summer!