What is song is on repeat for you right now? For poets: What is most challenging and most rewarding about using real life in your poetry? It’s always a challenge to avoid life’s experiences coming across as maudlin and cliched. The moment you see how you’ve managed to express yourself in a fresh, new way is the ‘aha’ moment reward. Then I take a leaf from Alice Munro’s short fiction, which invokes the alternate dimension within her experiences of domesticity, and I try to imagine my contribution to the genre as relevant.
Stories have always been in my head but I dismiss my personal life as being rather dull. This is my first creative non-fiction.ĭo you find that CNF comes easy to you as a writer and/or what is challenging about it? The daily slog is the thing: sometimes it’s the poetry that swells to the surface, sometimes the art photography, sometimes the flash fiction. Now that I’m retired, I’m able to sit outside with a mug of tea every day, rain, sleet, or shine, and cogitate/ meditate, then park at my laptop for a few hours. While raising a family and clawing my way through a career, I had no time for artistic or literary expression. I was watching a talk by Lidia Yuknavitch on this topic, actually, and have to say my process is very similar to hers. However, after a few glasses of dutch courage, I thought perhaps my story might be interesting after all.ĭo you have a routine for writing? If so, what is it and how has it evolved? To be honest, I was reticent at first, as there must be many transitions more dramatic and revelatory than mine. ‘Transitions’ is such an evocative theme, what compelled you to submit for this issue? Kerry’s piece, ‘The Garden Boy’, can be found in Epoch Press’ Autumn issue, ‘Transitions’, which you can purchase here. Recent acceptances: Event PrairieFire Sarasvati Cagibi, Carousel amongst others. You can find Kerry on twitter at on her website. Edinburgh International FlashFiction GlitteryLiterary. Fast forward: she’s barefoot again, chasing awards, eg. Kerry Rawlinson left Zambia decades ago, exploring, landing in Canada.