Category: Inspirational Artist Series Page 7 of 9

The PoArtMo Anthology Series: Interview with Lorraine Horsley

By

On November 4, 2021

In Inspirational Artist Series

Hello everyone!

Welcome to our PoArtMo Anthology Series, which celebrates the artists whose work appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

Today’s guest is Lorraine Horsley, who contributed flash fiction titled “The One-Buck Blessing” to our anthology.

Auroras & Blossoms: Hello Lorraine. Congratulations for being a featured artist in our anthology! How does a story begin for you? Does it start with an image, a form or a particular theme?

Lorraine: All of the above! 😊

Sometimes it’s a whole scene that just pops into my head, it means nothing on its own, but I’m forced to explore it. Other times, it’s just seeing someone do something simple and I go on to play the ‘what if’ game. Sometimes I see the ending of a story and the characters take up residence in my head and nag me until I give them space on the page. They can be relentless!

A&B: Tell us all about the inspiration behind your piece “The One-Buck Blessing” that appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

Lorraine: I wanted to craft a flash fiction piece. I sat down with no ideas and then the first line came out. I followed it to see where it would take me. It took me to Hope Street and to Evie. I went to school with a kid like Evie, I think we all did.

A&B: Who are your biggest influences in the writing world?

Lorraine: Such a big question! So many people. I belong to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, (SCBWI – Australia West) and the Children’s Book Council of Australia (WA Branch) and there are many writers and inspirational people there. I’ve felt encouraged and supported by them for many years. I read so many different types of books and there is inspiration in each of them. My family are a big influence – they keep me going and cheer me on when self-doubt tells me to stop.

A&B: What is your relationship with your speaking voice and your written voice?

Lorraine: Sometimes it is hard to tell them apart, sometimes it is a stranger that takes over, making their presence felt on the page. I don’t know where those voices come from.

A&B: Has your own opinion or idea of what writing is changed since you first started writing?

Lorraine: I used to put writers on a pedestal and tell myself that could never be me. I used to believe I needed massive blocks of time to write. I now know neither of those things are true. All writing, when it comes down to it, is just words on a page written by people, and even a novel can be drafted in stolen minutes.

A&B: Does your work have any specific themes or social commentary we should identify with?

Lorraine: I write stories for children and adults, as well as poetry. Many of my stories have characters who want to make a difference in the world and who come to realise it is often the small things that mean the most. My poetry is more inward looking, searching for self, questioning labels and expectations, ponderings on identity.

A&B:Tell us the most positive and uplifting advice you have been given while working as a writer.

Lorraine: Trust the process, the words will come. And write for the joy of it.

Bio:

Lorraine Horsley is an Australian author who writes across genres. She has a love of children’s literature and is currently working on an adult novel. Her non-fiction book, You’ve Got This: Tips for the uncertain student, is due for release at the end of 2021.

Website: https://lorraine591.wixsite.com/wordonawire

Lorraine, thank you for answering our questions and supporting Auroras & Blossoms! We know that people will love your writing as much as we do!

The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition is available! Click here to purchase your copy.

Cendrine & David

The PoArtMo Anthology Series: Interview with Ángeles M. Pomata

By

On November 1, 2021

In Inspirational Artist Series

Hello everyone!

Welcome to our PoArtMo Anthology Series, which celebrates the artists whose work appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

Today’s guest is Ángeles M. Pomata, who contributed art titled “Flowers Sprouting in the Rocky Valley” to our anthology.

Auroras & Blossoms: Hello Ángeles. Congratulations for being a featured artist in our anthology! Let us begin, can you tell us about your artistic background?

Ángeles: I am self-taught, so my artistic training consists of trial and error, and in painting and drawing 8 hours a day for about 12 years. I also try to analyze artistic work and learn from the great masters and other talented contemporary painters, who are always a guide to follow.

A&B: Tell us all about the inspiration behind your piece “Flowers Sprouting in the Rocky Valley” that appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

Ángeles: Thank you so much! This piece is inspired by a landscape that really exists where I live in the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, in southern Spain, and by the feelings I have associated with that place. It is a rocky area on the side of a small volcano, and it has a walk that I often follow. There you can breathe a very special quietude, a sweetness very characteristic of the microclimate in this area, which is very soft and has a neat, warm light that provides a gentleness in the air in everything that is illuminated by it. The same feelings that I experience when walking around there are what I wanted to reflect in this particular work.

A&B: Who and what are your biggest influences?

Ángeles: I could not speak of true influences but there are painters that for one reason or another I like a lot, such as Sorolla, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Odilon Redon, Paul Ranson or Pierre Bonnard, all the members of Les Nabis or also Van Gogh and the English painters of the Camden Town Group, or even the Canadians of the Group of Seven. If I had to choose a woman, I would probably stick with Olga Wisinger-Florian. In general, any artist who pays special attention to color tends to catch my eye.

A&B: What do you like and dislike the most about the art world?

Ángeles: What I like the most is the capacity for work, the tenacity and the effort that artists make to create something that transcends them. What I like least is all the paraphernalia that surrounds the art world; the false appearances that seem inseparable from the good artist and that for me are precisely what prevents true art from coming to light. That is why as a rule I try to stay out of it as much as possible and try to have a direct relationship with my clients.

A&B: Does your work have any specific themes or social commentary we should identify with?

Ángeles: The general message of my work is that art is goodness, beauty and/or truth. Something that is good technically or by its intention can be art, or something simply beautiful without anything else, or something that includes some kind of truth. When a work includes these three elements at the same time is when I would speak of ART with capital letters.

On the other hand, I believe that not only in art but everywhere, there is a loss of values and elements that causes life as we know it to be distorted. These are things that should never cease to exist, and my work, insofar as it can modestly contribute to this, is aimed at making these values continue to exist.

A&B: What would be your dream art project?

Ángeles: I don’t exactly have a dream project. I would be satisfied with having enough time and means to be able to dedicate as much time as I consider necessary to a painting. That said, I would love to have a workshop where I can try making large-format pieces.

A&B: Tell us the most positive and uplifting advice you have been given while working as an artist.

Ángeles: The most positive advice I’ve ever been given is “stick to it.” The artistic profession, compared to many others, has multitude of ups and downs and moments of doubt, which makes it essential to have tenacity and confidence in your own work that will encourage you to keep going when you go through any of those moments.

On the other hand, the most encouraging thing is when some of the people who have bought a work of mine have told me that my work helps them to feel well or to find encouragement in difficult moments. That kind of feedback has at times been decisive to remain in this profession.

Bio:

Ángeles M. Pomata is a Spanish oil painting artist and a former clinical psychologist. Raised in Madrid, she now lives in Cabo de Gata. This self-taught painter has a keen interest in colors and light.

Website: https://pomata.pixels.com

Ángeles, thank you for answering our questions and supporting Auroras & Blossoms! We know that people will love your art as much as we do!

The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition is available! Click here to purchase your copy.

Cendrine & David

The PoArtMo Anthology Series: Interview with D.R. James

By

On October 28, 2021

In Inspirational Artist Series

Hello everyone!

Welcome to our PoArtMo Anthology Series, which celebrates the artists whose work appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

Today’s guest is D.R. James, who contributed the poems titled “Tracing Your Two Lines” & “Now” to our anthology.

Auroras & Blossoms: Hello D.R. Congratulations for being a featured artist in our anthology! How does a poem begin for you? Does it start with an image, a form, or a particular theme?

D.R. James: I’ve just published a new book (Mobius Trip, Dos Madres Press) in which all the poems are ten lines of ten syllables, so form definitely played a role in those, but they’re overall unusual for me. Usually, I start with a line prompted from something I’m seeing, so image often kicks things off. Early on I’d try to ‘say’ something and start with that in mind but then allow myself to wander off and discover what the poem was really ‘about.’ Now I rarely do that and will just start with that line and then maybe give myself some specific word constraints and discover what comes of that. In all, surprising myself leads me on, often driven by sound serendipity rather than sense inevitability.

A&B: Tell us all about the inspiration behind “Tracing Your Two Lines” & “Now”, the pieces that appear in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

D.R. James: When I wrote those two poems I was going through a mopey phase and writing to pull myself out of it—almost forcing a reluctant optimism. I can’t exactly recall where the premise for “Tracing Your Two lines” came from, but that second person your/you was mainly I, not the reader out there. “Now” was actually inspired by watching a bird landing and feeling like I could see through or into her translucent tail feathers. And again, the ‘you’ is mainly I, object of my own self-bucking up. “D. R., trace your two lines!” “D. R., be present!” If readers read either as ‘to’ or ‘for’ or ‘about’ or relevant to them, all the better.

A&B: What is your relationship with your speaking voice and your written voice?

D.R. James: I’d say my poems reflect a poeticized version of my actual voice, some more so than others. Many of the poems in the new book work with such sonic word play that they stretch the relationship. But I think those who know me would still recognize my sensibility in them and not find them foreign to me and my voice. I certainly speak my poems as I write them to make sure I can—and I just plain enjoy hearing them—and if something is clumsy, it gets edited.

A&B: Have you considered getting other people to read your poetry or is it important for you to be the one to perform your poetry to an audience?

D.R. James: No one else reads my poems in public, though I’d enjoy it if they did. I actually hate the sound of my voice when listening to it on a recording (it sounds fine in my head when I’m speaking!), as many do, I suppose, and envy those with beautifully rich voices. We have a friend from New Zealand who once read a couple at the dinner table, and his accent and timbre reciting my words was fascinating and sounded so much better than when I read them. Sometimes I like to read my poems—out loud but to myself—with my version of an Irish accent, and I like how that peps them up. I imagine I’m Seamus Heaney.

A&B: How important is accessibility of the meaning of your poems? Should we have to work hard to “solve” the poems and discover their deeper meanings?

D.R. James: Not all my poems are readily accessible, but I don’t mean for them to be difficult or for something to solve. I’d rather people didn’t try to solve them. Just let them be. I’ve taught literature for 40 years and hate the “figure this poem out” approach like so many of my colleagues practice, the professional lit critics. A tough poem for them is article material! It doesn’t matter to them if the ‘exegesis’ (critical explanation) kills the art. To me, a reading poem is an experience, whether you see a meaning in it or not. Much of the pleasure in my poems, for example, comes from the amuse-bouche–ness of them, how they sound, how they feel in the mouth, whether a vivid “meaning” comes through or not. A poem doesn’t mean, even if someone says it does. It just is.

A&B: Has your own opinion or idea of what poetry is changed since you first started writing poetry?

D.R. James: Yes, I’d say so. I came late to writing poems, almost fifty, and was using journal and poem writing to deal with a long stretch of depression. My journal entries and early attempts at poems were expressing and trying to process my troubles, very self-centered and self-serving. Which was fine, of course. They served that purpose. But then I turned a corner somewhere along the line and realized I was enjoying the writing for its own sake as well as the evolving and finished pieces themselves, apart from their therapeutic utility. I was freed to write actual poems that moved the self-absorption gradually into the universal and the creation of things out of language, language things-in-themselves. I envy musicians and non-representational artists who can just create a thing to experience without it having to mean a thing.

A&B: Tell us the most positive and uplifting advice you have been given while working on your poetry.

D.R. James: William Stafford: Lower your standards. Jack Ridl: Don’t write good poems. Marvin Bell: Learn the rules, break the rules, make new rules, break those rules, so your low-down obsessions can truly surface.

Bio:

D.R. James lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan, U.S. He has released nine collections, including Flip Requiem (Dos Madres, 2020), Surreal Expulsion (Poetry Box, 2019), and If god were gentle (Dos Madres, 2017). His micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is available for free at Origami Poems Project.

D.R., thank you for answering our questions and supporting Auroras & Blossoms! We know that people will love your poems as much as we do!

The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition is available! Click here to purchase your copy.

Cendrine & David

The PoArtMo Anthology Series: Interview with Sharon Dockweiler

By

On October 21, 2021

In Inspirational Artist Series

Hello everyone!

Welcome to our PoArtMo Anthology Series, which celebrates the artists whose work appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

Today’s guest is Sharon Dockweiler, who contributed the short story titled “Picker” to our anthology.

Auroras & Blossoms: Hello Sharon. Congratulations for being a featured artist in our anthology! How does a story begin for you? Does it start with an image, a form or a particular theme?

Sharon Dockweiler: Usually my stories and poems begin with a person who has affected me in some way.

A&B: Tell us all about the inspiration behind “Picker,“ the piece that will appear in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition.

SD: “Picker” is about a man I met when I was at a low point in my life, battling bi-polar disorder. It describes our friendship and touches on the joy we brought each other in small ways despite our circumstances.

A&B: Who are your biggest influences in the writing world?

SD: Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore keep me slightly off center in a magical way that gives humor and texture to the serious subjects I often write about. I also love Orson Scott Card and the poetry of Robert Frost, who so simply brings the human condition to light.

A&B: What is your relationship with your speaking voice and your written voice?

SD: I love to read out loud. My mother was in a car accident when I was ten, and I spent years reading to her after school. She always commented on my reading: Too fast. Too slow. Enunciate. Use more feeling. She taught me to feel the words I read. I believe it is responsible for the way my written voice can grow to a crescendo of passion, then soften to a place where you want to strain to hear every nuance. That has carried over to a love for poetry open mics.

Whenever I read, I can hear emotional reactions from the crowd that let me know I’m hitting home.

A&B: Has your own opinion or idea of what writing is changed since you first started writing?

SD: I’ve been writing poetry and stories since I was five years old. I still think writing is simply fun. It entertains and teaches. I love that you can take off in any direction and create a new world.

I also love the attention that comes from readers or listeners. As an adult I know writing can be hard work, but, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “I hate writing, but I love having written.”

A&B: Does your work have any specific themes or social commentary we should identify with?

SD: Much of my work sheds light on the forgotten: the homeless, mentally ill, addicted… I paint word pictures of individuals to show who they really are, how they got to where they are, and how they deal with that. It can go from heart-breaking to humorous on a hair pin turn.

A&B: Tell us the most positive and uplifting advice you have been given while working as a writer.

SD: All writing starts with free writing. Begin with a notebook that lays flat, that you aren’t afraid to ruin. Choose a smooth-writing pen. Let the words flow. Don’t worry about punctuation, spelling, or sentences. If you can’t think of a word, leave a space or draw an underline and keep on going. When you’re done, let it marinate. Set it aside for two weeks. Then see it as the raw clay that it is, and start to sculpt the actual image you want to convey.

Bio:

Sharon Dockweiler has lived through hell, and now serves as a sherpa for those following in her footsteps. The faith and humor that have kept her going are evident in her writing. She facilitates Writers’ Workshops for Deer Park and Brentwood Libraries on Long Island.

Sharon, thank you for answering our questions and supporting Auroras & Blossoms! We know that people will love “Picker” as much as we do!

The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2021 Edition is coming soon!

Cendrine & David

Inspirational Artist Series: Nonkululeko Nxumalo

By

On March 25, 2021

In Inspirational Artist Series

The Inspirational Artist Series spotlights some of the artists featured in our issues and anthologies, and who have moved us in specific ways.

Today’s guest is Writer Nonkululeko Nxumalo, whose flash fiction piece will appear in the next issue of the Auroras & Blossoms Creative Literary Journal.

How does a story begin for you? Does it start with an image, a form or a particular theme?

I draw inspiration from events that happened in my life or are currently happening. Other times it would simply be inspiration from other people’s experiences, with a whole lot of fiction.

So for me, a story begins with a certain feeling or just imagining how something must have made that person feel, because ultimately I not only want my readers to imagine the story, but to feel it as well.

Are there any genres you haven’t tried yet but would like to?

Yes, definitely. My genre is more new adult and women’s fiction, but I would love to try my hand at children’s literature.

What is your relationship with your speaking and your written voices?

My speaking voice is very dormant. I write more than I speak. It has always been like that and it will most probably remain that way. 🙂

Have you considered getting other people to read your stories or is it important for you to be the one to perform your work to an audience?

Whether I read my stories to an audience or someone else does it, it doesn’t really matter to me. As long as the story does to people what is intended for it to do.

How important is accessibility of the meaning of your stories? Should we have to work hard to “solve” them and discover their deeper meanings?

I don’t want my stories to be hard to understand or for my readers to rack their brains trying to discover their deeper meanings. It’s very important for my stories to be clear and deep at the same time.

Has your own opinion or idea of what writing is changed since you first started?

I’ve loved writing stories since primary school and it was a hobby I enjoyed so much. When I first started writing, it was easy, because as a kid there’s very little that you pay attention to like grammar, sentence structuring and all the processes that writing involves. Whether your story is one big paragraph with very little commas and full stops, it doesn’t really matter. The story is what matters. When you’re older on the other hand, it’s different. Too many nitty-gritties to consider when you are writing. So yes, my idea of what writing really is has definitely changed since I first started writing.

Anything else you would like to share?

I have recently launched my career as a freelance writer. After years of working a 9 to 5 job, I have finally said yes to my calling. I have been in the freelancing business for less than a year and am still working on getting my work out there. I have an essay that was published on the SolomonStar Online News Portal and am also working on more fiction pieces.

Bio:

Nonkululeko Nxumalo is an emerging writer from South Africa. This undergraduate student aspires to pursue a career in writing. You can also often find her curled up on the couch reading fiction and autobiographies.

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nonku_Nxumi
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonku_nxumi/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonkululeko/

Nonkululeko, thank you for answering our questions and supporting Auroras & Blossoms! We know that people will love the flash fiction piece you submitted to us!

Cendrine & David

Page 7 of 9

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén

×