Learn from an Older Author’s Publishing Success
This week I’m trying something a little different- an interview with a colleague, providing me with the opportunity to introduce a new book. Delaware resident Morgan Golladay, seventy-seven years old, has retired from two jobs and started publishing in late 2019. Although she got a late start, she’s quickly making up for lost time.
A Conversation with Author Morgan Golladay
The Song of the North Mountain, Old Scratch Press May 2024
Interviewed by Nadja Maril.
Q: Morgan, what has been the role of poetry in your life?
A: I think everyone has an element of creativity in their hearts, be it cooking, blacksmithing, woodwork, needlepoint, napkin-folding, writing, or painting. When I allow myself to play, my creativity increases. I distinctly remember as a toddler seeing dust motes floating in sunshine, and wondering at the magic. Later in life, as pets came into my life, the dust motes transfigured themselves into dust bunnies, and then dust snakes rolled up behind huge pieces of furniture. Imagination. Creative spark. What ifs.
Poetry and art are the products of the creative sparks in my life. (We won’t discuss my singing or my interpretive dance, although they both exist in the privacy of my home.) I am a visual person — I think in words, rhyme, rhythm, color, feeling, and they occur when I PAY ATTENTION, especially when they are linked to wonder and curiosity.
Q: Is there a favorite poem in your book you’d like to share?
A: Here’s one of my favorite poems from my book, The Song of North Mountain.
Winter Morning
The woods are smoldering
under the shifting weight of pre-dawn fog,
trapped in the coolness of the trees.
Mists have long since
burned off barren fields,
but fires of creation,
banked for a long night of winter,
rise smoke-like through the day.
I turn,
mindful of my steps,
my mind racing with the awareness of ideas.
Images tumble in this morning of creation,
and I reach for my pencil.
Q: Do you have a daily writing practice?
A: My writing schedule is erratic, and, as you can tell, very dependent on images. Pre-dawn fog. Vision is hazy. Misty. Cold. Smoky. I want you to see it. I want you to feel it. I want to share the discovery with you. I remember phrases, things I hear in conversation, even things I remember people saying as I have grown up.
In fourth grade we had to have dictionaries. We copied out boring pages of words, pronunciations, definitions. But we learned words. Remarkable words. And we slowly became better able to communicate.
Q: Have you found in your visual artwork a difference working in color vs. black and white?
A: Over ten years ago, a new friend I had met in an acrylics workshop and I decided to try an experiment. I had excitedly finished a 75/75–75 black and white sketches in 75 days, and was sharing it with her. We decided to extend it, and do more. And then we decided, since we were both poets, to add our own poetry to the sketches, but allow color. It required discipline, and I don’t remember whether we both actually finished, but it was great fun and a chance to try different techniques, both in sketching and writing.
And I discovered that sketching was very different from my usual painting. Primarily, smaller. And less saturation of color, if there even was color. Did the sketch inform the poem, or vice versa? What was the most important element — the theme of the poem, or the sketch? Black and white sketches require a lot of different elements to be effective. Think of the illustrations of Rockwell Kent, the engravings of Durer, sketches of Michelangelo, Picasso, Mayer. For me, it was a steep learning curve.
The illustrations in The Song of North Mountain follow closely in the style I used in the cover and sketches in Solstice 3 (An Anthology published by Devil’s Party Press 2023). The main requirement was that they had to fit in a 6×9" format, and be in black and white. The cover could be in color, but in a 9 x13" size. I paint large — 30×36", and these smaller sketches were quite a challenge!
Q: Any final thoughts on poetry?
A: I think all poetry should be read -out loud and often. Before literacy was commonplace, the keeping of the stories and history of the community was entrusted to people who would remember and recite these stories. And while five-second sound bites are extremely popular, I write my poetry to be read aloud, for the reader and the listener to hear the internal rhyme, feel the intense heat, or cold, or fog, see the sunlight dapple on the grass, feel the rhythm of life.
If you’d like to order Morgan’s book, here is the link. And if you’d like to learn more about Old Scratch Press and the concept of a Writers’ Collective click here.
T hank you for reading and if you have a book coming out and would be interested in an interview- contact me via my website Nadjamaril.com or via Substack.
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on April 22, 2024.
