RS:
Hey, Maureen, we've known each other for a long time! Since Big Table published your chap Weary Blues in 2010 (Wow, how have ten years gone by already?) what have you been up to since then?
MS:
These are the books I have published since then:
The Year of Dead Fathers (2012)—winner of the Robert Watson Poetry Award
Scar Girl (2012)
Eulogy for an Imperfect Man (2013)
Beyond Fairy Tales (2014)
The Art of Departure (2015)
Belongings (2017)
Dancing with Dali (2020)
I have also been writing and publishing short stories and flash fiction.
I began teaching full-time at a community college in North Carolina in 2017. There seems to be a bit of a gap with my book publications during that time.
RS:
A few years back, you met the man of your dreams (so did I!) and got married. How did falling in love at that stage of your life show up in your writing?
MS:
After six years of dating, I finally met my perfect mate through a dating site. We had a whirlwind romance. Met in January 2017, got engaged in March, got married in May. As if that wasn’t enough, we built a house that same year, traveled to Paris, and had two wedding receptions. Barry is perfect for me. He is a Northerner (like myself), an English teacher (life myself), and also a writer! What else could one ask for? He’s also tall, blue-eyed, handsome, and very funny.
Falling in love in my fifties was unexpected. I had just about given up on men to take up knitting and crafts. Seriously, I was very discouraged. Barry changed me in so many positive and thrilling ways. As far as my writing goes, I now have a built-in writing group, an editor, a partner to bounce ideas off when I am plotting a story or novel. Falling in love with Barry gave me the confidence to take additional risks with my writing. For example, I had written a YA novel and shoved it in a drawer. When I met Barry, I dusted it off and shared a chapter with him. He actually liked the novel and encouraged me to totally rewrite it. Thanks to his support, my first YA novel is coming out on September 10th of this year with Black Rose Writing. I’ve had this dream of writing books since I was eight years old. Barry gave me the encouragement to fulfill my dream of getting a novel published.
With that novel under my belt, I am hoping to get an agent for a women’s fiction novel I have just finished. Cross your fingers for me.
RS:
Has your writing ever taught you something surprising about yourself?
MS:
My writing has taught me several things about myself: 1. I like to explore different topics and genres 2. I work my tail off (Try teaching a 6/5 load and continue to publish stories, poems, and books in your spare time) 3. I am great at taking rejection (I learned this both from dating and from sending work out to publishers) 4. Writing what has to be written sometimes has consequences (I have lost a family member as a result of writing what I needed to write) 5. My writing friends are extremely important to me on this writing journey
RS:
Favorite tips for writing poetry?
MS:
1. Make sure you are having fun writing. 2. Take the last line of your last poem and begin a new poem with that line 3. Try reading poetry from writers you have never read. Keep on reading good poetry.
Thank you for interviewing me, Robin!
Giving Zoloft To My Son
I give my son
a small blue oval of hope,
disc tinged with shades of doubt,
antidote to the daily discontent.
My adolescent Sisyphus,
you’ve given up the climb.
I know this pain too,
the same bleak little men
swim through my veins,
chain down my thoughts and dreams.
I know the downside of medication,
that falling sensation, the dizziness
of withdrawal. Constant rock
middle ground mood,
no playground highs
no graveyard lows.
Pill held in that same palm
I first saw seventeen years before,
he grabbed my finger and squeezed
as if, even then, the world was too much.
Once he colored in the universe
on construction paper,
eight planets, and at the center
a bright yellow orb
Mom written in crayon inside the sun.
Today, I place the pill inside his hand,
and the yellow sun falls out of this universe,
slips so far away it topples off the page.
Still, for now
I press the answer
into his palm; he swills
it down with juice,
I shoo away the swell of little men
and say a prayer inside my head.
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