Interview with Monica Prince

SFWP Author Spotlight: Editing Is Supposed to Be Fun and Other Wisdom from a Working Writer, By Monica Prince

What is your educational and work background? Have either of these had an impact on your relationship with writing? Do you have a job other than writing?

Reading and writing was a big part of my childhood. As an undergrad I couldn’t decide between science, lit and music. I started out trying to become Jacques Cousteau, then shifted to lit, with music on the side. With a BA in lit, I spent the next ten years following scientists around the world as a fieldworker and writing about it. That led to a grad diploma in science and an MFA in Creative Writing. THAT led to a book about sailing with whale researchers through the South Pacific. And that led to a job teaching science writing at UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences and becoming Associate Director of the Junior Year Writing Program for the whole campus. I help judge the student Best Text Contest each year. I also send out writing each year, and am working on an online journal of student writing. I attend writing conferences and residencies to work on my current writing. As for music? I sang a lot while I traveled, and have been in a small group called A’Cappellago for about ten years now, just for fun. Can anything one learns and practices not have an impact on writing? Probably not in my life.

How did you first get involved with writing? What does your writing practice look like?

For me writing started with reading, and I read early and often. I was lucky to have a great elementary education that involved lots of creative writing. A rural Middle and High school was far less rigorous. Our librarian complained to my mother once that I’d read everything in the school library. I remember reading the entire Lord of the Rings on the bus and while walking down the halls. When I finished and came out of the fog, I was on the school bus, but had no idea if I was coming or going to school. My mother often let us skip school for “reading days.”  To be honest, I read so much I assumed I’d be a good writer, and it was rather horrifying to discover in college that my every sentence wasn’t gold-plated. I spent a lot of years learning to edit and –probably more importantly– learning to find the creativity and fun in editing.  My practice now? I have a lot on. Teaching and being a mom takes a tremendous amount of the time I used to write. So, I do a lot of pre-writing in my head while commuting, practice productive procrastination by editing when I can’t face grading, and save the bigger chunks of time, winter break and summers, for creating. I can edit even when the dog is barking in my ear or the kids interrupting with their own projects. But I need those bigger chunks of time (and quiet) to create.

What are you working on now?

JELLYFISH DREAMING,a gender-bender, post-apocalyptic, cultural-coming-of-age series that takes a short step into the future, adds climate change, removes species – folds in a bit of magical realism and a bit of hope — and stirs. A fun aspect for me was, I published an excerpt as a short story in Small Beer Press’s journal, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and my daughter’s tutor read it and started illustrating it. Now we’re editing the entire first mss and redoing it as a graphic novel. Collaborating this intensely is new for me, but it’s great fun to see how another artist interprets one’s work, and it’s taught me a whole new form of editing.

When you begin a piece, what propels you onto the page?

My fingers. I used to feel that I couldn’t think clearly without a pen in my hand, but lately I imagine my fingers on a keyboard holding the power to orchestrate and communicate thoughts still half formed in my mind. My hands are where the magic is. My father was a clinical psychologist who often said fingers have memories of their own. Anyone who’s played piano knows that sometimes your fingers can remember long forgotten songs, as long as you don’t THINK about it too hard. Sometime I pre-write in my imagination, but my hands are the conveyor of those half-articulated thoughts that only coalesce as my fingers fly across the keyboard — writing to figure out what I really want to say, and later editing to say what I really mean. Editing becomes something like weaving, with my fingers pulling the different themes of the story into place.

Why did you decide to enter the Literary Award Contest with SFWP? How do you think submitting to contests impacts your future writing life?

In 2003 the SFWP published a short story, “Fresh Bones,” excerpted from my first book, THE WHALE ROAD, which was published the following year by a small overseas press called Random House New Zealand, and later Blake UK. It was an amazing experience. The contest gave me confidence, a fuller publication list for a newbie writer, and between the published chapter and the book, helped me get my current job teaching writing. These days contests can be a way to test out material I’m close to finishing, and to brag to publishers about when I’m ready to send out. The lovely thing about the SFWP is they also publish, and they archive their online publications seemingly indefinitely, which gave me a long-term place to show off work. SFWP feels very supportive. I was so delighted after time passed, and the copyright to my first book was eventually returned to me, and I discovered it was eligible for the SFWP 2017 Literary Award and possible publication in the USA at long last. Then it made top ten finalists! It felt like coming full circle ‘round.

What do you believe is a key to successful publishing?  

I suppose it’s different for everyone, but for me process and success are fairly synonymous in this context. I just like writing. Part of that process is embracing the dichotomy of writing at a level or in a style that satisfies me, but then finding the right home or audience for my work so I can stop editing and move on to the next piece.

What advice do you have for writers just starting to make this their priority?

If I were to advise myself as the newbie I was when first publishing with SFWP, I’d tell myself: Write for the joy of it. And if you happen to publish, enjoy the thrill. Then get back to your writing. Also, go small press. It’s incredibly fun to work with people who like your writing and support you. The dream of the Best Selling First Novel doesn’t usually survive much longer than an old Lotto ticket when faced with all the forms of rejection out there – and if you think about it, that’s like a kid wishing to be famous one day. There’s no substance to it. But telling stories, writing, finding the creative power of editing to shape ideas, delighting even one reader, one’s fingers on the keyboard…that’s FUN.

Monica Prince, Managing editor of Santa Fe Writers Project

“Monica Prince teaches activist and performance writing and serves as Director of Africana Studies at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Roadmap: A Choreopoem, How to Exterminate the Black Woman: A Choreopoem, and Letters from the Other Woman. She is the managing editor of Santa Fe Writers Project and the co-author of the suffrage play, Pageant of Agitating Women, with Anna Andes. Her work appears in Wildness, The Missouri Review, The Texas ReviewThe Rumpus, MadCap ReviewAmerican Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee obsessed with maxi skirts with pockets and yoga, Prince writes, teaches, and performs choreopoems across the nation.”

From: https://monicaprince.com/about