Interview with Winter 2024 Flash Fiction Runner Up, Liz Chang

 

Liz Chang was the 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Exit 7, Breakwater Review and Stoneboat Literary Journal, among others. Her 2023 chapbook Museum of Things from Finishing Line Press includes the Pushcart Prize-nominated work “On Jolly Holiday.” Chang’s flash fiction has been published internationally in Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic and Opia no. 2. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Moravian University. More information on her forthcoming work and appearances can be found at lizchangpoet.com. 

----------Interview by Renee Roberson 

WOW: Your story, The Ghost of Louise Gluck Takes Persephone Apple Picking for the First Time, pays tribute to Averno, a crater lake in Italy that also serves as the entrance to the Roman underworld. What was your process like in getting the details down on paper, and then polishing and shaping them until you were happy with the final result? 

Liz: I’m pleased you noticed that, but in this case, I can’t really take credit. Averno is the title of Louise Gluck’s collection that has a bunch of poems about Persephone. In the series I’m working on, I use bits of inspiration from the poets or authors whose voices I’m creating. In this case, though, I didn’t use many of Gluck’s exact lines–more like images and settings from the character she created and the speaker in Averno’s reference to growing up near an orchard. I had also recently gone apple picking with my family, so that’s where some of the physical details came from. As an aside, I have been to the cave in Slovenia that Dante visited just before he wrote The Inferno. I crawled about six feet in, on my hands and knees in total darkness, and then instinctually threw my body into reverse to move back out toward the entrance. I’ve discovered that caves are not for me. 

WOW: Ha! I can understand that about caves--they've always struck me as quite unpredictable. What is your favorite line from “The Ghost of Louise Gluck” and why? 

Liz: The one line I did use from Gluck here was the bit about “...in the way one expects of a lyric poet.” I tried to kind of pull off a cheeky self-own, as a lyric poet myself, with the set-up about Persephone comparing apples to pomegranates and how they’re only vaguely alike in a sort of superficial, romantic way. In general, I’m having so much fun with these little flash pieces because I get to pay homage to some of my favorite, departed artists, but also I get to move them around on a little stage in my brain. One of my writer-friends teased me recently, saying, “Your brain must be a strange place to be!” …but that’s the joy that I’m trying to tap into with this project. Even the more somber pieces are fun to craft because they feel like stolen moments with the people I most admire. 

WOW: How did you first discover your love for reading and writing poetry? 

Liz: I was very fortunate to have a lot of support early on as a reader (in second grade) and a writer (in third or fourth). I know not everyone has that. In college, I took a class with Hettie Jones, and even though I felt lost in my major coursework, I always looked forward to writing for her workshop. I would hold off poetry writing until the night before I had to produce something–it was like I got to savor a reward. Living in New York City was rough on me, so I think having the mental space to shut out all of the noise and try to distill my hidden self onto the page was really tied to my weathering that time. 

WOW: Your chapbook “Museum of Things” has such a unique concept—the poems are structured to resemble artifacts in a museum with each piece focusing on a specific item from your past. What advice would you offer other poets and writers looking to find a personal concept such as this one to immerse themselves in? 

Liz: I studied visual art as an undergraduate, and I’ve heard readers mention they generally see a lot of fine art influence in my writing–mostly in terms of color and pattern work, which I have always really enjoyed. 

In this case, I was writing some little micro memoir pieces for a poetry workshop I’ve been in for the last thirteen years. We meet monthly, so I always aim to have something to show them. I was scraping the bottom of my mental barrel, certain that no one would care about these little stories behind all of my accumulated “things” except me. It was my poet-friends who recognized that these were worth revisiting. In fact, my one friend Susan suggested re-conceiving them as ‘museum tags.’ I really enjoy finding an idea’s natural form–both in visual art and writing. I threw myself into the challenge, and I eventually let them be poems. …

But I suppose I’m backing into the advice part here. I would say that the best advice is (and I’m sure I’m paraphrasing someone important here) that the personal is universal. Strong writing moves outward from purely individual experience to connect with a larger audience. If you pay attention to your craft and distill your work until it is as strong as it can possibly be, then readers out in the world will respond. As a poet, I seek to create an emotional experience for the reader on the page, but I am also committed to being a storyteller and to communicate with my reader. If you value that relationship, people will notice. 

I can’t tell you how many times audience members have found themselves in just one line in a piece during a reading–that’s all it takes. For instance, I describe my grandmother wearing “one black shoe and one blue” to teach her kindergarten classes and a gentleman came up to me at a library reading to quietly confess he’d done the same. When someone noticed his shoes, he replied, “I have another pair just like it at home!” 

WOW: In addition to being a poet and writing instructor, you are also a beekeeper. What drew you to this pastime and what do you love most about it? 

Liz: My husband jokes that it was my destiny after I played a honeybee in my second grade play. Also I used to teach an essay that had the line, “what is it about poets and bees?” I still don’t have an answer to that question. But I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that I love the backyard honey. I’m a miserable gardener, so this is the closest I get to appreciating the garden the previous homeowner put in. I also really enjoy having something in my life that’s less about words and more about instinct. This is one of the only spaces where I can quiet my mind and tend. When I’m working to make their lives easier, I don’t narrate what I’m doing in my head. I try to be their guardian instead of their “keeper” (although I do use that shorthand term to refer to myself–I mean that I find the action to be more like protecting and supporting them over owning them). 

WOW: It sounds like such a fascinating hobby and I'm glad you discovered it! Liz, congratulations again for placing in the contest and we appreciate you sharing these insights on the writing life.