Interview with Shawna Irvin, Runner Up in the WOW! Q3 2024 Creative Nonfiction Contest

 

Shawna Ervin has an MFA from Rainier Writers Workshop through Pacific Lutheran University in Washington state. She was a member of Tin House’s 2023 and 2024 Winter Online Workshops as well as Kenyon Review’s 2023 Workshop for Teachers Online. She was a finalist for Kenyon Review’s 2024 Developmental Editing Fellowship. Recent publications include poetry in American Literary Review, Bangalore Review, Cagibi, and Rappahannock Review; and prose in Blue Mesa Review, Sonora Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Mother Lines was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020. Shawna was a finalist in Ruminate’s 2021 flash essay contest and a semi-finalist in their 2022 poetry contest. Shawna lives in Denver with her family. 

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

WOW: Shawna, congratulations again, and welcome! I enjoyed reading your essay and could relate to so much of it. What first sparked the idea for “Sixteen Steps to Eating a Potato?” 

Shawna: “Sixteen Steps to Eating a Potato” began from a prompt in a workshop where we wrote about a variety of love each week. This prompt was to write about a food, or foods, that I loved as a child. The first time I had enough food to be able to enjoy it was in college. 

I remembered my first weeks in college as a first-generation student and how I did not fit on many levels. As I learned how to be full, I developed a woman’s body instead of a malnourished little girl’s body. It forced me to reconsider who I was, what I wanted, and how to take up space in the world. Even though my experience veered away from the original prompt, I knew that I wanted to write about what I knew. 

In early drafts, the essay focused largely on eating a baked potato. Gradually, I gained the courage to tell more of my story about poverty and hunger, and what it is like to be so at home in emptiness that being full is foreign. It wasn’t until after I considered the piece finished, that I thought about adding the numbers and title. 

WOW: You recently published the chapbook, “Mother Lines,” through Finishing Lines Press. What do you hope readers will take away from it? 

Shawna: “Mother Lines” came to be during the first year of my MFA program. I was focusing on using the constraints of traditional and experimental forms to explore what it means to be a mother. I hope that readers take away the vast potential of poetry forms to give voice to difficult topics like trauma, disability, and loss. 

WOW: With an impressive list of publications and awards, and a busy home life raising your children, how do you carve out time for your own writing projects? 

Shawna: I struggle to make time for writing. I wish I could say that I didn’t. 

Beyond writing and being a parent, I am also an English professor at a community college. Each summer I tell myself that once the routine of the school year arrives, I will map out times in my schedule to write. Then, during the school year, I tell myself that I will dedicate chunks of time to write in the summer. Both seasons are difficult in their own way. 

Starting in graduate school, I had a goal of having an essay or a batch of poems ready to submit each quarter. After I graduated, I kept up with that goal. I tend to be protective of my goals, so having that deadline creep up every three months has helped me keep writing. 

The strategy that helps me the most with my writing is to take advantage of small bits of time. Even finding 10 or 15 minutes here and there adds up. I leave myself voice messages when I’m waiting in a checkout line or am stuck in traffic, type notes in my phone when a thought pops up as I’m preparing dinner, or I mentally revise and rearrange sections while I’m walking my dog. 

By returning to projects almost every day, I keep them at the forefront of my mind. As often as I can, I set aside time on Sunday mornings to sort through notes or thoughts from the week. By the time I do sit down at my computer, I have a good sense of where I am with a project and can move forward rather than going back to remember where I was. 

WOW: That sounds like a great strategy for time management and it's working well for you! You have publication credits with fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Do you have a favorite out of these art forms and why? 

Shawna: I have two favorite genres – poetry and nonfiction. If I am working on something that is driven primarily by images, I will likely choose poetry. If I am working on something that is more focused on characters or events, I will likely choose prose. Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule. I enjoy experimenting with form and pushing boundaries. What I most enjoy writing is work that doesn’t neatly fit into one genre or another, or that uses aspects of both poetry and prose.

WOW: Who are some of the writers that have inspired your work? 

Shawna: The writers who have most inspired me are people who are generous in sharing their experiences and wisdom on the page, and in their teaching such as Chip Livingston, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Sasha La Pointe, Grace Cho, Geffrey Davis, Jamie Figeuroa, Ely Shipley, Brenda Miller, Ocean Vuong, Richard Froude, and Joy Sawyer. Without any of these strong writers and wonderful role models, I would not be the human or writer I am. I hope to become even a bit like the writers and people I listed above.