Interview with Sue Hann, 2nd Place Winner in the Q1 2022 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest

I'm thrilled to interview Sue Hann about her essay, "Notes on a Pregnancy," which won second place in WOW! Women on Writing's Q1 2022 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest. You may remember Sue from last year's Q1 contest where she placed as a runner up. In today's interview, Sue and I chat about visceral writing, incorporating research, her submission process, 2022 goals, and more!

Sue’s work was long-listed for the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize 2020. She won the Diana Woods Memorial Award 2020. Her writing has been published in journals such as Popshot Quarterly and Litro Online, as well as various flash fiction anthologies. She lives in London with a problematic number of books and is currently working on a collection of essays.

----- Interview by Angela Mackintosh

WOW: Sue, congratulations on your second place win! "Notes on a Pregnancy" is a gorgeously written, visceral piece that uses the body as a vehicle to tell the story of a pregnancy, and how our bodies can feel like they're not our own. I don't remember which memoirist said this, but good writing feels like you're zipped into the author's skin. That's how I felt when I read your piece. What was the initial spark or "way in" that prompted you to write this essay?

Sue: First of all thank you for your lovely words in response to my essay; that is so great to hear. I wrote this piece during my pregnancy. I had read the standard medical information given to me during pregnancy which all seemed to cover the well-known topics of morning sickness, foods to avoid, staying active etc. But nothing prepared me for just how strange and weird an experience pregnancy felt at times. I was taking an online writing class with London Lit Lab and writer Tania Hershman on Hybrid writing and the course really challenged me to be playful with this theme that I had been wanting to write about and that was the birth of this essay. 

WOW: Hybrid writing is my favorite, and writing workshops are often where I feel most productive. I'm glad the course challenged you to play with theme. I also love the research you braided into your essay, which helped ground the narrative in your pregnancy journey. Do you often incorporate research in your essays, and what was your method for researching your winning essay?

Sue: The research all came from my own reading up on my body and the changes that it was undergoing while pregnant. Waking up one morning with a very weird looking tongue for example lead me to searching the internet for an explanation. I found it hard to get my head around all the bodily changes and I felt like it was something that wasn’t talked about enough, so I was determined to write about it in some way. I love incorporating research into my writing. I started out writing more research-based pieces in my professional life and then came to creative writing, so this felt like a nice blend of both.

WOW: The line about "geographic tongue" is a powerful opening. So is your second paragraph where you talk about your mouth being a map of the world. Very vivid. In fact, the lyricism and imagery of your essay pulled me in immediately, but the scene with your husband at the end was a powerful punchline, and what stayed with me long after I read your essay. The bit of dialogue where you tell him to touch your belly, and alarmed, he snatches his hand away, preferring to think of the baby as abstract. This tightly crafted conflict reminds me of how our bodies reflect our inner psychological landscape. As writers, we too have a psychological journey when we work on a piece. What did you learn about yourself while writing this piece?

Sue: Yes, I am fascinated by the link between the body and our psychological landscape. I was so struck during pregnancy by how much of an embodied experience it is, and how it was something I was going through alone, and my husband, as close as we are, will never truly understand it. Although we were both becoming new parents, the physicality of the changes forced me into a different psychological place. 

WOW: I remember you emailing before finalists were chosen to say that a longer version of your essay was chosen for publication by another journal, and I said it was okay to leave it in WOW's contest because we accept essays published elsewhere. I'm usually a one-at-a-time submitter, but this year I started simultaneously submitting and ran into a similar issue. In my case, the literary journal asked me to withdraw from all other publications. So I'm curious, do you often submit simultaneously and what is your submission method for targeting contests/journals? You are successful in winning contests, not only WOW's, but you won first place in the prestigious Diana Woods Memorial '20 Contest at Lunch Ticket!

Sue: It was so great to hear back from you that WOW allow previously published material as this is so unusual. I’m not a routine simultaneous submitter, I must admit, as I don’t like to submit indiscriminately in a broad beam way. I prefer to submit to places that I like and enjoy reading, and where I feel that my work will have a good home. WOW is one of these places and I always look forward to reading the essay winners and runners up for each quarter. 

WOW: That's wonderful to hear. I also enjoy reading the essays the judges' choose because they are all wonderfully creative and so different. In your bio, you mention you're working on an essay collection. Are the essays connected by theme?

Sue: My essay collection is about the female body and trying to conceive and the journey through that. My essay that you mentioned won first place in the Diana Woods Memorial '20 Contest at Lunch Ticket is one of the essays that I’m planning to include in the collection. 

WOW: Your collection about the female body sounds fascinating. One of my goals this year is to build a collection of work, mostly essays. Since we're fresh into 2022, I'm wondering if you set any writing/publishing goals for the new year you'd like to share, and if you're a big picture goal setter, a small goals setter, or a word-of-the-year visionary?

Sue: This year brings a lot of change for me so my goals are modest. I’m currently taking an online writing course, so my goal is to complete that and turn in all my assignments. I will continue to submit my work to journals that I read and love. I also plan to keep up my ritual of an end of year audit. At the end of December I like to look back and see how many pieces I have submitted, how many were accepted, how many were rejected. I save it all on a spreadsheet so that I can compare years. I find it very useful to review this way, and what is even more to me than my stats on rejection and acceptance is that it reminds me to take a step back to recognise and celebrate each and every submission regardless of the outcome. Every submission is like sending a little piece of myself out into the world so it deserves to be celebrated!

WOW: Oh, I love that, Sue. We should all celebrate having the courage to put our work out there. Lastly, what's your favorite writing tip or piece of advice?

Sue: I’m lucky enough to be part of a wonderful writing group. We support each other and celebrate each other’s successes. A publication or win is like a win for all of us. Surround yourself with wonderful readers and writers; they will help challenge you and raise your game!

WOW: Cheers to writing groups and literary support! Thank you, Sue, for taking time to chat with us today, and wishing you continued writing success in 2022.

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Preciousness of Every Word: Interview with the Mostly-Poet Olivia Braley

Olivia Braley is a writer and author of the chapbook SOFTENING. She is a co-founder and Editor in Chief of Stone of Madness Press, and a Reader at Longleaf Review. Keep up with her work on Twitter @OliviaBraley or at her website, oliviabraleywrites.com. 

The first piece of Olivia’s writing I read was her poem “Litany of things to remember” published in issue 16 of Emerge Literary Journal, in which she was the featured writer. The poem left me in goosebumps and a desire to seek more of her work. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn about her style, writing process, and experiences as an editor, teacher, and new chapbook author. She has graciously shared her experiences with us. If you haven’t already done so, check out some of her writing and return here for a chat with the author. 

WOW: You write a mixture of prose, poetry, and hybrid pieces. How do you decide when to use which form, or, what is your writing process like? 

Olivia: Oh - good question - and one that I haven’t really thought about, at least not consciously! I came to writing through poetry, so even though I write prose and hybrid, I consider myself a mostly-poet. I think often I start writing something that looks like prose poetry in an early draft and take it one direction or another from there. I think the benefit of growing up in poetry is that you get an acute awareness of the economy of language: the preciousness of every word. Words are not just denotative, but also have a cadence, a rhythm, a sound, a history, a feeling. That’s something that is at the heart of all writing I do. I think poetry has the ability to shirk a lot of the logic of prose - to connect images and metaphor through feeling and gesture more than narrative - so if I feel I’m working on something that doesn’t adhere to a uniform logic, that is when I tend to move towards poetry. And I guess I’m often trying to get away from logic. 

WOW: Even your description of poetry is poetic! I love the phrase “preciousness of every word.” Thank you for the insight into your process. Not only do you write, but you provide a space for others to share their writing with Stone Mountain Press. Why did you co-found Stone Madness Press? What has been your experience as the poetry editor-in-chief? 

Olivia: It’s always been a dream of mine to be able to edit a journal - not to keep people out (sending rejections is really the worst part) but to give a platform to essential voices that are not always represented, and were certainly not present to me when I began reading poetry seriously. It was essential to L (my cofounder) and I to give voice to those like us, who may find the “literary world” inaccessible: queer, trans, and neurodivergent people. We weren’t finding a great platform that has this kind of accessibility and uplifting principle at its center, so we made one! My experience as Poetry EIC has been phenomenal. I have a wonderful team and get to read so many talented perspectives daily. It’s really put poetry and these identities at the center of my life which is such a privilege. 

WOW: It’s wonderful that you found a hole in the market, sought a remedy, and created a publication that adds more to the literary world and has given you joy. Tell me more about the decision to focus the latest issue on hybrid writing. Did you see a market need for this, or is there another reason you chose this genre? 

Olivia: I have to credit our brilliant Managing Editor, Cavar, for this. We love reading hybrid but with my comfort being poetry and L being prose and micro, Cavar’s championing of hybrid was such a welcome and innovative addition to our team. We had been getting hybrid submissions before this issue that we had to sort of figure out how to place and we thought rather than trying to force the writing into a genre, we should encourage and give a platform to this writing that exists in the space between. As a journal that has queer/trans/neurodivergent voices at its heart, it was a very natural fit, and we are going to make hybrid issues a regular feature at Stone of Madness. 

WOW: In addition to writing and editing, you’re also a writing teacher. The perfect trifecta! In what ways does teaching writing help or hinder your own writing? Do you teach hybrid writing? 

Olivia: Teaching writing is a huge privilege and helps me consider my work in new ways. I mostly teach poetry, but teaching also challenges me as I try to tailor and curate my teaching to the needs of the students. I have taught to students of all ages and experience levels, and with similarly varying interests in writing, from formal poetry to graphic novel. It really forces me to think of new and better ways to talk about and consider my own methods and approaches. It forces me to continually revisit writing at its most foundational, and hear what others think as well. I learn a tremendous amount from teaching. 

WOW: Congratulations on the publication of your chapbook SOFTENING! How would you describe a chapbook as different from another type of publication? What has been your experience as the author of a chapbook? 

Olivia: Thank you! I think all works that are larger than a single poem or prose piece have to have some kind of logic in its arrangement, some kind of arc - whether it’s a general plot in a thriller novel or the arrangement of poems in a collection - but this pressure feels heightened in the chapbook. It’s lean and the content similarly needs to transition from one idea to the next without being too one-one nor too far-reaching. It gives you the chance to expand upon a single idea or a few themes, but it is not easy to go both deep and wide in such a small format. My experience as the author of a chapbook has been incredible - just saying that out loud is wonderful, but my inclination after this book is to write something really different. I’m concerned with being pigeonholed in one genre or with one type of theme - I’m eager in thinking of future works to do something new and distinct. 

WOW: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about your writing, editing, and teaching experiences. I cannot wait to see what you create next! 

Interviewed by Anne Greenawalt, who keeps a blog of journal entries, memoir snippets, interviews, training logs, book reviews, and profiles of writers and competitive sportswomen. She is also a competitive swimmer, a trail adventurer, a dog lover, and a new mom. Tweets at @dr_greenawalt

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