MAS: What do you mean by gentility?

LW: I guess there’s no implied vitriol. I never feel that the masses of people would do harm.

MAS: Most of the time I lived in New York I was constantly amazed by the civility of New Yorkers—as in, I can’t believe all these people aren’t murdering each other right now. You have to deal with quite a bit of adversity to live there. A friend of mine used to say it’s like being at the Olympics, all the time. Like just getting around.

LW: I find it exhausting.

MAS: It’s tremendously exhausting. The overwhelming civility of New Yorkers is extraordinary, given how hard people have to work there, just to be a person…but when you fall down, people help you get up. People will give you directions when you’re lost.

That said, there are certain codified behaviors that New Yorkers adopt in order to function together. Being on an escalator, for example. People who want to stand on the escalator stand to the right and people who want to walk on the escalator walk on the left. This is how it works. And when that system breaks down, people get frustrated. But that’s the main way you see people being angry in New York—when these little modes of behavior break down.

LW: You can imagine the repercussions should it become systemic.

MAS: Chaos! I guess there’s something that’s a little bit fascist about all of it—everyone has to behave the same way in order for all of us to get along. But I think there are certain ways in which that’s true.”

More HERE

What is the working title of the book?       The Resurrections.

Where did the idea come from for the book?                                                        There’s an elegiac thread through the poems—for dead friends and lovers. The remaining credit goes to coffee.

What genre does your book fall under?          Poetry

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?     Dream cast:

Bill Murray for the sad clown bits

Shatner for the iambic.

Willem Dafoe would play the title, obviously. 

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?    People die, they come back to life, let’s drink wine about it.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?    Some of the poems date back to 2008, most are from the last two years.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?   The poet (and pal) Jessica Laser helped me to find a book in a pile of paper.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?    The anchor poems were first published in my chapbook BEAST, about which Calyx said:

“Despite their lyrical beauty, her poems are brutal, almost hopeless in their assessment of our environment and humanity’s place on earth. Redemption comes through the very act of shaping language, observing nature, and the crafting of beautiful pieces out of horror. While the situations described may make humanity seem insane, our instinct for life is our saving grace.”

So, expect some of that, only all the hopeless/brutal bits have been replaced with THIS.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?   Ideally the collection will act as a representative of agency!

***For March 6th I’m tagging the poets Jay Nebel, James Gendron, Margaret Reges, and Holly Wren Spaulding– All of whom are working on or are just about to  bring great books into the world.  ***

Here’s the show: http://latenightlibrary.org/lisa-wells-yeah-no-totally/

I admire Vanessa’s book Zazen very much (so do the folks at PEN: http://redlemona.de/richard-nash/blog/vanessa-veselkas-zazen-wins-the-penrobert-bingham-award-for-best-first-novel)

and Lidia’s groundbreaking memoir, A Chronology of Water (so do the folks at PNBA: http://www.pnba.org/2012BookAwards.html)

They’ve been teaming up on other fronts including this great conversation on women and violence over at the Believer:  http://believermag.tumblr.com/post/17562504296/vanessa-veselka-author-of-zazen-pictured-above

Thanks for reading!

xo — Lisa

Check them out here: http://latenightlibrary.org/

“Late Night Library is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting talented writers early in their careers. Our programs include two podcast series (Late Night Debut and Late Night Conversation), multi-genre events in Brooklyn and Portland (In and Out of Town Reading Series), a visiting writers series in Portland at Northwest Academy, a national campaign to support independent bookstores and publishers (One for the Books!), an annual prize for early-career authors (the Debut-litzer Award), and a literary journal featuring debut book reviews and interviews with early career authors (Late Night Review).”

Last August I talked to the poet Cynthia Cruz over at the Rumpus about her new collection The Glimmering Room. Dana Jennings quoted that interview yesterday at the New York Times in a piece that compared Cruz’s exploration of death with C.K. Williams’s latest collection Writers Writing Dying. An interesting read if you get a minute. Congrats Cynthia! And Happy New Year to all of you!

More here:

http://therumpus.net/2012/12/stags-leap-by-sharon-olds/

Here’s a link to his interview with Dave Miller on Think Outloud where he talks about the book, his origins as a publisher, and the end of his twenties:

http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/michael-heald-talks-about-goodbye-nervous-apprehension/

And here’s a write up on the release party @ Electric Literature:

http://electricliterature.com/blog/2012/12/06/from-p-town-happy-michael-heald-day/

It’s a truly wonderful, passionate, neurotic book and only ten bucks. Christmas gifts!

http://www.perfectdaypublishing.com/

xo LW

http://www.latenightlibrary.org/post/36064079814/late-night-conversation-perfect-day-publishing

http://www.omni-verse.net/poetry-lisa-wells/

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/08/interview-with-cynthia-cruz/