Abby Polakoff (8:00)

I think we're a bit of a.

Joanna Penn (8:01)

Big point with the O3 model from ChatGPT, so I want to share stuff that I've also been working on getting my backlist books onto 11 reader, which has just opened up payments to UK and Canadian authors as well as US authors. I've been seeing US authors getting payouts and I'm like, I would like a payout please. And they have finally opened it up to UK and Canadian. I say finally. It's only been like a month or two, but if you have wide ebooks, you can add them onto 11 reader and then they can be narrated in whatever voice the user chooses and you get a percentage of the subscription. You don't need even need to have an audiobook, basically, but people consume the content in audio format. Please read the terms and conditions like any site you would use. It's another new form of revenue for our books, but it's also quite a different model because you're essentially putting an epub on the platform and people are consuming it in audio. So it is quite different. I'm also still getting my backlist onto YouTube inspired by Derek Slayton's interview. And this week I was putting up the Relaxed Author by me and Mark Leslie Lefebvre and it is actually narrated by both me and Mark. So you get two voices and it remind me how useful that book is. So if you are stressed, if you're stressed out with author stuff in general, try the Relaxed Author. It's on all the usual platforms and Human Us. By the way, it was written a few years ago. Now you can listen for free on YouTube at the Creative Pen or of course in all the usual places and.

Abby Polakoff (9:36)

It was helpful for me to read it.

Joanna Penn (9:38)

I love actually coming across stuff and of course Mark is very wise, very experienced and we say things like publish wide or don't or publish in ku. It's up to you. There's nothing you should or have to do. You can take this in a far more relaxed way. So yes, Relaxed Author tips on writing, publishing and marketing. Also successful self publishing. The fourth edition is with with Kristen, my editor and will be out in June here on my store creativepenbooks.com but it will be in paperback. People have been asking for that. Yes, it will be in paperback, it will be in audio and Human Me will narrate it so that I can publish it once the ebook links and all the links will be at once. It's published at thecreativepenn.com forward/ssp4. And yeah, also over on my books and travel podcast. Last week I did a solo episode on graveyards, catacombs and ossuaries. So if you'd like to know more about my Memento Mori session, why I talk about graveyards and things and also some of the places that appear in my thrillers. Just search books and travel podcast on your favourite app. I also put up my photos from Winchester Cathedral, which I went to Winchester last year, but that was just as I decided to give up on my Gothic Cathedral book idea for but now I'm picking it up again and so I'm putting up my photos. So Winchester Cathedral if you're interested is on booksandtravel page blog. You can find all my pictures there and I'm slowly getting back into that project. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Vicki St. Clair on YouTube said on PIA's interview I'm well on the way to recovering from recent surgery, but this past weekend I felt tired and blur. Listen to this interview and before it even finished I jumped out of bed and got into gear. After physical therapy I grabbed my field bag and headed down to my waterfront desk on the pier overlooking the southern peninsula of the Pacific Northwest. Am now tweaking my biggest art project. Tweaks I know will make a huge difference, but I'd been pushing them aside. Thank you for the kick in the pants. Oh I love that. And I love this idea of a waterfront desk. I too when I need to get some new thoughts going, will get out of the house and go somewhere. Usually a coffee shop, but somewhere that has a different view, a different vibe. That is how I work on projects. Also that way. Also just a little tip on AI if you didn't know about it. I work a lot by hand in my notebooks. Certainly in the early stages of a project. I spend a lot of time handwriting in journals and you know, if you didn't know, you can take a picture of your notes and upload them to ChatGPT and it will transcribe them. You can just say transcribe these notes. I also know someone who's doing that with a grandparents diary just just taking a picture of it and getting it transcribed. So it's actually very good for that. So you can hand write down at your waterfront desk or wherever and then get that into type type later. Also, Inez said, you just helped me get off the couch today. I'm an avid listener to the podcast. I told myself I could only listen to today's episode while on my two mile jog. The Creative Pen Getting people in shape are lovely to hear in ES and then some awesome pictures. This week Dharma said, I visited the historic mining town of Wickenburg, Arizona. My work in progress is a Sapphic witchy paranormal thriller set here, so I visited to get the details right. Among the places I visited was Wickenburg Cemetery. No grassy landscape here, just Sonoran Desert sand and rock dotted with cactus, mesquite and palo verde trees. So I thought I'd share a photo. This is and also so one this cemetery is really interesting for someone like me. Cemeteries have normally got grass and green around them, but this is just kind of desert. But then Dharma says this was the first time I visited a cemetery. I get now that sense of memento mori you speak of. And I wrote back, I was like, I am so shocked. How could this be the first time you visited a cemetery? But I love that and I'm actually really thrilled that you went there because I feel like it's a good thing for us all to do. And yeah, anyway, more pictures. Emma said, I'm on the roadless Scottish island of Ulva. I found this tiny graveyard on top of a hill and thought you'd appreciate it. And it is beautiful, looking out to sea with a Celtic cross in the sun. And then finally, Michael sent pictures from graveyards in County Kerry, Ireland, as he's planning a book on family history and genealogy. Right. So please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's show is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which helps you with keyword and category research on Amazon, which you need for your metadata when self publishing, as well as generating lists of keywords for your Amazon ads. Now you can do all this manually on Amazon, but that takes a lot more time and you have to think of all the different permutations to search for. I found that Publisher Rocket saves me so much time and frustration. I use it for every book in every genre I publish. It makes the process easy, which, let's face it, is what we all need so we can get back to the fun aspects of writing. You can use it to find keywords that readers actually type into Amazon Search. You can also learn about other authors sales with the competitor analysis. You can also use the reverse ASIN feature, the ASIN feature to see what keywords other books are benefiting from. This means keyword research is easier than it's ever been. Plus you can discover best selling book categories and niche categories you can use to write to market if that's your thing. And you can find profitable keywords for Amazon ads and easily export them. You can search separately for the us, UK and German stores as well as for ebooks, audiobooks or print and in English or German. Publisher Rocket is constantly adding new features and capabilities and it's a free upgrade for owners. It's a one time payment and you get 30 days money back guarantee. You can start researching keywords, categories and competition right away. There are also handy tutorials to help, but I find it pretty intuitive to use. Publisher Rocket is one of my must use tools as part of my self publishing process and it is very reasonably priced so go check it out@publisherocket.com that's publisherrocket.com so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating this show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the 12 new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering topics on writing, craft and author business as well as tutorials and demos on on AI. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. You get access to everything, all the backlist content, Q&As, office hours, and early access to the upcoming AI webinars. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A T R E O-N.com forward/thecreativepen Right, let's get into the interview.

Abby Polakoff (17:34)

Abby Polakoff is an award winning poet.

Joanna Penn (17:37)

Editor and book artist.

Abby Polakoff (17:39)

Her debut poetry collection is Night before the Body.

Joanna Penn (17:45)

So welcome to the show.

Abby Polakoff (17:46)

Abi thank you so much Jo. I'm so excited to be here.

Abby Polakoff (17:49)

Yes, so lots to talk about today. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing poetry as well as making it part of your job as well as your passion.

Abby Polakoff (18:00)

In terms of how I got started, I really I started with books. I always loved reading and it was such reading is such a big part of living a literary life for me. I read poetry when I was young, you know, Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and so I found myself reading language and story that that just had fun in it. And I had always loved creative writing assignments in school and I connected with poems. But I think when I really first found my way into my current understanding and relationship to poetry, when I was in my last year of university. I studied at Tulane University in New Orleans. And in my last year I took a series of classes that coalesced all around the same time period of study. So I was taking a class on the French avant garde movements of the first half of the 1900s. We were reading a lot of Dada and certainly Realism. And at the same time, I was taking a poetry workshop from the poet Andy Stallings. And we used a primary course text that covered around the same time period. And so I was immersed in this area of literature that was concerned with the possibilities of language, of language without self censorship, of linguistic freedom. And it was a time when I really needed that permission to play and to explore and to trust myself. And so I gave myself that permission. And it's transformed where I am today. And in terms of my job, I think I really believe deeply in the value of reciprocity. And so I knew that if I wanted to have a book in the world one day, to take up space on a shelf or in a mind, I wanted to be able to make space for other books to exist and for other other writers to see their names in print and just to give back into the community as well as being a part of it.

Abby Polakoff (19:54)

Oh, so much that I'm really interested in this juxtaposition there of this academic side of poetry and you studying it and studying literature. And then you also mentioned the word fun, which I thought was interesting, and also permission and trying to get rid of that self censorship. And I feel like poetry in particular has a real difficulty with academic snobbery around what is an acceptable poem.

Joanna Penn (20:26)

So I wondered, I mean, I know.

Abby Polakoff (20:28)

It'S a matter of opinion, but what makes a good poem? And how do you almost balance the sort of academic side with the fun side and letting loose?

Abby Polakoff (20:36)

I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful for this question, because I think you're right. I feel like for such a long time, poetry with a capital P had very specific expectations and a very specific origin story. But I don't think that an academic poem is the only kind of a good poem. I think, of course, everyone's allowed to have. Have taste and preference. You know, one person might like chocolate ice cream and one person might like vanilla, and each flavor is equally valid. For me, I believe a good poem is one that makes you feel something full stop in your body. A good poem is one that comes alive off the page. So that can be a sonnet with the perfect volta that turn that twist just the perfect amount, and it gives your knees a little Quiver. But it can also be a five line meditation on Instagram that makes your heart stop just for a moment, or a slam poem that just touches your pulse and makes it beat a little bit faster. So I think for me, that breaking out of an academic understanding of poetry is so important to acknowledge the diversity, the cultural diversity, and all of the different possibilities that make poetry beautiful and accessible and exciting for readers who themselves have varying tastes and preferences.

Abby Polakoff (22:03)

But how do you manage that as an editor and kind of, like you said, making space for other writers? Because it's very hard to be an editor in general. But I would think with poetry it would be even harder because of course, like you said about taste, you're going to be reading a lot, as in your work that is not to your taste. And yet there. How do you. I guess this is the thing. How do you judge what makes a good poem if it's not to your taste?

Abby Polakoff (22:30)

That's a great question. I think if I were. If I were thinking of this from an editor's perspective. Perspective. When I'm approaching a poem as an editor, for me, the goal is to see if the poem is accomplishing its goals rather than my goals. So I try and actually take my taste out of it and think, well, what is the poem trying to do? Is it trying to deliver an image? Is it trying to create a metaphor or play with a specific form? If it's part of a formal lineage, how is it accomplishing that? And think about it from the goal of the poem and the reader's experience of the poem, rather than whether I like it or not. Because like can be so subjective from person to person. So if I'm looking at it as an editor, I'm thinking about what is the poem itself trying to do, what is the poem trying to tell me and is it successful? If we're playing with an image, does the image land in the ways that it needs to? If you're playing with form and you're breaking a form, what is the impact of that formal break? And how does that change the meaning of the overall message of the poem? So if you're reading, and if you're a reader out there who is trying to experience poetry, but maybe not sure of what to make of it, it, I would say almost maybe take yourself out of the equation. Like, certainly consider whether you like the language, whether you like how it feels the rhythm, but also think about, well, what is the poem trying to do and what is the poem trying to tell me and to see if that gives it space to do that.

Joanna Penn (24:11)

I.

Abby Polakoff (24:11)

Just want to mention that we can hear your lovely cat in the background with a little bell. And so I just thought I'd point that out to the listeners. I'm a cat person, so totally understanding. Just wanted to point out that.

Joanna Penn (24:23)

I just want to point out that.

Abby Polakoff (24:25)

Little Belle is, is a, is a brand new cat to, to my home. And he is, he is exploring today.

Joanna Penn (24:31)

So yeah, I love it.

Abby Polakoff (24:34)

It's a nice little backdrop. But. Well, let's talk about. Because a lot of people, I mean I wrote some poetry, I even had a poem published back in the day.

Joanna Penn (24:44)

But mainly in my sort of younger.

Abby Polakoff (24:46)

Years of angst like, like you say about university and those sort of teenage years or lots of lot of very bad poetry. But it did what it needed to do at the time. But now I and most of the listeners, we write prose. So what elements from poetry can be useful for writers of fiction, non fiction, memoir, all of that?

Abby Polakoff (25:06)

I love this question because I feel like prose and poetry are both playing with language. Whether you're writing fiction or whether you're writing nonfiction or whether you're writing poems, you're using language to communicate something, whether it's a story or a feeling or a moment or a scene. And those tools appear in, in both, in all genres. And so I would really think about for. For prose readers and prose listeners who are out there but interested in what poetry can do. I think are really interesting tool that you might want to pay attention to or focus on is the line break. Because the line break in a poem offers breadth and it gives breadth and space and pivot. It gives the opportunity for a change in a poem. And so even if you're writing in a prose sentence, you to have moments where you can think about what is this pause or this break doing. So in prose you can do that with commas, you can do that with em dashes. You can think about how one sentence pivots from one to the next or how a paragraph evolves from one to the next. And in a poem you have that too. It's just in a micro level and, and so thinking about how does the line break activate thought, how does punctuation activate thought and change what their reader is experiencing. You might be able to expand that onto the macro level in a prose piece and see if those tools can kind of go back and forth across the genres.

Abby Polakoff (26:55)

Yeah, line break's really interesting. And I again coming back to literature, I think older literature has a lot of lot to answer for with huge dense paragraphs with no line breaks because I presume the cost of printing or whatever, but I feel like modern. I, I'm thinking particularly of James Patterson, who certainly won't be to everyone's taste, but is the master of the line break pretty, pretty much every sentence in his faster paced sections. Every sentence is a new line break, new send, new paragraph basically for every line. And it moves you much faster through the, through the text. And as a thriller writer, I pay more attention to that, but I certainly didn't know about that as a newer writer. What are some of the other things from poetry that, that might be useful?

Abby Polakoff (27:43)

Yes, I think James Patterson is a great example of speed and digging into the line a little bit more. You have, in poetry, you have long lines and short lines and so you might think, oh, a long line will give you an extended thought, it'll keep momentum. But I would actually say from a poet perspective that a short line will actually force the breath to break and give you a lot of speed. So I think there are some great parallels there between James Patterson moving from one sentence, paragraph to the next, similar to a very short line moving to the next in a poem. But in terms of, in terms of other tools, I, I would also say to kind of drill into this even more and get even more micro with the line. And as an editor, this is also one of my favorite things to play with, but it's punctuation. And punctuation is absolute magic in both poetry and prose. It gives you the tools as a conductor to make your lines a symphony. To build that metaphor, you can use punctuation to your advantage, to build speed, to build rhythm, to build drama. And in a poem or in a piece of prose, the intentionality with which you're using specific punctuation is going to give the reader a different experience. Think about how an EM dash will cut off a thought at its core, an interruption, or how a semicolon will kind of give you this lulling, legato way of connecting one line to the next in, in a description. And so as you're maybe not in the first draft, but as you're revising a piece of prose, don't just think about the nuance of the words you're using, but think about how the punctuation is connecting your ideas and how changing it will develop a different texture to the piece that you're working on.

Abby Polakoff (29:42)

I love that you're geeking out around punctuation.

Abby Polakoff (29:44)

Oh my gosh. The best.

Abby Polakoff (29:47)

Which I think is hilarious. And it, it possibly shows you as an editor more than anything else. Because, I mean, there are some poets.

Joanna Penn (29:54)

Who have zero punctuation.

Abby Polakoff (29:56)

They don't even use capital letters. I mean.

Abby Polakoff (29:58)

Oh, for sure.

Joanna Penn (30:00)

So there is freedom in that. The other thing I was going to.

Abby Polakoff (30:02)

Mention is, and I find this very annoying because I use a lot of EM dashes. Always have. But there's this thing at the moment saying if there are any dashes of any kind, and it's clearly written by AI. I don't know if you've seen this.

Abby Polakoff (30:15)

I haven't, I haven't. But I also have big feelings about it.

Abby Polakoff (30:19)

Yes, I have big feelings because I use it and I do work with some AI tools. But I'm like, no, that doesn't mean it's AI. I mean, that is just something that we use. And I feel like the people who were maybe spreading that kind of thing. Apparently there's this whole thing on TikTok about dashes. If anyone's using a dash of any kind of find. And I'm like, no, no, no. I think you just don't know enough about this.

Abby Polakoff (30:42)

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, so many feelings. I'm so glad you mentioned this. I find this so interesting that the Internet is. Is claiming EM dashes as an AI signature. But I will. I would also maybe push on that and say while I. I don't know, of course, everything that has gone into training the language learning models that AI uses, but I know that there have been big conversations about how certain AI tools have mined literature for their uses of language, that perhaps AI is using all of these EM dashes because humans have been doing it first and thoroughly. So.

Abby Polakoff (31:22)

Yeah, exactly.

Abby Polakoff (31:24)

Yeah. So I think I disagree with about this conversation on TikTok, but I'm not on TikTok, so I don't know what everyone is saying.

Abby Polakoff (31:31)

No, nor me.

Joanna Penn (31:31)

But I had.

Abby Polakoff (31:32)

And I only reacted to it a bit like you, because it's one of my favorite forms of punctuation, which in itself is kind of.

Joanna Penn (31:39)

Kind of funny.

Abby Polakoff (31:40)

But I do want to ask you. So coming back to things like punctuation, line breaks. These things to me are part of the way words are laid out on a page. So I do buy poetry books and laying things out and using words, words in different ways. Sometimes they're made into kind of sculptures on a page. Right. In a poetry book, there's that. So maybe talk about that. Like, how important is that for a poet, like laying things out on a page?

Abby Polakoff (32:13)

This is something that I think every poet will do differently. And so I don't think there's a right or a wrong answer here, but I will say that I am definitely a poet who plays with the page and plays. Plays with space on the page. And if. If any readers out there are interested, you'll see this a lot in. In my book where I'm using the page to capture different elements of the story. And I think that that space on the page is so important because it is. It gives the reader breath and it also gives the reader pause and silence. And in my thoughts, I'm a bit of a maximalist, but on the page you have the opportunity to give the reader a moment of what's not there and to have a poem expanded in a way that makes the poem ask and hopefully inspires the reader to ask, well, this is what's being said, but what is not being said? What is the expanse of the page and the page's landscape shape and the magnitude and difference between the quantity of words and the quantity of space? What is that doing for the overall argument of the poem? For me, I like to use the page in different ways to indicate different speakers. And so for me, placing a poem in one section of a page might help develop polyvocality, where I have multiple threads of conversations happen over the course of a project. And on the line, yeah, it's about breath, it's about space, it's about giving the poem room to breathe and to find its way into the thought as the reader is also reading their way into the thought as well.

Abby Polakoff (34:00)

Yeah, it is interesting. I do. And I will open poetry books. I have quite a lot of poetry books and I will open them and sometimes I will be drawn to something shorter or something laid out in a way that attracts me even before I read the words. So I find that important as somebody who primarily reads poetry. But the other side of this is.

Joanna Penn (34:21)

The power of spoken word.

Abby Polakoff (34:22)

You mentioned slam poems earlier. I have been to a couple of slam nights and that is completely different that in sometimes it's kind of more like. Almost like rap kind of poetry is certainly a lot of performance and it's just a completely different form of using your words. So what are your thoughts on that? Does. Does a poet who loves the words laid out on a page also do slam poetry or these different kinds of poets?

Abby Polakoff (34:54)

I would say yes and no. I mean, there's certainly poets who are drawn to a more. A more capital P poetry academic style, as we were talking about, and they're also poets who are really going to be invested in the performance and in the live experience of poetry. And I love that you've been to some slams and have explored that, because I think for a long time there's been a very strong division between what counts as poetry and how is slam a part of that. For me, I think slam is an incredibly important part of the richness of the poetry landscape. I am not a slam poet, but I have been to many slams in the past, and I think they're incredible because slam poetry and performance poetry in that sense, takes an entirely different kind of craft and structure to deliver feelings, feeling to a listener. And I think the translation of a performance piece onto the page is so difficult because of the rawness and the humanity and the performance of it. But I think that there are some presses that actually do a really great job of bringing slam into the page. And the one that I'm thinking of most is button poetry there. Oppressed. They have a very great YouTube channel where they have many slam videos, and they are a great tool and resource for slam poets and all poets. But they do a great job of bringing slam poets into book form. And sometimes that takes revision, and sometimes that's just a matter of translating. But I think that it's. It's all part of the experience of poetry and prose readers out there. You might be listening and say, every time I've encountered poetry, I don't get it. It's not for me. I don't see it. I don't understand it. Maybe an experience in school made you not like it, which is, of course, very common. Understandable. So common. Yeah. And maybe it's just because you haven't found the right type of poetry, and slam might be the poetry. Poetry that gets you.

Abby Polakoff (37:09)

Yeah. And I mean, I guess the word slam is a kind of more violent word, but then there's poets, as you say, performance poets. It's a. It's a continuum. Right. I'm thinking of. There's a British poet, Kay Tempest. I don't know if you've heard of her. She does. She even does sort of epic, long epics. A lot of these performance poets memorize their work. It feels so they're not really reading from the page. But this is something that totally freaks me out, by the way. And I have barely ever read any of my work in public, even on a podcast. I find it extremely difficult. So, as a poet yourself, what are your tips for doing this kind of reading or performance?

Abby Polakoff (37:57)

I'm so excited to check out this writer that you mentioned, and hopefully maybe our conversation will inspire you to share one of your poems on a Future podcast. That would be a challenge.

Abby Polakoff (38:08)

Very unlikely.

Abby Polakoff (38:10)

Something to think about, maybe for the future. It is. It is difficult. And I think as. As a writer. So many writers are introverts. I'm an introvert, but I still have to get up there and talk to people. People. Something that I love about reading poems out loud is that I feel like a poem. It exists on the page. But going back to what we were talking about earlier, about what makes a good poem, a poem comes alive in the body, and I think reading a poem out loud is a great tool for revision. So you can feel where you stumble when you're reading it out loud or where your breath speeds up. Prose writers, too, when you're revising a paragraph, read it out loud, see how it feels, see how it lives out in the air. And then stepping in front of an audience and doing that is a whole other level. It's a whole other piece of the puzzle. And I feel like there. I have maybe two ways of thinking about it. The first is to give myself permission to take a deep breath and to just sink into the poem and to not necessarily focus on the people who might be staring at me, but to think about the poem itself, its texture, and by. By diving deeper into the poem, letting it come out and reach an audience. But the other tool I have, very practically is a tool that I have. Have read about in terms of if you're ever giving a job interview, this is helpful. I saw this happen on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. If anyone is a Grey's Anatomy watcher, I am.

Abby Polakoff (39:52)

Yes.

Abby Polakoff (39:53)

Love it. Amazing. Okay. Do you remember the episode where Amelia shepherd was going to do the very intense brain surgery on another doctor, and she and her. Her resident at the time did the super. The super pose.

Abby Polakoff (40:08)

Oh, the Superman pose. Yeah, yeah. The strong pose.

Abby Polakoff (40:12)

Yeah, exactly. It's where you're standing, your feet are shoulder width apart, your hands are on your hips, you're looking up into the sky as if you're a superhero about to save a city. And it's actually scientifically proven that it gives you. I don't know if it's adrenaline or. Or just subliminal confidence, but it's a tool that gives you the ability to back yourself. And so if you're giving a reading or giving a performance or going into a job interview or preparing for a hard conversation, take five seconds, stand with your hands on your hips, or sit with very good posture and take a couple of deep breaths. And then.

Joanna Penn (40:59)

Then.

Abby Polakoff (41:00)

And then begin. And this might not work for everybody. But sometimes it's helpful for me.

Abby Polakoff (41:06)

Yes. And there's actually a talk on that.

Joanna Penn (41:09)

The TED Talk, I think it's.

Abby Polakoff (41:10)

Amy Cuddy did a talk on that and it definitely sort of went around and I, I again, I think for introverts, it's whatever helps you get started. I often find that I'm most nervous just before I go on stage and still am as a professional speaker. You still get very nervous, get like a bad stomach and all of that kind of thing. And I think it's also just a case of acknowledging this is just a human thing. Right. And. But if we want to get our words out there, then it just, it has to be done, right?

Abby Polakoff (41:45)

Absolutely. It is. It's human. Whether you are delivering a poem or having a conversation. Nerves, nerves are human. And if you weren't nervous, nervous, it's. You wouldn't care. Right. So I think it's a beautiful sign to be a little nervous. And something that I was always told when I was young was to slow down because when I get nervous, I talk fast. So slow down, enunciate, give yourself a deep breath and let yourself be human and be vulnerable and say, I'm nervous. Right before we started talking, I said, joe, I'm a little nervous, so it's, it's okay to be vulnerable. And I think in today's world, vulnerability is, is a really beautiful tool for connecting with people. So let yourself be human and don't force yourself to be someone that you're not.

Abby Polakoff (42:34)

Yeah. So. Well, let's get back to the collection. I'm thinking of doing a short story collection. So obviously a little bit different, but I was wondering about how did you choose the poems that went into the collection? Did you come up with the theme and then write to it, or did the collection emerge from what you already had?

Abby Polakoff (42:56)

I'm so excited about your short story collection, so I definitely want to hear more about that. For me, the collection, it started out kind of as a surprise, actually. I've been in a couple of writing groups for a few years now. And around the same time, two of my writing groups wanted to swap manuscripts instead of individual poems poems. And so everyone at the time had these projects that were clear projects. And I thought I just like had some poems. I wasn't quite sure if they were anything, but I pulled them into a file and I realized that I had 50 pages, which is, is on track for a full length book. For poetry, you often need 48 to 60 pages as a minimum. And so I was in that ballpark And I used this opportunity to, to get feedback from my writing groups because a set of 50 pages isn't necessarily a quote unquote book. But I was able to use these tools to identify the key themes, the heart of the project. And that sent me down the path of writing and revising into the work that had already emerged. So for me, it kind of took my community to say, no, this actually is on its way to being something. It has legs. And then once we were able to say, oh yeah, well, I'm thinking about womanhood, I'm thinking about societal expectations, I'm thinking about self actualization, then I was able to go in and say, well, what are the holes in the story? Because even a poetry collection can have a narrative arc from poem to poem. So what are the holes in the story, story? What images are popping up consistently that I might want to do a little bit more work with? And from there I was able to set on a path to revision into the book itself. So for me, I kind of sidestepped my way in. But I'm curious for you, have you identified a theme first or are you just starting to look at a bigger set of short stories you've already been working on?

Abby Polakoff (44:57)

Well, the main reason is because all of my short stories are in ebook and audio and I really to want, want to do a special print edition. A lot of us now use Kickstarter to do really gorgeous editions. And so I guess I'm more looking for a theme. And I am thinking of writing a couple of extra ones that will be exclusive that are around the theme that has emerged.

Joanna Penn (45:21)

But what was really useful for me.

Abby Polakoff (45:23)

Was to put all of them into NotebookLM. I don't know if you've heard of NotebookLM, Google's Notebook, and say, what are the themes across these stories? And it kind of, it was able to pull stuff out of my work that I. It's really hard to see your own work, right? Like you said, you had a community do it. I'm not very good at groups, to be honest.

Abby Polakoff (45:47)

That's fair. I mean, I, I think it takes sometimes extra eyes. It's always harder to edit yourself than it is at other people. It's, it's harder to write marketing text for yourself than it is to write it for someone else. Because when you're doing it for yourself and it sounds like, it sounds like you may have experienced this too, it's so, it's, you're too close, it's too personal to be able to say, what is this? What is this? Actually doing. What does this actually mean? And so I love it. If you're not a person who writes with writing groups, which is of course completely valid, valid experience of being a writer. Use the tools that are out there. I think that AI can be a starting place for so many things. I, I'm, I'm a pretty firm believer that it shouldn't necessarily be the ending place. But I think if you're using it to start and say, well, what are the themes that I'm, I've naturally gravitated towards? Use that as your 10,000 foot view. And then you can go back in and say, oh, I see that happening here, here, but I want to expand it. Or I think this part of this theme is missing. So that's what I'm going to write my way into. I think that's a great use of a tool that's becoming very widespread and accessible for many folks who might not have a built in writing community or choose not to have a group of people to have that feedback from.

Abby Polakoff (47:10)

And it came up with some great titles as well. Because this is the other thing, right? Doing a title of a collection, you could just say, yeah, poems about womanhood, like you said. I mean it's, that's just not good enough, is it? So how did you come up with your title?

Abby Polakoff (47:25)

Oh, this was one of the last things that I found for my book. I went through many other titles before I landed on this one. And what I did was I actually wrote out on a piece of paper every single title of all of my poems. And I circled the words that came up and the themes that came up and the phrases. And so I kind of jigsaw puzzled my way into my book's title. And so if anyone out there picks it up, which I hope you do, the title of my book is Night Myths before the Body. And so what my challenge or my puzzle will be, when you're diving into the book, where do you see these words popping up? Where do they come from? And how does that extraction into the book's title reflect back on the body of the book itself?

Abby Polakoff (48:17)

Yeah, titles are tough at the best of times, that's for sure. But although I would say, just to be clear, like with poetry books especially, I couldn't tell you the title of most poetry books that I've bought from people, but one of my favorite poets is Ben Okri. He's Nigerian British, and I couldn't tell you most of of his book titles, but I remember his poems and I now know his name. So I Think that's probably more.

Joanna Penn (48:45)

More useful. Right.

Abby Polakoff (48:46)

People remember your name and they like your poetry.

Abby Polakoff (48:49)

Absolutely. And that you're remembering the poems, that's. That's clear that it's a poem that stuck with you and you know who wrote it. And I hope if Ben's out here listening, very unlikely. You never know. But it's beautiful because it makes it. We're doing this work and we're putting ourselves on the page. And the goal, the dream, is that our work impacts someone and it resonates with them. And it's the piece of writing that they needed to read that day for whatever reason, for whatever is going on in their lives. And it's clear that you read Ben's poem at a time when it just hit you, you needed it. And I think that's the biggest gift of all. So every, every. Everybody is going to have a different mind. And you might be a person who has total photographic recall. You can see the book cover in your mind. You can see the book title. You might be able to read a poem once and memorize it. And many of us are not like that. And so if you can remember the poems and the writer, that's gold.

Abby Polakoff (49:47)

Yeah. Well, on that, as you were talking there, I was thinking about Ben Ockery, and I've seen him read his poetry a number of times, but the particular occasion was back in 1999, and I didn't know what to do with my life, and I heard him read some of his poems, and it really helped.

Joanna Penn (50:04)

Me make a change in my life.

Abby Polakoff (50:05)

But it's interesting because I have all of his poetry books in print, but it was actually hearing him in person and listening to his voice that made it resonate. So I just wanted to say that to encourage people, which is you don't know how you impact people's lives when you do put your poems out there.

Abby Polakoff (50:25)

That's beautiful. I love that. I love that it took, again, a human experience of being in a room and hearing a voice. And I think that of anything is. Is maybe the call to action of finding a reading in your local community, seeing maybe at the library folks are having a reading or maybe at a bookstore. Support. I think right now the literary community is in. In such need of support, I would say, especially in the U.S. u.S. Where it's important to go out and support your local businesses to support your readers and your writers, and so go to a reading, even if you don't know the writers, because you never know what's going to impact you and how you're going to feel about it.

Abby Polakoff (51:09)

Well, all of this is absolutely wonderful and we obviously want people to write poetry for whatever reason, but I do have to tackle the sort of commercial side of it because you work in, in the industry as a business as well, you work for a company and you publish books and people have to make money from books and poets have to make money somehow, even though most of them don't make money from poetry, obviously. But some poets are doing absolutely incredibly well. I think Rupi Kaur, one of the sort of original Insta poets, her, I think it's Blood and Honey, her collection, it's everywhere. And in the indie author community we have Pierre, Jean T, who's been on this show and Haitian American sells on Shopify. Both of these are seven figure poets, which is just incredible.

Joanna Penn (51:58)

Right.

Abby Polakoff (51:58)

They make far more money than I do. I know, but. So what is the commercial reality for most poets and what are some ways that they can perhaps make some more income from their poetry?

Abby Polakoff (52:11)

This is a great question and it's a hard one to answer because the commercial reality is not great. I would say that Rupi and Pierre are incredible exceptions and I love that their work has brought them commercial success and financial success because it's also brought more awareness and more attention into the poetry landscape. Prose books are so, so visible and so prominent and poetry is, it's visible, but it's not quite as, as financially viable as prose. And so it's just not a great money maker most of the time. But that said, I would say that there are some, some ways that you can engage with poetry and find a form of supplementing your income if that's something that is necessary for you. More and more journals are offering poets money for publishing poems, which is so important and beautiful. So you might see a journal offering $50 for a poem or a hundred. I'm not quite sure in the UK what that would translate into in terms of pounds. But I believe that there are some UK journals as well who say when we accept your poem will offer you some financial remuneration. That's on the poem level, the individual poem level. Of course, when you're publishing a book there are a couple of avenues you, you may receive in advance, which is an upfront financial sum that then when you say you sell books, you kind of don't earn anything until you've made that money back or royalties, which is where when somebody buys your book, a percentage of that goes back to you as the author. But presses also have to balance their budgets because the cost of paper has changed, the ink has changed printing costs, the team for the. The press itself. So there's a very tight budget when it comes to the publishing landscape in general. And I would say, especially for poetry, there's just less money exchanging hands. Except in the case of maybe. Of maybe Rupi and Pierre, who had incredible breakthroughs and they've done a lot, I think, to really change that landscape and they've made a big difference. I would say the best way to encourage presses to keep publishing and to be able to keep paying their authors is really to be buying books. So if you're a writer out there, even if you're not making that money back by buying a book, buy, buy the author's books because it likes, lets the press keep going and it lets the press continue to offer the funds to their writers. And that's maybe the biggest tip, I would say. And I think we live in a really creative economy world right now. We have people having multiple side hustles or being able to monetize so many different aspects of their writing and get creative. If you have an idea and you haven't seen it done, give it a try. I think, think there's so many ways that, that folks can change their financial picture. I think Pierre using Shopify is a great example of that. And Rupee on Instagram. So many different. So many different ways of getting that visibility that then can translate into financial success.

Abby Polakoff (55:39)

Yeah, I guess it goes back to what you were saying at the beginning around the sort of permission to play and has to be the permission to play with the possibilities of. Of the business as well as the possibilities of the art. Because I guess we create also because we want to share that with the world. Right. And we do have more opportunity than ever to put our work out there. I guess the sort of final question is for you with Night Myths. What are you doing to get your work out there? Obviously you're pitching some podcasts, but you know, know, what's your plan with marketing this?

Abby Polakoff (56:14)

Oh, that's great. I. Here I am, I'm talking to you. It's every. Everything is. Everybody is going to be different. And I would say when it comes to marketing, whether it's a poetry book or a prose book, there are so many ways to do it and there's no one right way because the right way is the way that's going to work best for you, for your network, for your community, for the energy that you have and the time. So many writers have other day jobs, have maybe their parents, have other Commitments that take time out of your day. So what I would say is, if you are thinking about marketing a book, think about what your strengths are and what your time is is. And follow that thread because there's never going to be an end date and nothing is ever going to be enough. So figure out what the right thing is for you and then lean into that. For me, I started by making a website and so people know where to find me online. I think a website is a great place to start if you don't really know where to begin. And it can be simple. It can have a photo of you, a short bio, if you've published anything, links to those, ideally a contact email or form. And this way it gives you kind of a literary home base on the Internet. And there are great tools like Squarespace or wix that have templates that are really easy to replicate and personalize. So don't start off fancy, but give yourself a virtual presence and use that as your foundation to build. So I started with my website and, and I also have been thinking about a couple of different avenues that balance my skill set and then also my time. And so I've been posting on Instagram. I would encourage poets to choose maybe one platform where they feel comfortable. Social media can pose its own challenges. So it doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be substack, it can be blue sky. It doesn't have to be everything, but choose. If you're not a big social media person, start with one and just start being visible because that's going to be a way for people to get to know you as a writer, as a human, and to be comfortable, especially if you're an introvert, putting yourself out there still in a way that gives you a little bit of breathing room. So start with social media and then as. And if you're not comfortable talking about yourself, it's a great opportunity to shout out other people, people to talk about what you're reading, who has an event that you're going to, what book have you read recently? And by building a community of readers, you'll get people who are excited about your work. And so that is, that's a tool that I've been leveraging. And for me, as I shift into marketing my own book, I am working on setting up readings. So if there are any listeners in, in the US especially, I don't have any plans to come to the UK yet, yet. But, you know, the future is bright, so set up readings wherever you like to shop for books in Your local bookstore, go to them, say, hey, I have a book coming out, or I'm a poet, I'd love to be a part of an event. That's a great way to very tangibly connect with people. And I'm also reaching out to the other networks of communities that I have, so school affiliations, alumni groups, professional orgs, thinking about the ecosystem of like minded people who might be interested in my work. And that could be practically, it could be thematically, are great ways to talk about why you're doing what you're doing. And so with you, Jo, I was so excited to talk with you because I love how you have this balance of writers talking about craft, craft and also talking about the publishing arm and the business of being a writer. And I loved how that connected for me with my work as an editor and working a lot with prose, actually, but writing poems on my own time. And so I thought thematically, I really wanted to speak with you. And so thinking about what's out there in the world, doing research. AI is a great tool for this too, actually, to be honest, able to say, hey, AI, give me a list of 30 podcasts that centered around feminism or whatever your themes are, and then reaching out. The worst that can happen is they say no, and that's okay. It's a numbers game.

Abby Polakoff (60:47)

It is a numbers game. Except that, like when you pitched me, if you like you, you found things we had in common and so your pitch was effective. So I would say to people, better to take those 30, then go and investigate those 30, have a listen and then only pitch the five that actually resonate with you. Because every day now, I don't know what happened, but a few, I guess a year or so ago, traditional publishing discovered podcasting.

Joanna Penn (61:15)

And I get like 5 to 10.

Abby Polakoff (61:17)

Pitches a day now from most of which are completely inappropriate. And then I got your pitch and I'd never heard of you. And I was like, this is perfect. And I said, you know, I accepted you really quickly, right? I was like, yeah, I want to talk about this. So a good pitch where you feel something in common with the host is. Is so effective. So, yeah, and I've really loved talking to you.

Joanna Penn (61:40)

So let's tell people.

Abby Polakoff (61:41)

Where can they find you and your book? Online.

Abby Polakoff (61:45)

Amazing. Thank you. This has been such a fun conversation and I'm just so, I'm so honored. As you said, we didn't know each other before this, so it was so beautiful to get to know you and your work. And I'm so appreciative of it and I've loved getting to really dive in and listen even more to your podcast. As for me, I am findable on Instagram. It's going to be Polakoff, just my name. But you can also I hope, would please encourage you to find my book out there in the world. It's called Night before the Bottom and it officially releases on April 22nd. It's an ecofeminist look at womanhood and the body and self empowerment and I hope it will resonate. Find them from your local bookstore and if a book is too much, which of course I understand you gotta balance your budget, please follow me on Instagram and I also have some poems available on the web which you can find on my website which is abbypolikoff.com Brilliant.

Abby Polakoff (62:43)

Well, thanks so much for your time Abby. That was great.

Abby Polakoff (62:46)

Thank you so much Jo. I'm such an honor and a treat to be here and talk with you today.

Joanna Penn (62:54)

So I hope you enjoyed the interview with Abby. I loved talking to her and geeking out about punctuation and page layout and writerly things. So let me know what you think of the episode. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. Comment on X at the Creative Pen or email me joannathecreativepen.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next week I'm talking to April Rinny about her book Flux and how we can embrace change during turbulent times. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free author blueprint@thecreativepen.com blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X hecreative pen or on Instagram and Facebook fpenauthor. Happy writing writing and I'll see you next time.