Writing And Publishing Short Stories And Poetry With J.F. Penn And Orna Ross

Summary

The Creative Penn Podcast for Writers

Episode 826 – Writing and Publishing Short Stories and Poetry
Host: Joanna Penn
Guest: Orna Ross
Date: September 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the creative and business aspects of writing and publishing short stories and poetry. Joanna Penn and Orna Ross, both multi-genre authors and passionate advocates for independent publishing, dive deep into the craft of short form writing, the emotional and practical considerations of poetry and short stories, and the strategies for publishing and marketing these works—especially in the modern, digital landscape. The conversation is a candid exploration of their own creative processes, the challenges and freedoms of indie publishing, and how authors can lean into their unique humanity in an evolving industry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Poetry: Inspiration and Creation

• Poems find the writer, not the other way around (27:26):
  • Orna shares that for her, "poems pick me rather than me decide." They arrive organically, often as a "flash of feeling and image coming together... concentrated emotion."
• The Human in Poetry (29:22):
  • Both agree that poetry, particularly about deeply personal experiences like bereavement, embodies a humanity that is difficult—if not impossible—for AI to recreate.
  • Orna: "The feeling and emotion and experiences... open you out in some way... that is something that can't be replicated."

2. Short Stories: Seeds and Structure

• Short story ideas vs. novels (30:39):
  • Joanna sees short stories as springing from a "story seed," often with a twist or unexpected turn, citing her love of Roald Dahl's "Tales of the Unexpected."
  • She values short stories for their ability to explore different subgenres and for leaving the reader with questions, as opposed to the closure typical in thrillers.
  • Joanna: "My short stories, they leave you with a question... that's really important. A bit like the Roald Dahl stories."

3. The Creative Process: Poem vs. Short Story

• Writing process for poems (36:16):
  • Orna drafts a prose outline inspired by W.B. Yeats, then moves to poetic form, emphasizing rhythm, image, and emotion.
  • She balances fast inspiration ("I can start and finish a poem sometimes in a day") with poems simmering for years.
• Writing process for short stories (47:46):
  • Joanna writes and edits short stories much like her novels, often using Scrivener and working with an editor, but aims for brevity and resonance over exhaustive backstory.

4. Barriers, Permission, and Playfulness

• Breaking through self-doubt and seriousness (51:56 - 53:47):
  • Joanna admits feeling unworthy of writing poetry due to perceived weightiness and academic baggage, while Orna urges approaching poetry playfully: "It can be anything you want it to be."
  • Orna emphasizes: "If structure helps, use it. If structure doesn't help, let it go."

5. Compiling Collections: Decisions and Challenges

• Titling and theming collections with AI assistance (54:37 - 56:05):
  • Joanna used AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude) to analyze her stories for themes and generate potential titles, settling on "The Buried and the Drowned."
  • Both authors discuss the importance of personal notes and photos for creating a unique, human layer in their special editions.
• Orna’s approach to poetry collections (59:31):
  • Collections grow organically over time, themed by recurring images or emotions, sometimes bundled for occasions (e.g., holidays, bereavement).

6. Editing & Collaboration

• Importance of professional editing (64:07):
  • Orna insists: "Editing is just as important for poems as it is for fiction and nonfiction. ... And you need an editor who writes and edits poetry."
  • Joanna also works closely with her editor, underscoring the value of another perspective.

7. Special Editions, Audio, and the Kickstarter Model

• Making beautiful print and audio editions (65:02 - 68:49):
  • Both plan special Kickstarter editions with features like foiling, sprayed edges, custom interiors, and bundled audiobooks.
  • Orna, previously hesitant about recording her poetry, is "warming up" to audio as a core offering—citing demand from fans and a growing trend in direct audio sales.
  • Joanna: "People want the bundle with the audio. ... I would have the nice print book on my shelf...but I would prefer to listen than I would to read."

8. Marketing Short Form Writing

• What works for poetry and short stories? (71:05):
  • Orna: Short-form video is huge for poets, but not essential—email lists, direct relationships, and social sharing are key.
  • She warns, "Don’t target general poetry magazines or bloggers...Poetry is a macro genre...You have to research your comparable poems like you will with fiction or nonfiction."
  • Both agree that neither short stories nor poetry are about pursuing massive sales; the real value is creative satisfaction and reaching passionate readers.

9. The Indie Advantage & Personal Success

• The freedom of independent publishing (77:12):
  • Orna celebrates the ability to publish what moves her: “It’s brilliant to be indie... It can be heartbreaking [otherwise]. ... There is a great freedom in that.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Poems Arriving Unbidden
  Orna Ross:
  “Poems kind of come along or they don't... For me, lyrical poems are short and just a single flash of feeling and image coming together, sort of concentrated emotion.” (27:26)

• On the Humanity of Poetry
  "Reading a poem that you've written yourself is probably about as human as it gets." — Joanna Penn (29:22)

• On What Makes a Poem
  Orna Ross:
  "If it doesn’t have an image in it, then it’s not really a poem to me. It has to have emotion and image and after that, the best possible words in the best possible order.” (44:38)

• On Short Story Endings
  Joanna Penn:
  "My short stories, they leave you with a question... and I find that's really important; a bit like the Roald Dahl stories." (32:41)

• On Poetry and Permission
  Orna Ross:
  “If structure helps, use it. If structure doesn’t help, let it go... Playful, I think, is the key word when it comes to rhymes of poetry.” (45:11)

• On Print & Audio Bundles for Fans
  Joanna Penn:
  "...People want the bundle with the audio... I would have the nice print book on my shelf... but I would prefer to listen than I would to read." (69:22)

• On the Definition of Success
  Orna Ross:
  “You can go out knowing that something is... largely for yourself and for the superfans who kind of like everything you do. ... There is absolutely no shame in aiming small sometimes and keep the big guns for the things that are most likely to succeed with a wider audience.” (76:11)

• On the Joy of Indie Publishing
  Orna Ross:
  “It’s brilliant to be indy... There is a great freedom in that that I think is really, really precious.” (77:12)

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Important Timestamps

• Crafting and Sharing a Poem about Grief: (26:39 – 29:37)
• Short Stories: Seeds and Structure: (30:39 – 36:16)
• Poetry Writing Process: (36:16 – 39:10)
• Dealing with Self-Doubt in Poetry: (51:56 – 53:47)
• Compiling and Theming Collections with AI Tools: (54:37 – 56:05)
• Kickstarter and Special Editions: (65:02 – 70:30)
• Marketing Poetry and Short Stories: (71:05 – 74:42)
• Discussing Indie Freedom and Success: (76:11 – 77:42)

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Additional Resources and Links

• Joanna’s new short story collection: jfpenn.com/buried
• Orna’s poetry and collections: ornaross.com
• Self Publishing with Ally Podcast: selfpublishingadvice.org
• Joanna’s upcoming AI webinars: thecreativepenn.com/live
• Jane Friedman’s “The Bottom Line” newsletter and article: janefriedman.com

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Tone and Language

The conversation blends warmth, humor, vulnerability, and encouragement. Both Joanna and Orna speak candidly about personal and creative challenges, celebrate the flexibility and empowerment of indie publishing, and foster an inclusive, down-to-earth outlook towards writing poetry and short stories. Their advice feels practical, human, and rooted in lived creative experience.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This episode is a must for anyone curious about writing, publishing, and embracing the creative journey of poetry and short stories—demystifying both the craft and the business with practical tips, honest reflections, and the encouragement to lean into your unique voice and humanity as an author.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show Hello Creatives. I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 826 of the podcast and it is Saturday 30th August 2025. As I record this in today's show, I'm sharing a discussion between me and my friend Orna Ross, who is also a poet, historical and literary fiction author, as well as author of non fiction and the founder of the alliance of Independent Authors and Ally. We talk about writing poetry and also writing short stories, the craft side of it, as well as the challenges of the business elements and why we love writing in these different forms. So that's coming up in the interview section in Writing and Publishing Things. Jane Friedman, in her newsletter the Bottom Line, shared this week how she thinks publishing has changed over the last decade since 2015, and she has made this article free on her website janefridman.com so you can read it all link in the show notes. She says audiobooks have become a key sales channel, reporting that audiobook sales surpassed ebook sales in a report from the association of American publishers in 2024. So I will add that yes, true, but the audiobook landscape itself has also shifted incredibly in the last decade, so Audible was really dominant back then and it is a completely fragmented audio landscape with Spotify the Main challenger, also YouTube, also direct sales which are completely unmeasured by anything, so we don't know how big a deal that is. And it has also shifted from individual audiobook sales to subscription models as a major consumption method. And in fact for me personally I listen now mostly on Spotify to audiobooks and mainly non fiction and I will choose the chapters rather than listening to whole books. And I actually love that. And in the last year we've also had a move from primarily human narrators to at least a mix of AI narrated books plus human narrators for other ones. And I fully expect this to speed up since the vast majority of books are not in audio format and the only way for every book to be in audio is a widespread adoption of AI narration, especially for translations and books in languages other than English. The English language has the most developed audiobook narration, I guess ecosystem. Many countries and languages don't have audiobook narrators and studios and all of that. So moving sort of that leapfrog idea into various dialects because yeah, people want audiobooks in their language, they also might want it in their accent. So yeah, the only way for every book to be in audio is really a sort of widespread adoption in my own business over the last decade. Audiobooks remain a major income stream primarily and the ones that sell the the best are my human self narrated non fiction books. So my Joanna Pen books. And that makes sense because this as Joanna Penn this is my main marketing channel and I have human narrated all of those. So the costs are very low. Most of my audiobook direct costs paying narrators are for my fiction books because most of my fiction is narrated by human narrators but they don't make so much profit and the money those books make has definitely reduced in the last few years as there is more fiction available audio. So I'm now doing a mix of human narration. So this year successful self publishing, the 4th edition is human me. So if you listen to that, that is me. But obviously my audiobook narration voice is different to my chatty giggling podcast voice. My short story collection the Buried in the Drowned is my human narration voice. But Death Valley is my voice clone and I'm currently working on Blood Vintage also with my Voice clone on 11 Labs and I expect to keep mix of human narration and AI as audiobooks keep expanding. Back to Jane's article, she also notes print books haven't died, but the media landscape has dramatically changed. Traditional publishers have long relied on that crumbling media ecosystem for criticism, coverage and overall visibility for their authors and books. Even the remaining outlets for book reviews, such as the New York Times have openly said that a review in their pages doesn't move copies like it once did. So what are publishers and authors doing instead? Attention has turned to niche communities, influencers across all types of media and social media platforms, especially TikTok. For now, publishers have also been steadily investing in direct to consumer efforts by building their email newsletter lists and e commerce operations. So yes, this is nothing new for indies, because indies have never really. No, I would probably say indies have never got a review in the New York Times for example, and let alone and if there was, maybe it was an outlier sort of compared to the things we have always done, which is things like email marketing and social media and ads and all that. But the fact is traditional publishing is encroaching more and more into our areas of marketing. This happened with bookbub a few years ago. When it started it was really indie only, and then Traditional publishing discovered it and the prices went up. And the same thing happened with paid ads on Amazon and meta price per click has gone up in many cases, especially in areas that traditional publishing spend the money on. So mainstream Thrillers is a good example with influencer marking. With podcasts, we all get so many pictures from Penguin Random House as well as individual indie authors, for example. But the same principles apply as ever building your own email list, building up your own channels of marketing, a backlist of books, and then some way to reach out. Whether you choose podcasting or short form video like TikTok or Instagram Reels or whatever, or one particular social media channel or YouTube or whatever it is, you are still a person, an individual, not a faceless brand like HarperCollins. And I'll tell you quite frankly, if I get a pitch from a PR person at HarperCollins, I am far more likely to just delete it than I am if I get a pitch from an author. So pitching directly as an author is, I think, as somebody who gets pitched, I think it makes much more of a difference. I'm far more interested in a pitch from a person rather than a brand. So lean into your humanity and you can still stand out. Next on Jane's list. Direct sales have grown in importance for both authors and publishers, she says for a long for such a long time, Amazon's dominance has felt incontrovertible, but publishers and authors who develop direct reach to readers have been able to escape its orbit and succeed on their own terms. She mentions crowdfunding in person sales and events, deluxe and limited edition books and subscription platforms like Patreon. And of course many of us have online stores. I mean I've been using subscriptions since 2014 and now of course I have my online stores, creativepenbooks.com and jfpenbooks.com but I started selling direct in 2008. I used one shopping cart back then. Back at the beginning, E Junkie. I'm sure there's people out there who remember E Junkie later payhip. I've used Sells, I've used Teachable, I've used loads of different platforms and then I moved to Shopify for a few years back and for now for sure I'm sticking with them as they are very pro AI usage within the environment and also pro crypto which hesitate to mention but it is beginning to pick up steam again. I'm sure many of you have seen stuff like that in the news and will become much more important with agentic sales and a faster digital economy. So Jane says more and more prioritizing Amazon sales is a choice, not a must. And yeah, I mean certainly I feel like my books are available on Amazon as ever. I frequently, you know, people will email me and say, oh, why are you supporting Amazon? And I'm like, I love Amazon. They have helped authors build businesses. I absolutely love them. I as, I love them as a consumer. I'm on Amazon Prime. I am a shareholder in Amazon and in fact I bought shares in Amazon back when I made the decision not to go into ku. So when KU started I realized that.

[B]

It would be a very, very big.

[A]

Deal for some people and it still is, obviously, but it was not a choice I wanted to make. So at that point I did decide that I will take some of the upside by being a shareholder. So yeah, I think there are different ways of investing in these things and having multiple streams of income. You can make choices like prioritising wide, but that doesn't mean you can't make money in other ways. So back to Jane's thing. She says hybrid and collaborative partnerships have grown in size and complexity. Whereas indie and TRAD used to be quite separate paths, now they intermingle with different kinds of deals for different formats and different approaches. So yeah, it's a really interesting article. It is on JaneFridman.com and you can read that for free. It is also in her great newsletter, the Bottom Line, which is a paid newsletter, very good value. And of course another big change is the rise of AI, but I think that is likely to have a bigger impact in the next 10 years. So let's say between 2025 and 2035. And I was reflecting many of the things I wrote about in my 2020 book on AI have happened, like the use of AI for aspects of writing and marketing, the rise of AI, narrated voice and audio, the issues of training on copyright data, the need for licensing. But I also did talk about the need for micropayments facilitated by blockchain technology, which can also provide the answer to the question of provenance and what is human created ver AI. And all of this is coming back with issues around deep fakes and all of that. So I think things I still have a chance of making my 10 year predictions within that book. So yes, also this week, if you're interested in listening to an interview with me, I am on the Two Authors podcast talking with thriller writers Douglas Pratt and Nicholas Harvey about how I work in projects, different kinds of book marketing, why special editions and beautiful books are so important, and in fact, Douglas and Nicholas are KU focused authors and I think I might have actually convinced them to branch out into some beautiful editions, some direct sales. So we shall see. But that is the two authors podcast if you want to search that on your app or link in the show notes. So talking of AI things, Wired and other outlets this week reported that Anthropic who make Claude AI have quote, reached a preliminary settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by a group of prominent authors, marking a major turn in one of the most significant ongoing AI copyright lawsuits in history. The move will allow Anthropic to avoid what could have been a financially devastating outcome in court. The settlement agreement is expected to be finalised on September 3. More details to follow. So yes, we'll get more details this week. Just to recap, in the original case, training on copyright works was ruled as fair use when the books were obtained legally and Anthropic have actually been buying books and scanning them. So they've actually been buying them which gives them the license to use them and fair use when they are used that way. It was also ruled as fair use in another case against Meta. The issue this ruling is around the use of pirated works in the training data. So it's around piracy rather than use in training. And this is where the settlement has happened. Now there are other open cases, but I suspect they will end in the same way. Always said this, there will be payments, settlements and ongoing licensing. As Mark Williams says in the New Publishing Standard. Responding to this, the settlement prevents the establishment of crucial legal precedent regarding damages for the use of pirated content while simultaneously cementing the fair use doctrine for legitimate acquisition. Yes, I think this is a pretty big deal. We will have the details this week. But yeah, I mean we're going to have fair use going forward. And in fact, if you go back to the interview with Alicia Wright, which was in January this year, this is what Alicia said this is going to happen. So yeah, this is not going to stop the AI train, especially in the usa, which sees AI dominance as a national security issue. This settlement proves that we will see more settlements, more licensing rather than any kind of halt to adoption. So I hope that this will help authors, those who've been waiting for some kind of end of AI, and help people move into an attitude of using the tools rather than resisting them. There was a a great Facebook Post by Frieda McFadden this week who is currently one of the top selling authors in the world, and she put on Facebook around AI, basically underscoring how you don't need to be afraid of it, she said. I feel like every time I go onto Facebook, I see one of two things. One, readers accusing authors of using AI. Two, authors being hurt and offended by accusations of using AI. I don't use AI to write my books. It shouldn't need to be said, but I'll say it anyway. But here's the part I don't understand. If you don't believe me and think all these successful authors are using AI to write books, why don't you do it too? ChatGPT is available to everyone. Just plug some idea into it and maybe give it a prompt, like write an unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist and then have it write a book for you. You'll never have to buy a book again because ChatGPT can write everything you want to read and then you can get it published and start making money off your amazing ChatGPT product. Brilliant idea, right? Do it. Seriously, why aren't you doing it? If you genuinely believe it's that easy, what is stopping you? And I love that. I absolutely love it. I think it's brilliant. Because her point is that it's not that easy. So one, it's not that easy. And it's really not. Try it. And you will see. Using AI tools takes skill. And the better you are at your craft, the better you're going to be at using the tools. And the better you are at your craft, the stronger your voice, the more you have your own ideas and opinions and the way you want it done. And most authors are not using it for published words anyway. They're using it, including me using it for marketing. Yes. For drafting and outlining and lots of other use cases, but yes, not for finished published words. And so it made me laugh, Frieda's comments, because, yeah, everyone who's accusing anyone of using stuff like, just stop it already, it doesn't matter. And the fact that even if you are generating a book a day with ChatGPT or Claude or whatever, that's not a business model. Even if AI could write the best book ever, one a day, you still have to market it. And this is where we all have a challenge. So, yeah, I hope that all of this is just going to normalize usage of technology a bit. Like we all use the Internet, you know, who has a go at any. Anyone for using the Internet these days? And AI is sort of as big a word as Internet. It encompasses so many possibilities. So, yes, there's also a meme going around at the moment I think is quite good 10,000 prompts is the new 10,000 hours originally said by Reid Hoffman, co founder of LinkedIn. Using AI tools is a skill just like any other and it takes time to get the best out of them. And it's about mastery, getting used to the tools rather than being afraid of them. I am definitely way more than 10,000 prompts at this point. I've been using AI almost I guess 2016. I really started looking at this and got into it very early. So if you would like to jump start your usage or move into more developed prompts and use cases, join me for my final webinars this year on AI two hours on the AI assisted artisan author 99.9% of this webinar will be on all the things you can use AI tools for that are not writing finished, publishable words. There are other places you can go to learn how to write books with AI. That is not my focus. I'm on the AI Assisted Artisan author approach and I have lots of new stuff. If you were even on my webinars in June, this is a completely different presentation with loads more ideas. I have three that I'm going to start with that I think are already very, very cool that I haven't shared. So the first one is coming up this weekend on 6th of September and also in two weeks on Sunday the 21st of September. Both sessions are at 11am US Eastern, 4pm UK. Ticket holders get the replay within 24 hours, so you don't have to attend live unless you want to. Patrons get a discount, so if you're a patron make sure you use the discount link, but otherwise they'[e-mail] live thecreativepenn.com.

[B]

Live.

[A]

In personal news well, as this goes out, the big news is that my short story collection the Buried and the Drowned is now live. Yes, it's live on Kickstarter and hopefully it will have even funded by the time this goes out. Here's a little about it. Some things are not meant to be forgotten. An ancient timber circle emerges from a storm lashed coast. A secret chamber is discovered beneath a Victorian zoo. A long lost tomb of undead knights is unearthed beneath the streets of Paris. What happens when the Buried and the Drowned break free? The Buried and the Drowned is my collection of dark, thrilling short stories that will take you from the volcanic shores of Iceland to the silent depths of the Pacific. From the catacombs of history to the frontiers of genetic science. These stories explore the thin veil between our world and the next, between myth and Reality, Science and the Supernatural. It includes stories I've been writing for the last decade and also two brand new ones, the Black Church, based on my Iceland trip and between two breaths, inspired by an experience I had scuba diving over 20 years ago. You can check out the [e-mail] buried and see the gorgeous hardback with patterned sprayed edges. It is my first patterned sprayed edge. I'm thrilled with it, or Spreadsh as they're known with the design mirrored in the custom end papers. You can see the video I show you the book. I also made the trailer with Midjourney, so check out the images and Midjourney now generates video as well as still and I'll obviously be demonstrating that in my webinar. The music was custom generated with ElevenLabs, which is also a new functionality in ElevenLabs and I human Narrated the audiobook. Yes, it's really me. I'll also be doing a craft webinar on writing, publishing and marketing short stories, which will be in October and there are a limited number of consulting sessions available. So that is jfpenn.com buried if you would like to see that or just have a look on Kickstarter. It's there and then over on my books and travel podcast this week, Zoe Langley Wathan talks about long distance walking as well as facing fears and finding resilience in midlife. How she went from being quite the anxious solo walker to discovering her confidence and joy in long distance walking. And in fact, Zoe is about to leave with her husband on an epic walk around the coast of Great Britain, which will take about two years. So we talk about that too. Because I'm like, yeah, I like long distance walking. I mean, two weeks or a few days and Zoe's off for a couple of years. So have a listen to that. Just search books and travel on your podcast app or link in the show notes. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Lots of cemeteries, which is very cool. I'm so glad you're embracing Memento Mori. Nikki Morocc on X sent some pictures from historic Beaufort, South Carolina. I just found 2.5 blocks of cemetery and there's gorgeous old live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. The cemeteries on the east coast are full of tragedy, beauty and tributes to those who started this country. Always thought provoking and I'm just realizing I'm saying Beaufort and I bet you that Americans say that differently. That's how we would say it in England. Maybe Beaufort could be Beaufort. There's many ways you could Pronounce that. Nicholas sent pictures from West Bay Cemetery at the aptly named Cemetery beach in Grand Cayman. I always love to see cemeteries in the sand with palm trees, which is just so strange. And he says there are many cemeteries by the beaches around the island. A tradition started long before beachfront property was worth millions. Yes. And I imagine those are actually protected because they're grave sites. And then Dale sent a quiet, tranquil setting. Mission Hill Cemetery in Bay Mills Township, Michigan, usa, near the cold and treacherous waters of Lake Superior. This quiet grove is the resting place of the unknown sailors of the steamer Miran, which sank in November 1919 with 17 crew members perishing, becoming entombed in ice until they drifted ashore.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And I just see that in my head now. 17 crew entombed in ice. They were some of them interred in this common grave. Coins have been left at the site to pay Sharon for their passage across the sticks. I know some people say Sharon Charan, but yes, that's. I think that's brilliant. And isn't it interesting, the mind's eye thing? I talk to people about this sometimes, but I. In my mind's eye, I can see those drowned men entombed in ice. I see it in my head and.

[B]

That'S how I write.

[A]

I see pictures and images and film things and then I write it. There's never a soundtrack. Some people don't see images. I know Rachel Heron has said she sees words, which is interesting. Other people don't see anything. They might hear things like people have different brains.

[B]

So fascinating.

[A]

Anyway, thank you for that, Dale, because I now have that image of 17 crew entombed in ice. Okay. Please leave a comment on the podcast show [e-mail] or on the YouTube channel. Message me on X at the Creative Pen or email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening joannathecreativepenn.com and. Or pictures of cemeteries and graveyards. I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So this episode is sponsored by Draft2Digital who I use for wide ebook publishing to Apple Nook, Library services and more, as well as payment splitting with my co author Mark Leslie Lefebvre. For the relaxed author, they also do print. Are you an indie author in need of an easy and efficient print on demand service backed by a world class customer support team? Look no further than D2D print from draft to digital. It's ideal for authors who've already published ebooks but haven't yet done print. You can convert an ebook to a Print on Demand file with just a few clicks. Turn an ebook cover image into a full wrap around print cover. In seconds. Choose from dozens of beautiful interior layouts. Choose from a variety of industry standard trim sizes and formatting options. Distribute worldwide. You can use free ISBNS if you like. You can order author copies within 32 countries and they do not have that little band saying proof on. And you can also use free change tokens every 90 days to make updates dates to your published print books. All this and more with no setup or recurring fees. Print on Demand is a game changer for indie authors because while brick and mortar bookstores can't physically stock every book, they can check for the pod print on demand availability of a book when a customer requests it. If you only publish ebooks, you could be missing a huge opportunity. Let's fix that with D2D [e-mail] so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my [e-mail] TheCreativePen thanks to the five new patrons who've joined in the last 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 writing, craft and author business, as well as AI tutorials. Last week I shared my monthly Q and A audio, basically an hour's worth of me answering questions from patrons. 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. 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 TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the discussion between me and Orna Ross. It was first broadcast on the Self Publishing with ally podcast in July 2025. You can find more of our discussions because we do them every couple of months. Just search Self Publishing with Ally on your podcast app. Here's the discussion.

[B]

Today we are going to be talking about what we've both been working on recently and actually we've got a lot of craft related discussion going on today as we talk about writing, publishing and marketing, poetry and short fiction. So there are there are writing craft things in today's shows and also author business aspects. And I had this idea about this show because Orna, you shared a poem written about your mum's death on Your Go Creative podcast. And I did tear up and I'm sure a lot of people listening would have teared up too, and it must have been really hard to write. So I wanted to ask you, why did you decide to write a poem about this really difficult topic? And how do you know when something should be a poem as opposed to something longer?

[C]

Yeah, so poems pick me rather than me decide. I don't actually. With longer work, I will make a decision. I'm going to do a book on such and such. But poems kind of come along or they don't. And so this one arrived and that's why I decided to do it in terms of why I decided to share it, which is a relatively new thing for me to do and certainly new to do on the Go Create podcast. And something I am going to be doing going forward and share the poetry. I just, I'm challenging myself at the moment to kind of go out there more and. And share those things. Typically I would have. And just share that with my poetry patrons. I wouldn't have gone any further with it. So now I'm trying to just. Yeah. Be more human in the world of AI as you and I are. Talk about a lot, that whole double down on being human thing. Well, you know, reading a poem that you've written yourself is probably about as human as it gets. And that's why I decided to write it then in terms of how do you know whether something's a poem or something longer? For me. And again, I think it's really personal for each different. For each writer. But for me, lyrical poems are short and just a single flash of feeling and image coming together, sort of concentrated emotion. So if I can sense the whole experience in a. In a just one vivid moment kind of thing, that's the poem for me rather than an essay or a story. So there'd be. There'd be an image and there'd be a feeling rather than. There may be an idea as well. But the image and the feeling are the main thing. If plots start coming in or characters, memories, side stories, anything like that, then it's a bigger thing. Much bigger thing. Usually for me, my novels are not all but one scene, one beat. That's poetry.

[B]

And you mentioned there about the doubling down and being human. And of course, this poem about the death of your mother. You can't get much more human than a poem about the death of your mother. I mean, AI could generate something, but that is a human experience, right?

[C]

Yes, 100%. And I believe that. That, you know, this is a personal belief of mine as a writer. It's one of my sort of writing credo that the feeling and emotion and experiences that you're having while you're writing a poem that kind of opens you out in some way, either that is conveyed to the reader whose end experience is not exactly the same. They're going to bring their. Their own stuff to it, but they're going to have a sense of that humanity in the poem. I do. I do feel that that is something that can't be replicated. Very hard to describe, very hard to explain where it is, where it comes from, where you see it in the text, but I believe it's there. But, yeah, short stories are similar. No, you've been writing short stories recently. And how do you know when an idea is a short story or a longer story or a novel?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I normally have like a story seed, and I guess I have story seeds for novels and I want to explore that, but usually there has to be some kind of twist. So when I was growing up, I mean, I still read them sometimes, Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, which I loved. And if people have an idea of Roald Dahl, I know in some ways he's been edited these days, but pretty dark children's writing as well. But the Tales of the Unexpected are adult short stories. And so I like having this sort of surprising or disturbing or unexpected sense about it. I do feel like you can explore different subgenres a lot more than novels. So my novels tend to be action adventure or straight thriller or supernatural thriller. And then with my short stories, I get into all kinds of different things. So I've got some techno thrillers. I do a lot of archaeology, I like to research a lot. But my short stories do have these sort of themes, and archaeology is certainly one of them. So I think if I don't want to turn it into something bigger, I definitely think every short story could be turned into some kind of novel. But I don't necessarily want to do that. So I just finished a short story. It's called Between Two Breaths. And it stems from an experience I had scuba diving in the Pornites Islands in New Zealand almost 25 years ago. And I haven't actually written about it, funnily enough, I had written a poem back then. I found it. It's dated 2005, so I guess that's 20 years ago. And I'm actually going to put that in the edition in my collection to go with that short story. But it's sort of an experience I had that I wanted to encapsulate in one. In something short that leaves the reader with questions. And actually, as we're talking, I'm wondering if that's the difference, because with my novels, I do as a reader, I.

[A]

Hate a cliffhanger at the end of a novel.

[B]

I want things to be wrapped up. And thrillers are, even if they're in a series, are usually completely wrapped up. So they're not like fantasy wear. You might have seven books and there's cliffhangers on every one. But my short stories, they leave you with a question. And I find that that's really important. A bit like the Roald Dahl stories. You can still be thinking about them later because they haven't necessarily ended. So, yeah, I guess that's the difference. And it's interesting because you said that the poem stems from emotion, whereas I feel like the short story, it does start with either a character, character or a place. So for example, when I went up to Ely Cathedral, it sort of sparked this idea about the area being drowned and this place called Seahenge, which kind of emerged from the waters, this prehistoric wooden circle. And I was like, I have to write a story about that. So that I think that's kind of the difference, the emotion versus a place or a character. I don't know. What do you think?

[C]

Yeah, I think that speaks to me, though. Of course, you can have character and place in poetry. You have to have it in story and narrative forms. But in poetry you can have narrative elements as well. Poetry can be everything. And I think it very much depends on what kind of poet you are. Just as, you know, what you said there about your novel are wrapped up. And your short stories can have a much more open ending for another writer, it might be the other way around. It's very much. I often feel the forms that we write in, they choose us. And we've discussed this before in terms of the fact that writing across genre. Genre and across the big macro genre of fiction and non fiction. And then I do poetry as well. I mean, you wouldn't choose that if you were. If you were just operating from choice, would you? And in similar ways, I think the forms that we use, they kind of choose us a bit, don't they?

[B]

Yeah. And also for me, the short story, I'm a discovery writer, as I've talked about before. I don't necessarily know what the twist is going to be or what ending I will leave with. So although I say that, that between two breaths, I absolutely knew how it Would end. I actually started with the end and then. Because that's the experience I had and I wanted to communicate that feeling. Whereas Seahenge. I didn't know how it was gonna end. I just knew that I wanted to have the emergence of this prehistoric circle. And it had this upturned tree in the middle, and in the roots, something was there, like an ancient sacrifice. I love ancient sacrifice. As you know, we'd have such dry.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

So I was like, well, what? What is it?

[A]

What could that be?

[B]

And that question of what could that be? I didn't necessarily know. And that's, you know, it eventually came to it. And this. I think there's a lot of fun and a lot of fun in the creativity of short stories because it's so much shorter. And actually, I was gonna ask you about this. So for me, writing a short story, it is a short process compared to a novel, because normally I write between, let's say, five thousand and ten thousand words. I know the word count, so, you know, it literally just doesn't take so long. It could take a couple of weeks, but it doesn't take forever. Whereas a novel, you know, a lot more words. But how about you? Because I feel like a poem can actually take a lot longer. So tell us about the process for writing a poem. Do you start with loads of words and edit or build up from a line? Like, what is the process?

[C]

Yeah, so just on. On the thing of brevity and short. Short is one of the major reasons that I write poetry, because novels and nonfiction, for me take a very long time. And almost all the poems that I have published, you know, I write and publish them pretty quickly, actually. I have just one big epic I've been writing for a long time and a long poetry sequence about women and writing and a tradition, the writing tradition, if you like. So it's a huge theme, and that one is taking a long time. But generally speaking, the fact that I can start and finish a poem sometimes in a day is just brilliant for me. And it keeps me, you know, I think I can keep on with these big fiction projects and things because I get the satisfaction of putting poetry together in between. So not every poem is done in a day, not by any means. Sometimes they take weeks and sometimes they take a few months. But that's nothing for me compared to big, big books. So. Yeah. And in terms of then how I put it together, I only began to read the produce poetry consistently when I adopted a technique that I learned from the great W.B. yates, who always wrote prose Outline first. And it might sound really strange, but I never did that for a long time. And now that I do do, it's made such a difference to actually finishing. Because before I started to do that, I had I don't know how many hundreds of unfinished poems. But now that I do the prose outline first, if I start the poem, I finish it. So I free write that summary by hand and kind of listening as I write more than I would if I was writing fiction or non fiction, and then start reading it aloud. I'll take for a walk and just begin to kind of recite any lines that are in it. I'm looking for the rhythm and the pulse of it again, much more than I would be for fiction or non fiction. And I'll start thinking about form. Should it be free verse? It would be, you know, a sonnet or something else. At the moment I'm looking at Ottava Remo, lots of trying to do a few poems in math form because I never did it before until recently. And. And then when I thought, I kind of realized, okay, that's enough now. Thinking and walking and reciting. And then I'll open a new file and then rewrite the whole thing as poem. And then just as much as needed from there. Sometimes it needs lots, sometimes only a little. Sometimes I'll take it for a walk again and again. Sometimes it'll just finish up, as I said, in a day. Not very often, but that does happen. And I know when it's done, I just know there's a sort of a click and there's nothing else to change. And there's a kind of a silence settles in around the words and then I know it's finished. Yeah.

[B]

Well, it's really interesting, I think. Was it Mary Oliver who said, like, sometimes she'd be out walking and a poem would come towards her and she. She knew she had to catch it because if she didn't catch it, it would be gone.

[C]

Oh, that's the story that Elizabeth Gilbert tells in her TED Talk, isn't it? Black poet. I forget her name now, so it's not at the top of my head. But yeah, it's a brilliant story. She'd run back to the house to write it down and before she missed it. What about your process for stories, short stories?

[B]

Oh, I need to stay on poetry a minute because you made me. Because the poem and people. I really recommend people go listen to you recite the. The poem for your mother. What's it called again?

[C]

It's called the Milky Ways.

[B]

Yeah. The Milky Ways and I mean some of those images stick in my mind. But of course it was layered. It's a very specific moment, but it's layered with a lot of memory and other emotions other than grief obviously. And so to me it feels like some poems and I feel like some of our creative works, whatever they are, poetry, short fiction, non fiction, whatever, memoir take a long, long time to come in some way emerge. I mean like this short story about the diving at the poor nights. I don't know why I didn't write that before and it just feels like it took a very long time. So even though some of your poems you're writing quite quickly, do you feel like some of them, like the one for your mother, have taken a long time to come out?

[C]

Yes, definitely, definitely. You can find yourself writing a poem about an experience that you'd forgotten about even. And that is really, really a very long time ago. I feel an awful lot of the stuff that turns up in my poetry image wise is, is goes back to childhood. So in that sense they take. They've taken half a century to get to get here and come out. And I didn't start writing poetry at all until I was in my 40s. I did as a teen, but I didn't then and a friend died and so it just started me again and I didn't really start writing it seriously until about. I was in my 50s really. So I do think poetry, I mean there are so many different kinds of poems. It's macro genre, which has millions of genre within. But the kind of poems that I write, definitely there's a maturity and a maturing of the ideas and things that are necessary to them, I think. Yeah, definitely.

[B]

Well, I've as you know, turned 50, so it may be I'm coming into my, my next poetry period. But if people, so if people listening if they want to start writing because it also, it feels to me very. Even though I have written some and I've taken some classes and I do buy and read poetry, but it feels so daunting compared to writing fiction or non fiction for me, even memoir, writing a poem just seems so much weightier I think because perhaps I mainly read poems that are quite serious and I love, love your poem as I mentioned and it feels so big. So if people listening, they want to write poems but they don't really know how to start. You mentioned a prose outline. So what even is that? Just explain like how someone might start.

[C]

Yes. So in terms of the prose outline, it would just say what poem is Going to contain. So in the poem that you were talking about, literally just a moment, standing at the window, looking out at the night sky, while behind me knowing, you know, my mother is in her bed and I can hear her breath, which is being artificially fed to her and knowing that we have been told that she doesn't have a long time. So the outline is just the content, what's going to go in there. And it's best done, as I said, with free writing. Writing, you know, fast, raw, let it all out, just kind of pour it down onto the page. And what you're looking for then is some words have energy in that pre writing splurge. Some words in there would have more energy than others. And so you kind of pull them out and start to, you know, if it's a sentence, repeat that sentence in your mind and see what else comes and you're looking for. I mean, for me, what's very important, what makes a poem and why? I don't agree that, you know, a lot of poetry, they've called poetry. For me, if it doesn't have an image in it, then it's not really a poem to me. It has to have emotion and image and after that, then the best, the best possible words and the best possible order. I forget who said that, that as a description of good poetry. But yeah, image and motion to me are the heart of poetry. Otherwise you might as well write prose. To me that's what makes the difference. So maybe that's where some people feel the challenge is to get the right image to encompass the emotion.

[B]

Yeah, because of course some poems have a certain, as you said, like a meter or they're called a certain type. Like my scuba diving one is a pantom. So it has a certain rhythm to it and certain lines repeat and all of this kind of thing. And that feels very like overly structured. And then of course we've got a lot of insta poets who it might just be an emotion or like it might even read like an affirmation. So it feels like there's a lot of freedom in poetry. But you can make it quite structured if, if you want to. Right. If you feel like you need structure, there are structures you can go to.

[C]

100% and then there can be the opposite of that where the structure becomes a complete confinement. And that's not poetry either. So again, if it's playful and you're enjoying it, then it's poetic. But there's nothing poetic about trying to beat yourself into some form that's, you know, your English teacher taught you 30 years ago and you think you should write or whatever. Poetry can be anything. And that freedom can be, you know, that can stop us. So if structure helps, use it. If structure doesn't help, let it go.

[B]

Yes. Well, I guess for my short stories it's the structure of a novel in that there's a character in a setting, something happens, odd things happen, and then it ends somehow. I mean, I also feel like some people think that, that a short story has to be only one character in one setting and only one thing happens. But I actually some of my short stories. So one in particular. De Extinction of the Nephilim. So it was based on. There's a company called Colossal and they're de. Extincting things. So they just did the direwolf and they want to do the woolly mammoth and all this. And obviously Jurassic park is the classic De extinction story, but this one's about the Nephilim and it has three point of view characters. An archaeologist and a geneticist and a maternity nurse. And so it was like, when that came to me, I knew the archaeologists had to find something underground and that would then spark the rest of the story. And I didn't know that the other characters would come in and that that story ended up being. I think it's about 8 to 10,000, so it's a bit of a longer one. But I feel like if people feel like it only it can only be one character in one place and all that, that. That can hem you in as well. So I do tend, obviously a short story does have a certain word count. I don't submit to magazines or anything. I just publish them myself. I have been in a few anthologies, I've had a few stories commissioned. But generally I write in Scrivener exactly the same as I write my novels. And then I print it out and hand edit it. There are different scenes, sometimes like mini chapters. So that De Extinction of the Nephilim, it's got like different chapters based on the different characters. And I still use prowritingaid. I still work with my editor, Kristen. She. She edits my short stories as well. So I. I have exactly the same process, I guess, for short stories as I do for fiction. And the only difference is I guess the. The lens, but also the leaving it with a question.

[C]

And do you ever pull short stories up on your blog or anything?

[B]

No, but I sell them individually. So they are on all the usual stores. They're on my jfpenbooks.com shopify store. And we're gonna talk in a bit about the first print collection. But I, I find that actually, I mean I've had people on my podcast, on the Creative Pen podcast talk about. You should always try and license short stories to magazines and anthologies and submit them to competitions first because the contracts for short stories are some of the best in the business in that they, the rights revert usually very quickly and the contracts are often either for first print rights and they expire quite quickly, or subsequent print rights and they're usually fine in terms of that people pay per word and all this. But I'm just so impatient that I normally once I have a bit like you when I have an idea, I'm like no, I need to write that story. And then I, I publish it and.

[A]

I send it out to my email.

[B]

List and you can actually make some decent money even selling them at 99 cents, which I feel or 2.99, I suppose. But you can't price an individual short story at too high. I do also narrate them myself, the.

[A]

Audiobooks as human me.

[B]

So that can kind of add in that human element as well and value.

[C]

And the people who say, you know, send them out, I think underestimate how much creative energy that whole submission process takes backwards and forward. So I'm the same with poetry. I mean people assume that you must submit poetry to journals and stuff and I just never do, never have, never will it. Just if somebody approaches me or I might reach out saying never, never say never. I might decide I'd like to be in such and such a thing, but I need another reason to do it. So I have contributed to at the moment an anthropology here in my new hometown of Hastings and St. Winners. There's a. A lovely anthology called Poet Town being put together and I have fun in there. And also there's Washing Windows, which is a kind of a well known series of women poets anthology in Ireland. I've got one in that. But generally speaking I'm not going out there in the whole submission thing because it takes a lot of time and effort and energy to do that and I'd rather write another poem actually. So I just thought I just put them on my blog at least two a month. I my favorite two of the month kind of thing. One is for my patrons only and kind of my best one of the month. Then when I have enough for a collection, I I eventually publish it in book form, but that can take a long time. So I have different poems sitting in different collections that won't be published until there is enough in them. But I am now beginning to bundle and looking at special edition through Kickstarter. That is something I would like to do probably for this book. So the poem that you heard me read on the podcast is part of a collection of poems for bereavement 12 poems to inspire series. And these are the grief and bereavement ones. So yeah, I'm going to bring a few of those books together and create a special edition through Kickstarter in time for once again, once there's enough.

[B]

Do you teach writing poetry as part of your Patreon or do you do classes at all? Or is it that just not something you're doing?

[C]

No, I did in the past. Not anymore. Not anymore. Again, I'd rather just be doing it.

[B]

Oh, well, we might have to demand like a stretch goal for your Kickstarter where you will do a special webinar or something for those of us who.

[C]

That sounds okay.

[B]

Yeah, I think that would be great. Because I feel like those of us who buy and read poetry often want to do more poetry. It's just that it feel. As I said, it feels. It feels important to me. It's really funny. Whereas I feel like my short stories, I write them and I'm really happy with them and they're often. They encapsulate this moment, but I don't feel that they're heavy in any way. I don't know. I do think that people have got the wrong impression of poetry by making it too serious.

[C]

Yeah, I think that's a bad place to start. It can be anything you want it to be. And I do think that's cool, isn't it? Where they sat us down and chopped it up like they said, like it was a rabbit in science class or something. And that's not how poems are written and it's not how they're read when you're reading for pleasure yourself. So I would say just start with the poems you love and just start to write. I mean, you're a very experienced writer, so you can write poetry no problem. It just depends then on what kind of poetry it is that you want. You want to try, but definitely take away all the. It's got to be heavy and brilliant and all of that. Because that's. That's a stopper for all writing, isn't it? If we feel that way about it. And I know you're exaggerating, but yeah, it's. It can be really playful poetry. And if you look at all the inverted commas, great poets you. And you read once you Read deeply into what they are. Sorry. Widely into what they've written. You'll find that they've all written light, playful pieces. You know, poems that aren't very good, really, that don't really quite work, and they have their favorite kind of ways of going on, and all of those in inverted covers. Less than good, you know, poems are part of what actually produces one that does shine for and reach a lot more people. So, yeah, playful, I think, is. I would think is the key word when it comes to rhymes of poetry. Tell us about this collection that you're bringing together. Have you had challenges?

[B]

It's certainly a challenge. Like, first of all, I do think that I thought a bit maybe how I feel about poetry, which is maybe I'm not worthy. And I'm not really exaggerating. I do feel like, because maybe I studied English literature and I can be too serious about all these things. I feel like, like Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, it's like a canon work in my mind. And to do a short story collection in the sort of literary world, doing a short story collection published by a traditional publishing house is a really big deal because, let's face it, they don't make a ton of money.

[C]

Any. Any money, generally. Any money.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So they're for super fans, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Story collections are for superfans, which means an author can do really well with them, but publishers don't tend to do so well with them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it does mean that the famous.

[B]

Short story collections are sort of by big name authors. So I feel like that was the first challenge was, oh, well, I couldn't do that. And then I was like, no, I really want to do. I really want to have my own collection in print. Because it's easy enough to do a short ebook and a short audiobook digitally, but none of these are in print. I do have a trilogy, which is in print, which is A Thousand Fiendish Angels, which is three short stories inspired by Dante's Inferno. So that is in print, but the rest of them are not. And so I really wanted to do that. And so that was one challenge. I was like, should I do it now? I really want to do it. And then it was, okay, what do you call it? And this kind of titling of a short story collection or that I haven't written to be related to each other other was really hard. But this is where ChatGPT and Claude, I used both of them, uploaded all the ebooks that I'd written, all the short stories and Asked for titles for the themes. Asked it to really examine the themes across the whole thing. And people could use NotebookLM, Google's Notebook LM as well. Anything where you can get it to really look at your work and kind of analyze it. And we can't see these things ourselves, but there were loads and loads of titles. But the one I love is called the Buried and the Drowned, which.

[C]

Right. Some people.

[B]

Yeah. If anyone's not read my fiction, that is. That does say a lot about me.

[A]

That is true.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Super dark, dark little soul. But yeah, I mean, for example of the ones I've talked about here, Seahenge is very much about the drowned and de extinction of the Nephilim is very much buried. And it's the sort of dangers of messing with what has been buried for so long and what has been drowned will be drowned again and all that kind of thing. So. So they're sort of coming up with the title. But it's one of these occasions where I think AI tools can really help. And I love the title. And then I asked it, okay, well, I need a cover image, so let's brainstorm that. And I've worked with Jane Dixon Smith, who's been my cover designer for more than a decade now, and so we've got that going. I'm writing a couple of extra stories which I won't publish separately. So people who have already read the other stories hopefully will want it because there'll be two exclusives, one of which will be that between two breaths, and a story called the Black Church, which is where I spent My. My 50th birthday. I woke up next to the Black Church in Iceland. So writing that, my editor Kristen is going to read the whole collection because another challenge is what order do you put these in? So I'm going to try and figure it out myself. And then I'm going to give it to Kristen, who has edited some of those stories already, but she will read it as a first reader. I'm also expanding the Author's note. So all my short stories have very personal author's notes. Like where have these stories. Stories come from? Like another one is about and having an eye operation when I had. After I had laser surgery a few years ago. It's called With a Demon's Eye. But it was things like that. I've written these sort of super personal author's notes, which again, coming back to the Being Human in an Age of AI, I feel like that's so important. And putting in the special edition, I'm gonna Put like that poem I mentioned, which is really about my divorce and my first marriage. And also so photos. There's even a photo, a really old photo of me scuba diving during that time, back in the days when there wasn't digital cameras and stuff. So I'm. I want to make this collection as you say it is for super fans. It. It's. And I'm going to have a really low number on my Kickstarter but it feels personally very important as part of my 50th year to do something that means so much. But boy, I definitely feel it's been a challenge. That's great.

[C]

It sounds fantastic. When do you think it'll all come together? Do you have a date for the Kickstarter yet?

[B]

Yeah, I'm aiming for 1st of September. We're recording this in July. So if people are interested, it is up jfpenn.com buried like the buried and the drowned. So jfpenn.com forward slash buried. And yeah, I think it will. I. I've bought a lot of short story collections off Kickstarter for people I don't know know. And I do actually think Kickstarter is a great place for short story collections. I think there is an audience there who are looking for them and if you've bought one before, other ones come up in your recommendation algorithm. So I'm kind of hoping that maybe some new people will. Will find them because again, people who read poetry read poetry. People who. As well as other things. But it's like if you like short stories, then maybe you find other ones about, about authors. But yeah, I mean, well, what about your collection? Because you actually have quite a lot of, of poetry collections. So tell us about the process for that.

[C]

Yeah, it takes a while, as I said earlier, because I don't. I never sit down and say right now I'm going to create a collection, you know, or create a poetry book apart from that epic one that's going to be one big long poem. So we have to wait until there are more than enough up on a linked theme. So I have ideas about what that might look like. And I have pin boards on the studio wall. And so I'd be looking for thematic overlaps between different poems or recurring symbols or something like that. And then when they feel like they go together, they have a sense almost like I'm writing a musical piece with them, you know, and of a rise and fall kind of thing. I like to feel that the reader is. Will go in and begin to gather together kind of what I'M saying, and then move more deeply into it and then kind of ascend out of it. So I usually break them into sections as well. And I have never really, you know, on publishing and the business side for a long time I didn't really think about poetry in that way. So it was. I put stuff out there, but I didn't go out doing ad campaigns or anything like that with. With poetry. So I've been quite on business, like around it really, and perfectly happy to do that and to. To see them as something that I write and people come to people who know me or as you say, who like writing or sorry, reading poetry can find them. But then I did start to put together this new, most recent series, which is 12 poems to inspire. And this is a bit more commercial because they're written around a particular occasion or event. So there are 12 about Christmas or that end of year time, new beginnings For Mother's Day, 12 poems about love for Valentine's Day, that kind of thing. And so these are the ones that I'm going to now begin to bundle together. And I do a Kickstarter and put them together, three of them, I think, into a. A collection called Poetry of Light. And then I am going to start when the season comes around, actually actively promoting them. And so I think these are my most commercial poems, if you like, and the ones that are most likely to. It's worth treating them in that way.

[B]

So just on the number there. So you said the. So you. Your. Because I've got some of your thin volumes. So those have 12. So when you say there's going to be three lots, so you're going to have a collection with 36 poems in or how do people know when it's enough to do something like a printed edition?

[C]

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? So, yeah. In this case, yes. I specifically decided these short books, they were to really be almost like an expensive gift card in a situation where you buy somebody a sympathy card instead, buy this slim volume and give them this instead. It'll be more meaningful. They hopefully won't put it in the bin in thin and it will last till they can come back to it and read it again and again. So that was the idea of them. They were deliberately slim and in fact they are illustrated as well. I forgot to say that my daughter has done the illustration. I had my own efforts at illustration, but I'm updating them all now. My daughter has done the illustrations for them. So they're an experience specifically around a particular thing. So that wouldn't be your typical collection. I have, you know, they will be bigger. For example, I have Allowing now is a collection of mindfulness poetry. I'm not sure how many poems are in there, but probably 50. So I think the general consideration for a collection is 50 to 60 poems makes a collection depending again on length of poem. So it's difficult to generalize. But that will be, you know, that would be the average, shall we say, horror collection.

[B]

And just on the poetry editing side, because as I mentioned, I work with my editor Kristin on the individual stories and then also for the whole collection and obviously for fiction, I work with editors, as I know you do. But what do you think about editors for poetry, whether an individual poem or for a collection, in kind of understanding the structure of a collection?

[C]

Oh yes. Yeah. Editing is contrary to what people think. Editing is just as important for poems as it is for fiction and non fiction. And editors make poems immeasurably better. So at every level, at the developmental level in the individual poem, obviously. And copy editing and punctuation choices can make a huge difference to a poem's meaning actually. So punctuation becomes super important. The shorter the form, the more important it is. So yes. And you need an editor who writes and edits poetry. You can't just have your usual editor for poetry. I think it has to be somebody who understands and who understands both when to step in and when to stay away. So yeah, I think it's. I think it's really important.

[B]

And then I guess the other thing. One of the reasons we do Kickstarters is because we want to produce gorgeous print books. So again, I will. I'm doing green foil for the Buried and the Drowned, which on the COVID is going to look awesome and there'll be a ribbon and sprayed edges and the photos and the paper will be heavier and it will just be all the cool things that we can do once we get the Kickstarter money and you can't really do it otherwise. But also with your collection, are you thinking about some of those beautiful elements? Because of course, poetry and page layout is so important.

[C]

Yeah, definitely. And I think if you. Writing poetry is one thing and producing poetry books is great, but if you want to start to think about selling poetry, then you have to think about beautiful packaging, I think because that's essentially what people are looking for when they buy poems and they want. It can be very subtly beautiful, but the layout of the words on the page becomes all important and how that page feels. And as you say, if you can make your poetry book look and feel gift worthy, then it has a much better chance of some commercial success. And it should also, I feel, be a a coherent emotional experience of collection. So rather than, you know, here's the first 20 poems I ever wrote all put together. And there needs to be some sense of it working together as a whole as a collection. And the editor can help with that as well. And I mean I have had, as I come to, you know, as I begin to bring a collection together, I would then realize I need more poetry for this collection. Then I will start to write specifically to finish or that collection. That is definitely something that happens.

[B]

And then the other thing for the Kickstarter and in fact, in general I mentioned audio and audio narration. Now you have actually been quite resistant, I think, to publishing audio of you reading. So what are your thoughts? And of course you read this poem for your mother and the Milky Way poem on your Go Creative podcast and it was fantastic. So are you moving into doing more audio?

[C]

Yes, boss, I am. That's why I'm doing it on the podcast. It's to warm myself up. I am not drawn to doing it, but you and a few other people have said and I can see myself how it, you know, it's, I would think, boss, becoming an essential now to as part of that human thing that we were talking about to, to read yourself. So yes, I am, I'm going to do now I do have a little short sampler of my poems out there in audio form, but I did that a very long time ago. 10 I think the first flush, it's called, is just a sample. But yes, I am going to to do these myself and do audio. So when I do this collection and the bubbles and everything, I'll have the audio as well.

[B]

Well, I mean, you mentioned that. Is it essential? I mean, I probably would have read the poem when you had put it somewhere, but because I'm an audio sort of reader in so many ways, hearing you read that poem, I think has a lot more impact. And again, as the human element, hearing you read it is so important. So for people who are listening, who might be feeling as uncomfortable about it as, as you have any tips for getting over that?

[C]

I guess feel the pain and do it anyway. I don't really know that I'm the right person to give tips about this because as you say, I have been so, you know, I keep, I've kept long fingering it. I just think for me not listening back is kind of key. So getting it all to the producer and, and I don't want to do my own production for example. So yeah, I don't. I'll go through the experience maybe and then I'll share the tips at the far side. How's that?

[B]

Yeah, I think that's good. And I mean again talking about the Kickstarter which I think is a great way to do the poetry collection and the short story collection is that some, a lot of people buy audio through Kickstarter. It is one of the best ways to sell audio direct. So for example, I'd be very interested in buying the beautiful hardback if you're going to do one and plus the audio as an add on. That's how I would want your poetry would be those two editions so that I would have the nice print book on my shelf like I've got your secret rose beautiful edition on my shelf. And I would. But I would prefer to listen than I would to read. So I don't know. I mean that's how I feel as a consumer and what I see on my Kickstarters with fiction and non fiction so far is that people want the bundle with the audio. So even the print book with the ebook and the audiobook as the bundle that they buy. I don't know. Is that something you'll offer?

[C]

Yes, and I do think that's a great offer for poetry in particular actually and short form. Form for you know, we're talking about short stories as well. I think having that combination is, is a really good thing for short form.

[B]

And then I guess before we finish up we should because we, we also talk about business and I guess the, the Kickstarter side is business, but marketing, I mean what do you think about marketing for poetry? I mean, I guess doing the audio is one way and you can put those out. What, what else do you see poets doing for marketing?

[C]

Well, short form video is huge for poets and if you can do that. Well, I'm not going to ever do that but if you can do that well that is probably the easiest best way. And of course in doing your video that you can then harvest your audio for your audiobook. So you're both producing and marketing at the same time. Which is my favorite form of marketing, content marketing. And you don't have to show your face necessarily if you don't but you can still produce videos. So you. I see some poets doing, you know, stock footage or AI illustration or indeed if they're that way inclined, their own illustrations and music and putting it all together as beautiful sort of piece and that obviously is almost a form in itself and. And film poetry is actually an emerging genre and there's some beautiful and inspiring examples out there if people are attracted to that. But obviously that's very time consuming. So it's much more than just a way of marketing your poetry. But it's video in poetry, like in every other aspect of publishing, is definitely big right now. I think think the main thing for poets is to get the poetry out on substack, on social, on a blog. And I think your email list is super important. It's always important for everybody. But you are depending on that relationship with your readers in a big way as a poet, I think. And what else is important? Yeah, I think one thing that I would say to people is don't target general poetry magazines or bloggers, or worse again, general book bloggers. And people forget that poetry is a macro genre like fiction and nonfiction. It divides up into genres. So there's no point in sending your inspirational poems to the dark goth collection. You know, it's not going to work. So you have to research your comparable poems like you will with fiction or nonfiction and then you find out who's working in that arena and you send them a tailored pitch. Or you can swap reading with other poets. I mean, that's how there's a very thriving poetry scene on all of the platforms. I think Instagram is the one that I'm most familiar with, though I'm not there anymore. I was part of that for a few years and I really loved it. And then there are the magazines and the literary journals and the stuff of which, as I said, I don't do. But if you want to do those, they are hungry for content always and they like dealing directly with the poet and they're not inclined to deal with mainstream PR as much. And then I think the other big thing is to build a reader team who will go out and do your early reviews, but also share your favorite lines and talk a bit about the poll. I think that's really important. And I would say don't do ads or any direct promotion until you've seen something work. You know, if you have a reading you do on Tik Tok or whatever and it goes down well, that's the point at which to invest. But it would be very easy to waste a lot of money and get symphino.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And I think for me, a lot of the short story ideas and the poems, we are not looking at the massive spike on launch. Like, I'm not expecting to do a six figure Kickstarter on a short story collection. You know, it's. I will probably have my lowest gold of any of my Kickstarters. But the point is that over the years these sell. So people buy my short stories every day. You know, some of them I wrote a decade ago. Same with your poems. Right. They don't age, these things. They really don't. So I feel like we launch them. We do the Kickstarter, which is a short launch in only a couple of weeks in the end. But the point is that we will keep writing and people will find them over time. So I just, I feel that that might take the pressure off some people is, look, just think about this as primarily poetry and short stories are creative things. I mean, you could say all books are creative, but these are very creative. You know, there are very few people who aim to make tons of money with these types of writing. And so it is very much a creative drive and a piece of your body of work that you want to get into a beautiful print edition. That's kind of how I feel. And then I will do my best. But as you say, I'm not going to spend any money on marketing it. I'm going to put it out there and. Yeah, see what happens.

[C]

Exactly. And I think it is important for us to understand a bit about what is commercial, what is creative in our work. When we, you know, when, when you're building up a body of work, you don't have to give the same marketing treatment to everything you produce. You can go out knowing that something is. You're doing it largely for yourself and for those, for the superfams who kind of like everything you do or for people who particularly like particular thing. And there is absolutely no shame in the opposite, in aiming small sometimes and keep the big guns for the things that are most likely to succeed with a wider audience.

[B]

Absolutely. And I guess that brings us back to definition of success and why, why we write these things. And it really is, as we both said, I think these ideas just come to us and we know that we want to write them as a poem or as a short story. So I guess. Any finishing thoughts, Orna?

[C]

Just that it's brilliant to be indy.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, with this stuff because it can be heartbreaking. I remember back in the day when indie wasn't a thing and, and trying to get somebody to be interested to say, yeah, it's just great to be able to just put it together, put it out there, see what happens and not. Not mind too much how it goes. There is a great freedom in that that I think is really, really precious.

[B]

Fantastic. So yes, you can find [e-mail] forward/bounded and if people want to find your.

[C]

Collection or orna ornaross.com Nightlight Fantastic.

[B]

Well, thanks for being with us today everyone. We really hope that you have found this useful and all the best with writing your own poems and short stories.

[C]

Happy writing everyone and happy publishing.

[A]

So I hope you found the discussion with Orna interesting. If you want to write poetry or short stories or anything else. And we do a discussion podcast on the Self Publishing with Ally podcast every few months so you can find more of these kinds of episodes on that feed [e-mail] so let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. You can email me joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. And of course, if you're interested in my short story collection, head on over to Kickstarter or jfpenn.com buried and that will redirect whenever you are listening to this next Monday. I'm talking about writing fan fiction and multi passionate creativity with Kim Boo York. 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 [e-mail] podcast and you can get your free author [e-mail] blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X hecreative pen or on Instagram and Facebook Jfpen Authority Happy writing and I'll see you next time.