Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviews poet and editor Stacia M. Fleegal.

Stacia M. Fleegal is the author of Versus (BlazeVOX 2011), Anatomy of a Shape-Shifter (Word Press 2010), and three chapbooks, most recently antidote (Winged City Press 2013). Her poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Best of the Net 2011, North American Review, Fourth River, Mud Luscious, UCity Review, Barn Owl Review, Lunch Ticket, Stone Highway Review and others. She received an honorable mention in Crab Creek Review’s 2013 poetry contest, was nominated for Best of the Net 2012, and is a two-time Pushcart nominee. Co-founder and co-editor of Blood Lotus, she is also journalist, blogger and book reviewer of regional poetry for the York Daily Record/Sunday News in York, PA.

Your latest published volume of poetry is antidote (Winged City Press, 2013). Congratulations! What can you tell us about this book? 

My chapbook antidote is probably the closest to channeling words that I’ve ever come. I wrote nearly all of the poems in the chapbook during what should’ve been my third trimester of pregnancy, but was actually three months of twice daily visits to my local hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. My son was born nearly three months premature. Parenting was already going to be a brand new experience for me, but being a NICU parent…I had no idea how to contend with that emotionally. So I did what I’ve done my whole life: I turned to writing. Whether I’m journaling, blogging, making poems, or talking to myself in fragments of lines-to-be, writing always helps me make sense of things. My literary bestie, my writing spouse, TeneiceDurrant, sees all drafts of all poems I write. Giving her updates about my son’s progress and sharing those poems with her became a singular, daily thing. She helped me polish them and then suggested we publish them as a “special project” through her Winged City Press.

But when I say they are channeled (thanks to one of my blurbers, Matt Mauch, for using this phrase to describe these poems), what I mean is that the speed with which they arrived on my tongue, close to completion, is so different than the creative process I’ve settled into. So different that it felt as if I was almost speaking in a different voice. I’ve come to realize that maybe I was. Maybe, within those poems, I was already a mother who’d come out the other side of this incredibly stressful ordeal. I was speaking to an earlier self — my three months prior self — and telling her that her child would live, would be healthy and happy, and she’d live through it, too.

It’s possible, right?

What about the poems you’ve written after antidote? What is your writing process now? 

I’ve been writing poems for a third full-length collection for at least 6 or 7 years now. I’ve had the title for even longer than that. I’m really laboring over and taking my time with those poems, though, because they are thematically similar to the poems from my first book, Anatomy of a Shape-Shifter, but I want them to sound different, feel different. I’ve taken several breaks from writing “those poems.” The first time was to write a series called Anti-Memories. I was frustrated with my progress in making the newer poems new, so rather than stop writing, I thought, what can I write that sounds nothing like what I’ve written before? OK, what have I written before? I’ve written from memory. What is the opposite of that? Anti-memories: warnings, dreams, premonitions, spells, incantations, visions, etc. I wrote 20 of them pretty quickly; 13 have been published in journals, and I’ve sent the whole series out a few times as a chapbook, but no luck yet. I’ve also started a few hybrid prose-poetry projects that are still too new to say anything substantial about. Mostly recently, I’ve been working on a longer piece, a fable called, at least for now, “Escape Velocity.” It’s space-science-y, allegorical, and, I think, prose poetry. I intend for it to end up in the third collection.

My writing process now is more methodical than it’s ever been. I draft very quickly and edit for what seems like forever. My challenge for some time has been to focus on poems, not manuscripts. I think we edit differently when we’re considering how a certain poem plays off of certain other poems. I’ve tried to consider each poem I’m working on individually, and as the most important poem I’ve ever written. Then I make it the best it can be and move on to the next. A good writing day for me is one in which I draft a new poem that gives me that “oh my god I’m a genius” feeling (you know, the one that lasts about 5 minutes), and also go back and revisit a few poems I haven’t looked at in a while and make them better. I also try to trust that I’m always making them better, so I don’t save drafts unless I make huge and/or structural changes.

You serve as managing editor and poetry co-editor of Blood Lotus (http://www.bloodlotusjournal.com/). You are also one of the founders. Why/how did you decide to start a new journal?What kind of magazine is Blood Lotus, who are its authors and who are its readers? What makes it unique? 

Fellow Spalding MFA alumn and my aforementioned writing spouse, Teneice Durrant, and I decided early in our MFA program that we wanted to contribute to literary publishing outside of sending out our own work. This was 2005/2006, so our 2013 concept of an online literary scene was just starting to really establish itself. We knew the startup costs for an online journal would be practically zero, compared to a print journal, so we thought we just needed a name and we were ready to roll.

We were wrong. So much more goes into it than a name and a website. That’s not a complaint! It’s the slightly self-deprecating way of saying that we were probably in over our heads when we started, but we rolled with it. Eight years later (!!), we’ve maintained a pretty consistent quarterly publication schedule, have published hundreds of talented and award-winning writers, and have developed a mission and aesthetic that we think sets us apart — which we didn’t have in the beginning, and we should’ve. We thought, oh, we’ll just take whatever work is best. Wrong again! “Best” is relative (we argued, respectfully, a lot about what to accept). Also, the more submissions you get, the more you have to turn down good work, either because it doesn’t fit thematically with what you’ve already accepted, or because you’re too damn tired to decide if something is good or not at 6 AM on a Tuesday, the only time in the last month you’ve found to read submissions.

So the mission of Blood Lotus is to promote quality writing (short fiction, poetry, and anything in between) in defiance of the idea that everything has already been written. We want to be surprised. I want someone to send me a poem called “Oh Captain, My Captain” that doesn’t make me think of Whitman one single time while I’m reading it, and I believe that can happen because I believe in the limitless potential of art to move us. So to get into BL, you have to fit our aesthetic, which is to send us work that, in the broadest terms, doesn’t sound like anything we’ve already read. Anywhere.Ever. That’s hard to do, and some work we publish is inevitably stronger than others, but that’s a standard we try to live up to with each and every issue.

As far as what makes us unique, I’ll tell you what we are most complimented on: our vibrant artwork, our “cool name,” and the diversity of the poems we publish. Our recently expanded editorial collective numbers 11 now, so we bring a set of truly eclectic tastes to our handling of submissions. We’re developing our blog more, posting more frequently, and doing more reviews and interviews. And the thing I’m most proud of is how we support our authors. On our website, we have two pages full of links to purchase books written and published by authors who’ve had work in an issue of BL. If you’re one of our authors, we’ll strongly consider reviewing any and all of your books, and we’ll blog about your good writer news if you email us. I’d make our authors cookies, if shipping wasn’t so expensive. BL authors rule.

Blood Lotus is both awesome and impressive. How will you celebrate your 10^th year anniversary? 

That’s a great question. Teneice and I have always imagined there would be a print component someday — maybe a “Best of BL”-type anthology? But then the question becomes, how do we charge people for a print version of what they’ve been getting for free online for the past eight years? We have to decide if there’s truly something new or different we can offer in print that we can’t offer online; otherwise, why else are we doing it? For money and/or the ego-stroke of holding a physical manifestation of our hard work? Would that make it more gratifying? As much as we love (and believe our authors, too, would love) the idea of a print anthology, and as many times as we’ve revisited it in conversation, that idea remains in a gestational stage because we’re hesitant to ask for money from poor writers. There’s enough of that in the world, for better and for worse. We’ll have to think more on it, on how to justify it. Print anthology or no print anthology, we still have two years to plan something badass for our 10th anniversary!

I will be watching with utmost interest. Meanwhile, what do you want to happen in the next two years? With you personally, or with the world in general, or with rhyme schemes in poetry?

Another good question. Here are my random wishes: I’d very much like to have this third collection published some time in the next two years, but as it isn’t even finished yet, who knows if that’s a reasonable wish. I’ll settle for making that manuscript the best it can be, bringing it to a point where I’m satisfied with it, in two years. The rest is all persistence and making a connection with the right editor. Within two years, I have my fingers and toes crossed that someone will come out with an e-reader that can handle line breaks in poetry. I’d like the small press industry to move away from the reading/submission fee model and and toward a “buy a book we’ve published and we’ll read and maybe publish your book” model, but I’m not holding my breath. I’d also like to see a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign that isn’t met with rampant misogyny, but I’m not holding my breath there, either. I’d like the Steelers to win another Super Bowl so these Ravens fans would shut up already. Lastly, I hope my almost-one-year-old son has either written his first short story or mastered “Stairway to Heaven” on guitar within two years. If/when you meet him, you’ll know this is probably the wish most likely to come true :)

For part 2 of the interview, check back tomorrow!