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Gold+ Partner Profile: Author & Publisher Laura Lynn Brown

By L.L. Barkat 17 Comments

Gold Partner Profile Laura Lynn Brown Clover in Light
Tweetspeak Poetry is on a beautiful quest to bring Poetry for Life to people across the world, where they live, work, learn, and take leisure. As you might guess, we can’t do it without your help, since the effort takes a good deal of resources—from financial, to intellectual, to social (and maybe coffee, tea and cinnamon toast resources as well).

Partners like you and our 2015 Gold+ Partner Laura Lynn Brown are making amazing things happen, as together we bring life-changing articles, community-building opportunities, teaching tools, and #smartfun poetry awareness to people who are already looking for ways to explore poetry or are discovering its insight and possibilities for the first time.

Today, we’d love for you to meet Laura Lynn Brown, who has dedicated 2015 as the year she helps poetry in a big way through Tweetspeak. So, listen in as L.L. Barkat asks a few curious questions:

1. Laura, you’re an author who’s been published at Slate and the Iowa Review, had the distinction of one of your essays being declared a “Notable Essay of 2013” in the Best American Essays anthology, and are also an online publisher. Tell me about your writing life. What got you started? What keeps you going?

I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. My second grade teacher tells me I used to turn in unassigned reports (she especially remembers one about aardvarks). I was a reporter on my sixth-grade newspaper, and began writing poems at that age too. (I might still have a copy of “Song to a Bowl of Cornflakes.”) I started because I was shy and had things to say. Because I read a lot and I wanted to make sentences work like that. And because my mother saw, and nurtured.

These days my writing life includes working on essays for online publication, accumulating pieces toward some longer-term or larger projects, writing poems sporadically, writing headlines (which is sometimes a tiny form of poetry), reviewing arts events and supplying occasional features for the paper, and contributing for Makes You Mom. I write a gratitude column called Daylilies, which is also a place for me to play with writing, and right now we’re writing a series on self-care and inviting other writers to blog along.

What keeps me going? Ideas that keep knocking until I let them out. Hearing I’ve written something that has been meaningful for others. That good feeling when writing is going well and two hours have passed and I haven’t noticed or had the impulse to check Facebook or get something to eat or attend to some suddenly urgent housework. The satisfaction of getting something as right as I can make it. The surprise of realizing something I never would have come to if I hadn’t written my way to it. Even the tactile pleasure of moving a favorite pencil or pen across smooth or slightly toothy paper.

2. You wrote a book called Everything That Makes You Mom. Tell us about it? (Sure, we’d love to know what other people say about it too.)

The book is a collection of tiny stories about my mother, in all her complexity. It’s also a tool for others to create the same kind of portrait of their mothers, using writing prompts after each story, and to give it to mom as a keepsake and a reflection of who she’s been in her grown child’s eyes. For folks whose moms are gone, it’s a way to collect those memories of mom, either for themselves or as a gift to their children.

I’ve heard sweet stories from people who didn’t have warm, fuzzy memories of their mothers, but who have used the book to come to a more complex understanding of who their mothers were and maybe to reach some forgiveness for hard things. A few have told me it’s helped to improve their relationships with their mothers. I love hearing all these ways people find to make the book their own.

The book resulted from my essay Fifty Things About My Mother. I should also say it has some funny parts. My mom had a wry sense of humor.

3. You are now the publisher of a truly marvelous website called Makes You Mom. What makes it different from other mom sites? If I were a writer and a poet (which, well, I am), would I have a reason to visit your place?

I think all mom sites serve some purpose and some audience. Many are focused on moms with small children at home, with great resources, helpful advice, reassurance that other moms are experiencing that thing you think you’re the only one dealing with.

Makes You Mom is different in that it’s less concerned with advice and maybe more attentive to matters of the heart and being a whole person. Some well-intended websites can leave moms feeling weak, worried, inadequate. Our intent is never, ever, to tell you you’re doing it wrong. Writers and Poets, you’d probably enjoy visiting Makes You Mom to find good writing, possibly some kindred spirits, and to discover great opportunities to submit your work.

4. There are plenty of sites you could have chosen to partner with (thanks for being a Gold Partner!). Why Tweetspeak? I mean, why not someplace like Goodreads or Kirkus, or any number of other sites that say they want to work with authors and publishers?

It pays to study how sites that say they want to work with authors and publishers actually work with authors and publishers. I won’t speak specifically about other sites, but in general, often what an author is paying for is a review of her book, and for increased visibility on a webpage. From what I can tell, sometimes authors have been unhappy with poorly written or inaccurate reviews, and they can’t find any measurable sales boost attributable to that investment.

L.L., you’re a writer, an author and a publisher who knows the business from many angles. I’ve participated in two Tweetspeak online writing workshops, joined a stealth T.S. Poetry Press book release, and seen the inventive, supportive, nurturing, and just plain fun things that come from Tweetspeak. I know I will get savvy personal attention based on my strengths, some of which might be more clearly seen by someone else. It is a partnership, rather than a blind hope.

5. Top 5 favorite poems? I had to ask. Okay, or if you prefer, you can tell me what your top 5 poetic things in the world are.

May I answer both? Understand that these lists would change tomorrow. Or even an hour from now.

5 poems I love

1. “One Art, ” Elizabeth Bishop. I think it’s the finest villanelle ever.

2. “Home to Roost, ” Kay Ryan. (I could tell you five things I love about the poetry of Kay Ryan.)

3. “Prayer, ” Galway Kinnell. I’ve known and shared this tiny poem for years and years, and it’s still revealing secrets.

4. “Small Spaces, ” Brenda Hillman.

5. “The Language of Crows, ” a prose poem by Louis Jenkins.

Runners-up: “Ask Me, ” William Stafford; “Spring and Fall, ” Gerard Manley Hopkins; “Disgraceland, ” Mary Karr

Poetic things

1. Poems’ portability and comfort in memorization. I expect that when many other things are lost in my old brain, the poems I’ve learned will still be there.

2. Prompts.

3. The musicality of poetry—meter, accent, rhyme, lyricism, beat, song without notes. Poetry’s sounds beg to be freed from the page and spoken.

4. Small presses that find and publish delightful poets without requiring them to have a platform the size of an aircraft carrier.

5. Take Your Poet to Work Day. (I think it all hinges on “Your, ” and the popsicle sticks.) Last year I printed the coloring book and left it on a blank desk in a high-traffic area at work, along with crayons, Popsicle sticks, scissors and tape. The editor with a degree in Spanish picked Neruda. A features writer colored Adrienne Rich, whom she’d studied in college. We had ice cream at work that day, so I’m taking Wallace Stevens this year, though he’s not getting his hopes up.

Photo by Jeff Kubina, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.
L.L. Barkat
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Filed Under: Interview, Interviews, Writing Life

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About L.L. Barkat

L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.

Comments

  1. L. L. Barkat says

    June 19, 2015 at 11:18 am

    I know I’m technically the author of this post, but really the featured voice is yours, Laura Brown.

    I *loved* the aardvarks and the fact that you handed in unassigned reports. A true information-lover from the start (and I’m assuming maybe your actions made your teacher happy, which you would have perceived).

    We really look forward to working with you this year, btw. As I’ve said before, we’re going to have fun 🙂 (Okay, and we’ll get some important work done, too!)

    Reply
    • Laura Brown says

      June 19, 2015 at 11:33 am

      I remember the first thing that amazed me about aardvarks was that a word could begin with two As.

      I may have perceived that unconsciously. Or maybe from a very young age I was seeking an audience for my writing? She was a new teacher, in her second year out of college, and I think among other things it made the work fun for her. I had the gift of seeing her two years ago, and she remembered that stuff all these decades later.

      We will have fun, and we will live to work, yes? Two L.Ls together are a force of … something.

      Reply
      • Laura Brown says

        June 19, 2015 at 11:45 am

        Speaking of fun, that’s the focus this week in Make You Mom’s self-care series.

        http://makesyoumom.com/self-care-have-fun-at-least-once-a-week/

        Reply
  2. Sandra Heska King says

    June 19, 2015 at 11:22 am

    Love! I don’t think there’s anything Laura has written that hasn’t touched me in some way. (And I loved that stealth book release.)

    Reply
    • Laura Brown says

      June 19, 2015 at 11:33 am

      Wasn’t that fun, Snady? I’m doing one of your Snoopy spins, being featured here today.

      Reply
  3. Maureen Doallas says

    June 19, 2015 at 12:40 pm

    Lovely profile/interview that gets at the heart of who Laura Brown is. Always wonderful to learn more about the wonderfully talented people who choose TweetSpeak as one place to hang out.

    Reply
  4. Carl Sharpe says

    June 20, 2015 at 9:41 am

    It was a pleasure to get to know Laura better. And I will tell you that I loved her selection of the five poems–and the fact that, really, she couldn’t keep her choices to five.. Who could.? Thanks for the insights and delights of this interview.

    Reply
    • Laura Brown says

      June 20, 2015 at 9:53 am

      Hi, Carl! I’d love to know what some of your favorite poems are.

      Reply
      • Carl Sharpe says

        June 20, 2015 at 5:05 pm

        Too hard.

        I will say, though, that I have always felt that Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” was the most perfect lyric poem in our language.

        Now I have to go back to work…

        –Carl

        Reply
    • Elizabeth Marshall says

      June 20, 2015 at 12:54 pm

      Carl, great to have you here at Tweetspeak. We welcome you and hope you will return again soon.

      Elizabeth
      Tweetspeak Social Media Associate, aka Poetry Barista

      Reply
      • Carl Sharpe says

        June 20, 2015 at 5:01 pm

        Thank you, Elizabeth!

        Reply
  5. Diana Trautwein says

    June 20, 2015 at 11:42 am

    Truly lovely interview. Thank you.

    Reply
  6. Donna Z Falcone says

    June 24, 2015 at 10:02 am

    Wonderful interview! I liked learning more about Laura Brown. 🙂

    Reply
  7. Katie says

    November 21, 2015 at 11:01 pm

    “Poetry’s sounds beg to be freed from the page and spoken.” Laura Brown

    This observation reminds me of learning from Michael Card that the Psalms were written to be read out loud, which I have done with them ever since hearing him say that.

    They have become more personal for me and helped me know God in a fuller way.

    Really enjoyed this interview.

    Thank you both,

    Katie

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Happy Thanksgiving Giveaway! - says:
    November 20, 2015 at 8:00 am

    […] Poetry, we’re spending Thanksgiving week being thankful and hosting a sweet giveaway for our Gold Partner, Laura Lynn Brown. As we take the week off, we wish you the very best, whether you’re holidaying or […]

    Reply
  2. Happy Thanksgiving Giveaway! - says:
    November 23, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    […] Poetry, we’re spending Thanksgiving week being thankful and hosting a sweet giveaway for our Gold+ Partner, Laura Lynn Brown. As we take the week off, we wish you the very best, whether you’re holidaying or […]

    Reply
  3. And the Book, Tea & Panera Winners Are! - says:
    December 4, 2015 at 2:16 pm

    […] we hosted a sweet giveaway for our Gold+ Partner, Laura Lynn Brown, who you can find at […]

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