Autumnal Update and AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer: An Interview with Marcia Meier

This hibernal season I feel a bit like a spider with multiple webs underway at once. I love my work as poetry editor at The Fertile Source, I love my work as part of AROHO's 2011 Summer Retreat Interview Team, I love cross-posting and chatting over at She Writes, and I also love blogging here as Feral Mom, Feral Writer. I have some new projects in the wings for the New Year, including preparing to provide content and moderate discussion at The Collaboration Hub as well as teaching a few on-line writing courses.


I'm busy at work on a Word Press website where I hope to centralize the various content from other sites where I spend a good deal of my writing life. And that will also allow me to slip Feral Mom back to its original seed intent: to bare the landscape of the beautiful challenge and gift of raising children while writing (in the company of other mother writers and artists). I'm also pleased to announce that a prose piece, "Reverie for the Girl at Gabe's, downtown Iowa City" was accepted for on-line publication by In Her place and should be posted before Christmas.

In the meantime, please enjoy this interview I conducted with Marcia Meier. I plan to write my next AROHO reading diary on Marcia's book, Navigating the Rough Waters of Today's Publishing World: Critical Advice for Writers from Industry Insiders (Quill Driver Books, 2010) and will post a link here for you shortly.

Marcia—you are in inspiration—visiting your home site, one sees that you are not only a Member of The Redroom , but you are also currently in a low-residency master of fine arts in creative writing program through Antioch University in Los Angeles. You also have time to give writing workshops while keeping a very active blog at your Willow Rock Writers website. How do you balance it all and what advice would you have for writers trying to build web presence?

Well, when everything is listed like that, I do wonder how I get it all done! I was a print journalist for 17 years before I turned to teaching and books, and I learned how to be very disciplined and organized during those years, so that helps a lot. I try to give myself time to write every day, and I also try to set aside certain days for specific tasks. I usually meet with clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. That leaves Mondays and Fridays (and Saturdays and Sundays) for writing, reading and master’s work. Read more....