From Poet to Novelist and Back (and Beyond) by Guest Writer Erika Mailman

I always looked at a career like Sylvia Plath’s and was in awe. She wrote groundbreaking poetry and her novel The Bell Jar is a classic. I admire people who can excel in different areas of writing. It’s my goal, too. I read widely—why wouldn’t I also want to write widely?

Writing in a different genre makes us perhaps a little uncomfortable, which is often a great way to grow. When I attended my graduate program in poetry, we were required to take at least one class in another genre. I took fiction writing, and have gone on to adopt it as my main thrust for writing. I still write poetry, and every few years I’ll dust off my manuscript and send it around, but my attention and my heart have shifted to novel writing.

And within that category, I’ve published six novels in two subgenres: historical fiction and YA (young adult) fiction, the latter under the pen name Lynn Carthage. I feel like maybe I’m easily distracted?

As many writers do, I’ve cobbled together various jobs that together equal a career. I used to be an adjunct English instructor at the local community colleges (we were called “freeway flyers” because you were only allowed to teach two classes per campus). I’ve let that go, but I still teach novel writing online through Mailstrom Writing Clinic, provide manuscript reviews, lay out a nonprofit newsletter, write novels on spec, and write for newspapers and magazines as a freelancer.

I’ve been freelancing since 2011, but it’s really in the last few years that the pace has picked up and my work has found placement in national publications like the Washington Post, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, and others. And I find this work to be exhilarating. I love pitching an idea I’m excited about, getting a yes (there are a lot of no’s, too, just to be honest), interviewing people who are part of something I’m interested in, and then writing the story. There’s something satisfying about the short timeframe, and the jolt of happiness when a story goes live: a needed counterpoint to the years-long slog of writing fiction. These articles help me pace myself for the long haul of fiction and its complexities and uncertainties.

More recently, a mentor guided me to the epiphany that I should attempt long-form nonfiction with an idea I was pursuing for a magazine. I could adapt the pacing I’ve learned from fiction writing and apply it to the form I typically only consider with a view toward brevity. That’s been really exciting for me to contemplate, and I’m realizing I need to sit down and create an outline for that book, just as I would for a novel.

And then maybe next I’ll try the reverse: short-form fiction.

Or a graphic novel. Or a picture book. Or a novel-length work of linked haiku. Or maybe I’ll brush up on my French so I can do a translation of French poetry. Never say never, right? I wish you varied and multifarious enjoyment of your writing!

Check back in April for an author post on name hopping (yes or no?) and a guest post by poet Indigo Moor!