Spotlight On…

Today, Ethel Rohan invites the one and only Molly Gaudry to take the stage.

Writing wise, where are you now? Where are you going?

At the beginning stages of three book-length poem manuscripts. Toward their first-draft finish lines: September 1 (Elena), January 1 (Rosalia), July 1 (Flora the Whore).

What informs your creative process? How do you keep inspired?

I work with words, the already existing work/words of writers I admire: particularly, I’ve borrowed power words from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (for We Take Me Apart) and now I’m borrowing power words from Jeanette Winterson’s “The Poetics of Sex” (Flora the Whore) and her Lighthousekeeping (Rosalia). For Elena, I’m working with hundreds of writers’ poems and flashes. Re: inspiration — a blank page stalls everything, so I borrow.

In addition to writing, you wear many hats. Do you worry about spreading yourself too thin and diluting the quality of your writing, editing, and living?

I do not worry about spreading myself too thin or about that having any influence on the quality of my writing, editing, or living. The writing writes itself very nearly. The editing offers a nice break. I don’t much care for or about the living. It’s something I tolerate, accept. Part of that tolerance means finding the best way(s) to spend my time. So I like to write, edit. I like to be spread, thin.

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