I do believe that one's writing life needs to be kept separate from Po-Biz. Personally, I deal with this by not attending too many poetry readings, primarily reading dead poets or poems in translation, reading Poets & Writers only once for grant/contest information before I quickly dispose of it, and not reading Poetry Daily. Ever.
Cate MarvinThe fiction writer has a lot of balls to juggle. Setting, pacing, dialogue, and so on. And let's not forget: plot. That was always a hard one for me. And I always had this spastic tendency to wrap up a story before I'd seen it the whole way through, a sort of writer's pre-ejaculatory tendency: "The End!"
Cate MarvinI place a lot of emphasis on process and revision because I believe that all of my students can become better writers through hard work.
Cate MarvinConfessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic monologue.
Cate Marvin