The idea of finding oneself as a writer in what one reads is an attractive notion. And as difficult as it is to answer larger questions about what we write and why or how, our readership and experiences or experiments with reading can help us find answers, however changeable they may be, to some of those questions. The Inklette team tried answering some of these questions by flipping through the pages of books we are currently reading or books near us, kept an inch away from our grasp, and copying sentences or two that answer the questions of who we write for, what we write about, why we write, when we write and where. We hope you enjoy this blog, not only as a potential reading list to kick off the fall but also as an experiment in reading ourselves in what we read.
Devanshi Khetarpal, Editor-in-Chief
from Neapolitan Chronicles by Anna Maria Ortese (trans. Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee)
Who do you write for?
He must have left Milan some time ago.
What do you write about?
Silence, swift memories of another life, a sweeter life, nothing else.
Why do you write?
Much like the previous evening in Chiaia, although it wasn’t yet the same hour, here, too, there was a great commotion, a feeling of extraordinary excitement, as if something had happened– a murder, a wedding, a victory, two horses breaking loose, a vision– but then drawing nearer I saw it was nothing.
When do you write?
On the evening of June 19 (evening in a manner of speaking, since the sky was bright and the sun was still high over the sea, its glare intense), I boarded the #3 tram, which runs along the Riviera di Chiaia to Mergellina.
Where do you write?
This cafe is at the intersection of Piazza Trieste e Trento and the tortuous Via Chiaia.
Angela Gabrielle Fabunan, Poetry Editor
from Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons by Marilyn Hacker
Who do you write for?
“For you, someone was waiting up at home.
For me, I might dare more if someone were.”
– from ‘Runaways Café I’
What do you write about?
“I broke a glass, got bloodstains on the sheet:
hereafter, must I only write you chaste
connubial poems?”
– from ‘Eight Days in April’
Why do you write?
“Now that we both want to know what we want,
now that we both want to know what we know,
it still behooves us to know what to do:
be circumspect, be generous, be brave,
be honest, be together, and behave.”
– from ‘Runaways Café II’
When do you write?
“Hello, sweetheart, it’s seven-twelve AM.”
– from ‘International Women’s Day, 1985’
Where do you write?
“Where I see only you, where you can see me.”
– from ‘Having Kittens About Having Babies III’
Sophie Panzer, Prose Editor
from The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote
Who do you write for?
So far, Kirsty and Mouse are my favorites.
What do you write about?
I am a collector of stories, a connoisseur of character, so for the most part I love the random way that traveling strangers enter and exit people’s lives.
Why do you write?
I can still work in my underwear, but I hardly ever eat soup right out of the pot anymore.
When do you write?
Was it when all the cute rock-climber girls went back to school and the rednecks didn’t?
Where do you write?
Like I said, I love Amsterdam.
For staff bios, please refer to our Masthead page here. Amazon links to purchase books can be accessed by clicking the titles.
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