Colleen Alles On Books And Writing
For my latest author interview, I’m joined by Colleen Alles. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
This interview has been edited lightly.
You published “After the 8-Ball” in 2022. Would you tell me a little bit about it?
Thank you so much, Taylor, for highlighting this book! “After the 8-Ball” is my debut poetry collection, published by Cornerstone Press. The poems in this book center around love, loss, motherhood, and other mysteries of daily life.
The book’s sections are named for the faces of the twenty-sided die within a Magic 8-Ball; they have names like, As I see it, yes, and Better not tell you now. As I was assembling the collection, I began to consider which answer each poem would receive if they each gave the popular divination toy a shake. Some poems are asking questions that earn them a yes or no, if that makes sense, but for most, the reply is hazy, try again.
How long did it take to write? Do you have a writing routine?
“After the 8-Ball” took about three years to write, and is also the culmination of twenty years of work. I began writing in college, but got serious about it later — around the time I was pregnant with my daughter. I do not have a writing routine, but I do have an obsessive bend toward it. When I am deep in a draft, I carry on with the practical parts of my life (work, cooking dinner, carting my kids to soccer) with a distracted air of discontentment. I hope this is normal! I think writers who are serious about writing will always seek ways to carve time and protect it.
How did you go about getting the book published?
In the spring of 2021, from a fellow writer, I learned about the press at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point and was thrilled they actively seek poets from the Midwest. States like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin — they often are overlooked or understated. The term you hear is “flyover states.” I really appreciated that Cornerstone Press, in their Portage Poetry Series, wants those voices specifically; in addition to poetry, they publish fiction and non-fiction.
What sort of feedback have you received?
One fantastic thing about working with a student-led press is that interested and passionate students provided fantastic editorial suggestions to the poems while we were shaping the manuscript. Feedback from the students really helped me elevate some of the poems — particularly unpublished ones that weren’t quite yet sure what they wanted to say. I can’t say enough nice things about Ross Tangedal and his team at the press.
Feedback from the book has been good. Many of the poems in the book are tributes to my loved ones (family, friends), and it’s a gift to share those.
Why do you write poetry?
Oh gosh. I write fiction and poetry, and I come to each for different reasons. In fiction, I am long-winded and expansive. Poetry seems to force succinctness. In turn, this forces me to decide what I actually want to say.
I think I come to poetry with intense emotion, and I come to fiction when I feel playful and curious about what will happen next to the characters I’ve created. Is that a good answer?
I think we all write poetry to express the parts of ourselves that want to emerge.
