David Estringel On Books And Writing

For my latest author interview, I turned to David Estringel.

Our exchange, which has been edited, is below.

“Blood Honey” was released in January of last year. Would you tell me a little bit about it?

“Blood Honey” is the second poetry collection that I published (first with Anxiety Press). It is a direct result of a long, angsty struggle with the passing of my mother in 2020.

I guess you could say that I was stuck vacillating between anger and depression (in terms of ‘stages of grief’) and the pieces in it are pretty reflective of that. It has a touch of everything in it that (in the past) I used to engage in to avoid pain (i.e. drugs, sex, self-harm, and isolation).

A lot of said chaos is put within the context of toxic relationships, but I feel like they were more projections of a more internal struggle. This book is actually my favorite as it is [the] realization of my ‘dream’ as a MFA student. I was asked one day in class what I aspired to accomplish as a writer, and my answer was that I wanted to publish a book that people thought was pure filth but that they secretly stashed under their drivers’ seats along with their empty travel-sized bottles of booze and Altoids tins packed [with] Zig-Zags and half-smoked blunts.

Recently, a client’s mother researched me and bought “Blood Honey,” and emailed my boss that it was “pure filth.” The book is actually pretty restrained, so it isn’t really “pure filth.” Filth, maybe. I did good.

How did you go about getting the book published?

I actually had had some poetry pieces, which are included in “Blood Honey,” published by A Thin Slice of Anxiety (Anxiety Press) and thought that they would be a great choice in terms of getting the manuscript published. The content seemed to be ‘up their alley’ and they appreciated my work, so I contacted them and arranged to have them take a look.

When Cody Sexton contacted me back and said they wanted to publish it, I was ecstatic and jumped right in. After “Blood Honey” was published, I also published “Cold Comfort House” with Anxiety Press and will soon have my fifth book “Blind Turns in the Kitchen Sink” published with them as well.