Interview with 2015-2016 Writing Contest Winner

January 19, 2017January 27, 2017

Elan Writing Contest winner, Terrence Scott

Terrence Scott won Élan’s 30th anniversary writing contest. He was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. He currently attends Flagler College, majoring in theater. Previously, he went to Douglas Anderson School of the Arts for creative writing. Poetry is his favorite form of literature and his biggest inspiration in poetry is Jasmine Mans.

Read his winning piece here: https://elanlitmag.org/submissions/contests/

Currently, what role does art play in your life?

Currently, art plays the role of catalyst in my life. It usually is a sort of trampoline that launches me into experiences that nothing else could. In my writing experience at DA, the art I was producing and inhaling worked not only as a means of connection and expression but also as a venue for self validation. A way for me to watch and document my growth and experiences, whether it be in a flash-fiction piece or spoken word poem. Each time I’ve written anything, it could be observed as a checkpoint in my life.

What was your inspiration for your winning piece?

The inspiration for my piece stimulated from my middle school experience at a private Christian school. I had learned so much about the spectacular side of biblical stories that I was left with a little bit of curiosity about the darker side. This piece is my exploration of that.

What is your process for creating art?

My process for writing is obtuse. A templated structure has never really worked for me. Usually, I get my best work after a emotionally, mentally, or physically provoking event. It could be as simple as stubbing my toe on the edge of the bed or as life changing as a death in the family. Thereafter, [an emotional release happens] on paper. I just let myself say what I want to say. Finally, I revisit the piece after a few days of stepping away from it. Then, I can see things from a different perspective and attack metaphors and syntax and structure in ways that I couldn’t while emotionally impaired.

Do you have any tips for budding artists?

If I could give any tips to young artists, it would simply be to write what you know. For example, in the piece that I was fortunate enough to win the award with, it is obvious that I have no experience with casting plagues onto an entire civilization. However, there are moments and experiences in my life that have similarities to what the people surrounding that event must have felt. This is the key to making certain aspects in writing that you thought were intangible, tangible.

Accidental Spoken Word

January 17, 2017November 1, 2017

spoken-word When I was a freshman, I decided to try out the creative writing clubs in an attempt to get involved more at my school and with my art. I ended up at a spoken word club meeting in September, with absolutely no idea about what spoken word might be, other than it’s name. I could predict that this would be outloud writing, people standing before a classroom to deliver their work. I couldn’t predict the way words, in the mouths of experienced juniors and seniors, spun this dance of language, or seemed to physicalize in the air, emotions transferred straight to me. In a single hour-and-half after school meeting, I became dedicated to a new art form.

Spoken word is unique in the fact that it can, so immediately, reach an audience. There is something in a performer speaking their own words, a person shivering before you and saying this is my truth, that makes people connect deeply to the words of spoken word artists. This immediacy is also deceptively simple, as those audiences, including myself, realize when we turn to making our own spoken word. A terrific performer can’t make up for shoddy words, and incredible language can’t provide for a scared or over ambitious performer. The form is a unique and delicate balance between the two forces. Spoken word exists where words cannot just sit on a page. Spoken word is necessary for when the truth on the page is so internalized in a person they individually have to speak it. Often, in the transition, the ability to be so true through this medium of words, a spoken word piece flourishes with wordplay, and becomes a celebration of language itself. It blends with music, runs off with pun and double meaning. A spoken word artist has to find some way to realize all of the potential of the genre, and still come on stage and deliver what is most true to themselves. They have to use this truth to drive choices about what song, or crazy movement is used. Spoken word is a vibrant tradition, an intellectual tradition, but still a tradition of gut feelings. It is messy. It is invaluable.

Recently, I had to struggle with risk taking in the form for a piece I performed at Douglas Anderson’s Coffee House performance. The piece centered around my personal transitions while working on trail crew in the New Hampshire woods this summer. I wanted to convey the feeling of swinging a double jack, this eight-pound metal head on a wood handle, and using it crushing rocks. The piece really centered around this return to loving the physical body. The motion, the way it forces you to appreciate every single muscle, felt too important to leave out. So I spoke, and swung a pretend double jack. I had to take this risk of looking like a teenager with an air guitar, but I did it. Because, the emotions, and currents of ideas in the piece, called for something big. In the end, I think the motion worked. It showed the movement of manual labor. I reconnected me, every time, with those summer days, which helped me bring the piece to the audience.

Spoken word is my release, because it asks the question: What are you most angry/joyful/sad/excited/all around passionate about? Write, speak, and move, from there.

–Ana Shaw, Junior Editor-in-Chief

On Writing the Truth

January 12, 2017

logan-january I didn’t walk into Creative Nonfiction at the start of sophomore year expecting to hate the class, but I didn’t expect to love it either. My main concern was that my life didn’t offer enough experiences to write about; inspiration for wild fictional stories is endless, but my own life is finite. I didn’t know what I would write after the second or third essay.

What I didn’t realize is that while I have limited experiences, there are unlimited ways to tell those experiences. I can write about my parents’ divorce from the perspective of myself when I broke my arm while they were arguing, or I can write about standing in front of the front door with Mom’s suitcases on the night that we left. Even in those specific moments, there is more to tell; with the broken arm, do I write on the realization of the fact that my parents weren’t “alright,” or do I write on the duality of pain I felt in that instant? I have written none of the experiences that I have described so far, but recognizing the possibilities in that I can write on these things is the most important part.

Creative nonfiction opened doors for me in respect to both its secular genre, and in respect to all other genres, because what is more applicable to writing than the truth? Creative nonfiction was the first time that I felt it was okay to write the truth in the same ways I had written stories, and it was the first time that I realized that truth is essential to all writing. My current tactic on writing poetry is drawing from my own life, because there is nothing that I can write better than what I have already experienced. My fiction now includes pieces of me, whether a character is dealing with loss or visiting a setting that I am familiar with. In general, I have felt a lot better about all of my writing since I took Creative Nonfiction class, because it has allowed me to know more about my own writing. I can take a situation familiar to me and alter it in the name of fiction without sacrificing the fact that I know enough about the situation itself to write about it in a pseudo-personal manner.

Even more integral to my writing is the fact that creative nonfiction has allowed me to look at my own life experiences from a different perspective and gain from the writing process. I can learn from what I have already gone through in a new way, each time I create a new piece, each time I redraft. The beauty in writing what has already passed is that I can continue to learn from the moment long after it is gone, because in writing, it continues to happen, over and over and over again.

-Logan Monds, Social Media Editor