Author Statement
I write to heal myself, to share the stories that live in my brain’s nooks and crannies, the dusty ones and the lightning strike pathways. I write for the curious, the lost, and the found – a writer whose stories might be found in a lost and found bin. My goal is to inspire and help readers find something to identify with in my words that reminds them of a happy time or softens a traumatic one. I want my words to be universal and unique for each person, which often feels like a tall order for only words. I recently read a post about a Disney visitor who was asked about what was missing in an experience. He told Walt Disney that it needed fireflies. I want my writing to have firefly words that last long past when the pages end. Child Craft is hopefully the juncture of all the things – pickles and yarn, mothers and children, lost memories and lost people, light and life – all woven together with glitter words scattered across the pages.
3 Questions
Amy Barnes
INK: What most inspires you to write?
A.B.: I’m inspired by many things: memories, street signs, fonts, colors, weird news stories, nature, babies, music lyrics, dreams, abandoned places, food, weather, objects. Odd things and odd people. Things I hear while eavesdropping. My notes app is full of prompts like city names, and interesting words. I joke that I am like a literary cat, always drawn to shiny ideas.
INK: What does your writing routine look like?
A.B.: I’m not big on creative routines. I write in my head, carrying around stories and novels, editing as I think. It’s a dangerous practice as I age and more easily forget things. When I get words down, my drafts are far along. For 2024, I have a spreadsheet with publications and times spent writing, in hopes of discovering my routine.
INK: Name a favorite poem or you feel everyone should read and why.
A.B.: I’ve rediscovered Maxine Kumin’s “Getting Through.” There’s something so timeless and timely in her poetry. written a decade ago shortly before her death. Today, it feels as “… if the world is ending, you can tell it’s February by the architecture of the pastures” and snow “falling on the calendar of bad news” of “bombs and grenades, the newly disappeared.”
Q&A with C.W. Bryan
C.W. Bryan: So many of these stories feel varied in their form. You seem to run the gamut of traditional flash fiction to prose poetry, to a healthy combination of both. How do you decide on a form for your story? Or does the story dictate the form?
A.B.: I do think even fiction written as fiction contains a certain amount of non-fiction, simply because our learned and life experiences are always there in our minds. I have specific ideas, objects, and potential characters in my mind. When I sit down to write a story, sometimes the topic I’m exploring dictates if I write as if it is fiction or nonfiction; a heavier subject matter might mean I veer away from it being fully non-fiction.
In a larger sense regarding form, my first two collections were only fiction. Child Craft is a hybrid collection, with a mix of fiction, prose poetry, micro-fiction and creative non-fiction. The label is there but it’s still “stories” on the cover, without specification between the fiction or the CNF. Because my writing often gets marked as experimental, there was something very fitting in including all the forms, a little experimental in itself.
There were some essays and humor pieces that I had published that fell into the topics of parenting that were a bit orphaned. I didn’t feel like they fit well into the mix of the earlier collections. So, honestly I added some of those pieces as a way to bring more focus to the CNF, but still have a connected grouping. I thought it might feel jarring in the Mother Figures or Ambrotypes to drop in one piece of creative nonfiction or any essay into all fiction. I also didn’t have enough non-fiction to create a full collection until I started building Child Craft.
C.W. Bryan: The title “Child Craft” is a lovely nod to the traditional series of children’s books. Was the title always in your head as you put this collection together, or did the pieces just fall into place?
A.B.: The title is a reference to the children’s encyclopedias that I loved as a child. Once I had settled on the title, I ordered a few copies online very inexpensively and was amazed at the 70s artwork and storytelling. I’ve made bookmarks out of the pages and hand them out at events and with book orders I mail from my house. There’s something special to me about sending out pieces of the beloved books, with my books.
I do write and submit individual pieces under a few broad themes, also smaller object and character-focused references. As I have things published or simply file away completed stories, it becomes easier to line them up into a collection.
While each of my collections have titles that hint at the interior stories, I didn’t specifically use a title for the book title. Child Craft follows that same path. For it, the use of the title has multiple meanings: the literal reference to the children’s encyclopedias that featured stories, poems, crafts, and art; but also the more figurative ideas of crafting children and mothers, the craft of motherhood and childhood. The story “Knit One Child” is close to a titular story, but there are literal crafting references and related objects interspersed throughout too.
C.W. Bryan: The collection’s illustrations are so charming. I loved them. Were those also a nod to the Child Craft series? I would love to know if you chose the illustrations and why.
A.B.: They are a nod to the children’s encyclopedia series. As the Belle Point editor and I worked together to design the cover, we carefully chose the fonts, colors, and cover art. She suggested the small line drawing of a little girl covering her eyes. The yarn ball drawing is also a tie-in to the idea of crafting as well.
I have a writing friend, Melissa Llanes Brownlee, a wonderful artist who creates primarily line drawings. Her art style and familiarity with my writing felt like a perfect fit. She created the endplates as custom representations of two of the stories. The additional line drawings were included to keep the overall illustration focus consistent. I loved the combination of the words and artwork and was excited to have her artwork, especially because it directly illustrated two of the stories.
