Courtney O'Banion Smith is a Writespace member and image-driven narrative poet whose work has appeared in Southwestern American Literature, Poetic Asides, a Writer’s Digest poetry blog, The Ekphrastic Review, Relief, and Barren Magazine. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from Texas State University-San Marcos. A professor of Creative Writing at Houston Community College, she is pursuing a Master of Arts in Theopoetics and Writing at Bethany Theological Seminary. In addition to a Pushcart Prize nomination, she won the 2022 Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Award, a prestigious award given by the Poetry Society of Texas for her first book In Fidelity, which they released this month. Learn more about her here and order your copy wherever you buy books.

You’ve just released your  first poetry book called In Fidelity in the summer of 2023. Where does the name come from? 

The book has to do with the idea of truth and faithlessness. The word fidelity can mean faithfulness to a person or loved one. It can mean faithfulness, support, or loyalty to a cause or a group. I'm fascinated with the idea of narrative, whether fiction or factual, getting at the truth and how artists and writers try to get to the capital-T Truth. I'll bend the little-T truth to get to that capital-T Truth if I need to in my art or my writing.

So the idea for the title and making it two words, In Fidelity, is faithfulness and truth. 

I'm fascinated with the questions:  How do you stay true to yourself? How do you stay true to others? How do you stay true to the truth? How do you stay true to the past? And when you're true to one of those things, are you dishonest or unfaithful to any of the others?

There are three sections to the book, and they all have to do with either fidelity, one word, or in fidelity, two words.

What inspired you to write this type of book?

This book was 20 years in the making. I am a snail writer; I am very slow. I don't produce a lot of poetry unless I'm doing some kind of project. I’m not a prolific writer, so I'll publish a poem here and there.

I know people who just crank them out, and they’re constantly submitting. I'm so happy for them but also a little jealous. But I have a lot of different hats that I wear and ADHD, so I'm always scattered. 

Two of the sections are extended narratives over multiple poems. I like to tell stories in verse. I want the poems to stand by themselves, yet if strung together, tell an overarching story with characters and plot development. It ends up in a different place than where it started.

When assembling the manuscript, I saw the theme of fidelity in the two sections that are separate narratives and then in the one section of stand-alone poems. 

Faithfulness was the overall theme.

​The poems examine things like love and loss. How did you choose which topics to write about? 

We all experience love and loss at some level in some way at some point because we are human. That's the universal — we're all going to experience that at some point in various ways, and it's a unique experience for everyone even though we have those experiences that are common to humanity. They are particular to each individual. 

Still, we don't know how to deal with love or loss until we go through it. And even then, if it's a different love or loss, it's still a different experience. 

These are themes that come up again and again, and we are always fascinated with those themes, either as artists, writers, or audience members because we can't really know what it’s like for someone else or what it will be like for us when it happens again. I think we're looking for that camaraderie. And we're also looking for that, “How did you get through it to help me get through it?” 

On some level, that’s what I’m always writing about.

What’s something you’ve learned through writing the book? 


Twenty years takes patience. The positive but difficult things I learned were to have patience and a thick skin because I got a lot of rejections before I won the 2022 Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Award. Also, to understand that even when I got those rejections, nobody writes like me. Nobody's lived my life. Nobody lives in this body but me. I had to reframe that and say, “Well, this is just not for them. My voice is not for them,” and move on to a place where it did fit. 

I learned fidelity to myself as a writer. I learned to stay true to my vision and that drivenness all creatives possess. What is that drivenness? We have to pursue it. 

So patience is the number one lesson.

You have published many poems. What draws you to poetry, and who are your favorite poets? 

I loved poetry from the time I was a little girl and heard Mother Goose nursery rhymes. They were always weird, and I didn’t understand them. I loved to say them, and I loved to hear them. I loved the musicality of them. 

There were strange little stories, like "Ring Around the Rosie," and I always wanted to know more about them - why they were written and what they meant. 

At some point, I came across Shakespeare and fell in love. From Shakespeare to the British Romantic poets. I was a geek like that, a real nerd. From there, the world of poetry opened up. 

I started reading who they read, all the way to Homer, and seeing that there was so much more. And then I realized amazing people are writing right now, so it was that progression. 

My favorites change all the time, but I can say who are my early influences and who I'm really into right now.

My influences include T. S. Eliot and H.D. Also, William Carlos Williams and John Ashbery influenced the ekphrastic section in my book. Others include Sharon Olds, Louise Glück, Rita Dove, who wrote Thomas and Beulah, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton. I cut my writer’s teeth on the confessional poets, which is where a lot of that confessional narrative poetry comes from. Those are some of my influences, and I still love them today. 

There are a lot of contemporary poets I love and admire — Jericho Brown, Saeed Jones, Houston’s current Poet Laureate,  Aris Kian Brown, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. I love Aimee and Ross Gay. Their poetic relationship is amazing, so I’m always following that. 

I'm looking forward to reading the new book by Courtney Faye Taylor. She's a new voice I'm excited to hear. 

I'm constantly trying to stay in touch with what is going on right now. I love a strong voice and point of view.  I want to  come away from reading a poet’s work  knowing more about myself or  life. 

You’re pursuing a Master of Arts in Theopoetics and Writing at Bethany Theological Seminary. What does the degree cover, and how does it fit into your writing? 

It's a combination of theology, which is how we think about God, and poiesis, the making or creating of something that didn't exist before. It's art informing theology and not the other way around. 

It's more about the embodied experience of aesthetics. It’s about experience, and it's about embodiment. What is that thing that happens when we create? What is that thing that happens when I go into The Zone and I'm writing, and two hours have gone by, and I completely lost track of time because I'm so into the making process? What is that source we draw on? The Greeks called it the Muses. We have different words for it in different cultures and different times.

We're also all trying to express the inexpressible. How do you talk in finite terms about the infinite? And you’re never going to hit that mark, yet we all know and experience to some extent what the creator of that piece experienced. It’s the idea of the transcendent transferred through the artist to the audience.  

In the program that I’m in, I’m also pursuing my creative writing. I’m writing a lot of essays, but I’m also pursuing my preferred art form, and it’s the only program of its kind in the country. Theopoetics is newish in theological circles. It’s really exciting to be a part of it. 

What type of writing ritual do you follow? 

It changes all the time due to my ADHD. I need rituals, but I also get bored. I have to change it when it doesn’t work anymore. 

I’m always layering. I might, for example, decide to write sonnets this month, so that’s the first layer. Then I’ll decide the sonnets have to contain colors or  specific words, or maybe I’ll write a crown of sonnets about a specific topic. I make my own riddles or puzzles I have to solve poetically, but it’s serious play. I’m playing, but I’m earnest about it and need to have fun. 

How did you join Writespace Houston?  

I saw a flyer at A Movable Feast, which is a restaurant, several years ago about the Writefest Conference. There was a week of programming before the weekend of the conference, and I attended. I wanted to become more involved with it. I also started volunteering and participating in panels at the conference. 

It’s a great organization and has people that have so much to share with me as a writer. I started meeting the people involved and said, “I wanna be a part of this.”

How has the organization helped you with your writing? 

I had already started on the last section of my book, which is ekphrastic. Then I took the chapbook class with Kendra Preston Leonard at Writespace. Since I was already working on a series of poems that spoke to each other, I thought they would work as a chapbook. 

The class was wonderful because we would share our work and get feedback. She taught us how we should craft a chapbook. It ended up being a whole section in this book. That support and feedback helped me hone those poems and craft them until they could get up and walk on their own. It was priceless.

When did you first call yourself a poet? 

I called myself a poet before I got into the MFA program in Creative Writing at Texas State University. In Austin, you could go to open mics every night of the week back in the 90s, which I did when I was an undergrad student at UT. I really got to know the writing community. 

Not only was I writing my work, but sharing it in a public space in a public way. And that's when I started saying, “I think this is what I am.” 

I wasn’t just doing my poems in my journal and reading them to friends who couldn’t say anything but good things to me because they were my friends. I was taking my poems out and letting them breathe.

How would you describe your writing style? 

It’s very image heavy, which is why I love haiku. I want my reader to have something to cling to and see. 

I admire more abstract poets. I do that sometimes, but I’m more of an image-driven poet. My poems tend to tell stories or present scenes; I'm not lyrical. An image-driven narrative poet is what I tend to be, whether it's personal or a story I've made up. 

There’s also a lot of talking in my poems. Either there's a person speaking and telling the story or actual dialogue.

What is the most valuable advice you’ve been given about writing? 

They're so common and cliched because they're, to some extent, true, like that old adage, butt in the chair. You’re not a writer unless you’re writing. You can be writing slowly; you can be writing a little bit. If you’re a writer, you’re gonna write it. You’re not gonna think about or talk about it, you’re gonna do it. So butt in chair!

Keep going after getting rejected many times and read about other writers’ experiences. Stephen King talks about all the rejection slips he received and how he papered the wall with them in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I like reading those kinds of stories from successful writers or writers who have more than one book about how it was before they were published and how long it took them. When I hear them, I say to myself, “I'm gonna keep going because they kept going.” The stories of those who got rejected a million times, but stayed true to their vision until somebody could see what their vision was, I think, are the best advice. 

What is the worst piece of advice you’ve been given about writing? 

Someone told me that poetry should be standardized. They were giving me feedback on how I should format my poem and that there should be some standardization – to capitalize the first letter of the first word of every line. I said, “What? Okay, that’s very interesting.” But in my mind, I said, “I’m not doing that!” 

What advice do you have for an aspiring writer or poet? 

You never arrive, but you have to keep going. It’s truly the journey and the process. It’s great to aim for goals and accomplishments, and there's nothing wrong with that, but if that is why you're doing it…That’s a no. It’s really about the journey. 

And then, a little more practical, I would say to read everything. Pursue your weird curiosities because it will come out in your work. Read everything and everybody because you never know what will inspire the next thing you write. No experience is wasted experience. 

Even if I try something and fail at it, I still gain some skills or experience that will be useful in ways I can't even predict. You never lose the skillsets or those experiences. Read, just pursue your curiosity, and layer things. Be persistent, be crazy, and see what happens! 

​

We are fortunate at Writespace Houston to have had Angélique Jamail in our community for over five years! She’s both a stellar student and a master Creative Writing teacher. Her fiction and poetry have received praise from the literary world. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has been a finalist for the New Letters Prize in Poetry. She writes poetry, memoir, and both realistic and speculative fiction. Her current novel-in-progress is a Steampunk-flavored ghost story. Visit her official website to learn more about her and to read her blog. Follow her on Twitter, IG, and Facebook.   

Tell us about your writing. What are you currently working on?

I am a multi-genre hybrid author, which means that I write in a variety of genres, and I have been published in a variety of ways.

I always have multiple projects going on. At the moment, I’m in the middle of writing a novel which is a fantasy/Steampunk-flavored ghost story. In the past, I have written high and urban fantasy. I write poetry, memoir, and creative non-fiction — I slipstream all over the place! I also write a zine that is a variety show in a magazine.

My novel and my zine take up most of my writing time.

Where can we find your writing? 

I have several fiction and poetry books out. You can find them wherever you can find books, but I hope especially you’ll support indie bookstores like Lit Book Bar, Blue Willow, and The Twig. You can find all my titles in those shops. 

You have published over three books. How did it feel when your first one got published, and what would you do differently? 

The books I have now on my website were not the first ones I published. I published a couple of poetry chapbooks many years ago. The first one came out in the late ‘90s.

The first time I was published I was ecstatic about it. I had just finished my degree at U of H, and it was something I wanted to share with the world. It was a chapbook, not a full-length collection, but still, I was very excited to have something I could hold in my hands and hand to people. 

Coming from an environment where some people didn’t recognize the value of a creative writing degree and asked me what I was going to do with it when I had something to share with them, it was validating in a way that made them see that it was a real thing. This is a thing that can be done. This is a thing that I can do. As exciting as it was for me, it was transformative for the people around me and their perception of what I wanted to do with my life. 

And what would I do differently? Every book is a different animal. Every book release is a somewhat different process. One thing that is not my superpower is marketing, but authors have to be adept at that now. No matter how you're published, you still have to be able to market it. Every time I have a book come out, I try to get better at that part of things.

How do you prioritize your writing? 

That’s the magic question for writers who have other jobs. And I do; I teach. I try to build in time in the day when I can do writing as a practice. I wouldn’t say I am always entirely successful at it. Some writers believe that you have to write every single day, but that's not realistic for some people. 

I have a demanding 70-hour-a-week job and teenagers at home, so writing every day is not necessarily a thing that fits into my lifestyle, but I do try to make it a regular practice. One thing that helps is doing writing sprints with other people, and we don't necessarily have to be physically in the same place. I find that those short sprint times help me focus as a writer. It also helps to know what I'm going to do going in. I try not to ever start with a blank page.

How would you describe your writing style? 

I would say that it's literary-minded. Especially when I’m writing fiction, I focus as much as I can on character-driven stories, and I try to make the writing excellent at the cellular level. 

I also try to write things that are unusual, which unfortunately sometimes makes them hard for the traditional publishing industry to categorize. Sometimes I like to work with familiar tropes and do them in different ways.

Every time I come to a project, I come at it with the voice I've cultivated over a really long time of writing, but each project is its own beast.

What life lesson have you learned from being a writer?

I’ve learned that it’s okay to live inside your imagination. Understand the separation between imagination and reality, but know that it's okay to hang out there.

I would also say that other things which are important for writers to understand about the writing life have good corollaries to other aspects of life. Persistence. A thick skin. And understanding how to deal with rejection — these are all things you need to be a successful writer, and those are all good qualities to have in your character too.

Tell us about your favorite Writespace workshop. Why was it your favorite? 

Gosh, I don’t know if I can pick a favorite! Every workshop I've taught for Writespace has been so much fun, and in every workshop I have taken, I feel like I’ve learned something valuable. 

I am not one of those authors who think I've reached a certain point in my career, so I don't need to take classes anymore. That's not a healthy attitude, so I continue to take workshops despite being a master teacher. 

In general, I love workshops that are generative and allow you in the space of that time to write and generate new stuff. As a student, that's what I'm most looking for from a workshop. If it's a writing workshop, give me a prompt and a space and a framework, and let me work on my stuff, and let me start new stuff, and let me learn this thing.

If it's more of a technical or craft-based workshop, I'm always interested in learning new techniques for the writing process. For example, I've taken outlining workshops because I'm not naturally an outliner. I’m more of a discovery writer.

All the workshops have been good! 

How did you join Writespace Houston?  

It happened a number of years ago, a few years before the pandemic. I took a Sunday afternoon poetry workshop every weekend for a month. This was back in the old studio in 2017 or 2018. I found that workshop to be wonderful. And it was when I realized that Writespace was the place to go if you wanted to write science fiction or fantasy, which I do. They celebrate it. 

The more I got involved in workshops, the more classes I took, and the more people I met, I realized it was a much better and awesome organization even than the very encouraging rumors had led me to believe. 

How has the organization helped you with your writing? 

I think deadlines keep us accountable. It’s very easy to let writing slide when it's not your primary full-time job, and I’ve found that participating in workshops keeps me on a schedule and gives me external deadlines. It keeps me accountable for producing work and has been useful for my process. 

In every class I've taken, I've learned something valuable, and everything that I learn about writing only helps me as a writer. It's never time wasted. Everything goes into the soup and makes it better from within.

When did you first call yourself a writer? 

In elementary school – I was really young. I knew writing stories was a pretty important part of my character by fourth grade. I don't think I ever thought of myself as not a writer after that point. 

I loved trying to make art from a very young age. I was constantly trying to draw, and I still love painting; it's one of my hobbies. But fifth grade was the last time that I had regular art classes because it was something that my school had once a week. When we were signing up for electives for sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, we had to choose which elective we wanted to take. I put art as my first choice and creative writing as my second choice because it never occurred to me that I wouldn't write stories sitting in my bedroom with a journal. But I wanted the art instruction. Then my art teacher pulled me out of class one day to tell me I should take creative writing. I wasn't very good at drawing or painting! And so, from sixth grade on, that was my primary artistic focus.

I took creative writing every single day in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades; I was very fortunate. Then I had English teachers in high school who encouraged my creative writing. By the time I was 16, I had decided that was going to be my career path. And it’s what I went to U of H for. I just knew that's what I was going to do.

What is the most valuable advice you’ve been given about writing? 

That no matter where you think you have failed, you can always just start over the next day. 

And just building a writing practice, the habit of sitting down and writing, is really valuable. You can't necessarily control the output, but you can control the attempt. So just sit down and show up for the work, and the writing will flow. You just have to build that practice in.

What is the worst piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?

The worst piece of advice I've been given about writing is anything that somebody says as if it is authoritatively the gospel. One important thing to remember about all writing advice is that not all advice works for every writer. And anybody who’s going to make an edict about something, maybe, misses the point. And so I tend to take, as every writer should, all advice with a grain of salt, and say, Is this going to work for me? Is it real? Is it practical? Let's try it out. 

What advice do you have for an aspiring writer? 

Just show up and put words on the page. Find teachers you can work with and work with them, and find a critique group that you get along with. It may take several tries before you find the right critique group, but just keep trying. But you can't do anything until you put the words on the page. And try not to be too hard on yourself if you don't write every day.​

Writespace member Brooke Summers-Perry is a creative who uses her love for spirituality, art, and writing to help others find themselves and their place in the world. With her son, she co-founded the organization We Practice Life to support those who want a meaningful and fulfilling life. Learn more about her here. 

We're proud to call her a Writespacer and introduce her to you.
Tell us about your writing. What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a lot of different projects at once. I write poetry and memoir. I have written four children’s books and self-published three of them. I also have a how-to book on different practices. 

In regards to memoirs, I’m working on one or two. And I’m currently working with an illustrator on a children’s book. 

What type of writing do you love to do? 

Writing with nature as my muse is my favorite thing. I grew up on a hundred acres in the middle of the woods in Kentucky. Because of this, there's such a deep appreciation for all creatures that flow out of me. I just need to put my pinky toe on the grass. And I'm connected with nature. It's my happy place.

Where can we find your writing?  

You can find my self-publishing works on Amazon and other writings on my blog. I’m about to start contributing again. 

I’m part of a writing group that started out of a Writespace workshop, set to celebrate its third anniversary soon! A lot of my writing comes from prompts and workshops within that group. 

You have a certification as a Spiritual Director. What drove you to a career in spirituality? 

Creativity drove me to this career. For me, It's very difficult to compartmentalize things. After working in the corporate world in architecture and becoming a mom, I went through an identity crisis that I took as a spiritual crisis. All forms of creativity - writing, painting, and teaching - became a spiritual calling. I asked myself how to be the main character in my life since I was trying to be part of myself. 

I had a big crisis in 2007, and I enrolled in a three-year program with the Spiritual Direction Institute, where I formed the majority of my spirituality. 

I didn’t exactly set up to make a career out of it. I wanted to pursue something I was meant to do, which is still a working process. 


When and how did you start to integrate spirituality into your art and writing?

It was accidental. Way before the time I went to the Spiritual Direction Institute. The first time I did that was when I mentored kids through an organization I started called “It’s Cool to Care.” I became involved because the children wanted to make a positive impact in the world and didn’t have the attention of adults who saw and heard them. I became that adult for them. It was integrated as we started to do art and craft projects, advocacy and fundraising campaigns, and more. We expressed spirituality in a practical way. 

It became more personal when I started to empathize with my children’s preschool teachers and think about how hard it was to be a teacher. Teacher appreciation day came around. I did a watercolor painting that reflected each teacher’s happy place and gave it to them as their teacher appreciation gift. One of the teachers was enrolled in the Art Institute and had to do a project on an artist she looked up. She chose me, and it floored me because I never called myself an artist before. 

These things were all part of a spiritual awakening. It showed me, too, that there were opportunities to express myself through art.  

You founded the We Practice Life organization. What is it about, and what is its purpose? 

“We Practice Life” is about sharing integrated and simple practices that have helped my own journey and the journeys of people in my life, from my children to my friends. We practice things that help us practice doing all parts of life better.

We give our cliff notes to people, and it’s an ongoing practice for me to continue developing the content and practicing with people. 

Our group’s purpose is to have fun becoming better people in the stages we’re at in life. 

You also host pop-up art cafes. How did this get started? 

The pop-art cafes started because “We Practice Life” gained a studio space during the pandemic and out of people’s longing in our community for a safe space that allowed them to explore their creativity. I invite people to come and play with the different painting tools and experiment and express themselves.  

If interested, sign up for our next pop-up art session here. 

Why is it important for people to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well? 

We're not put on this planet to make lives harder for each other. My life’s purpose is to leave this place in a better state in all the little ways. We’re capable of having a positive impact on other people when we’re mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well. 

How do you prioritize your writing with your schedule? 

I'm currently doing The Artist's Way as a 12-month instead of a 12-week program with a group of people at Autumn Counseling. I write in my morning pages most mornings. Through this, I'm reminding myself that my art matters and that I have to prioritize my writing and visual art. It helps me stay balanced. 

When did you first call yourself a writer? 

In 2017. I had already self-published books by then, but it wasn't until I wanted to get a job with Writers in the Schools that I gave myself that label. Although I could see myself in the classroom, I didn’t see myself as a writer. I pushed myself to look at the application, which required me to submit writing samples. I thought, “Oh gosh, which one should I use?” And then I thought, “Oh, I’m a writer!” 

How did you join Writespace Houston?  

When I used to work at a spiritual center in downtown, I met with Elizabeth White-Olsen, the founder of Writespace, to collaborate and bring organizations together to do some programming. I visited Writespace’s location at the time and followed them online. All the workshops sounded great, and it got to the point where it made more sense to become a member than not since I was all in on the programs.  

How has the organization helped you with your writing? 

A writing group came out of Cameron Dezen Hammon's spiritual memoir workshop. I meet people from that group, and we continue to have regular meetings. 

Workshops build communities, and events are constant reminders of the craft.   

I read for the first time at an open mic event due to Writespace. When I go to this type of event, I’m deeply moved as a listener. 

A better question might be, “How would I be a writer without Writespace?” 

Tell us about your favorite Writespace workshop. Why was it your favorite?

This question is a hard one because the writing group that came out of Hammon's workshop has been ongoing for three years! 

I want to lift a workshop by Joyce Boatright. In one of her classes, her prompt was about where our name came from, and, believe it or not, I was still working through the identity issue. I got a lot out of writing about where my name came from. And I got so much out of each participant and their reflection on the same prompt, too. 

What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing? 

Do it. Don’t overthink it, just do it. Don’t worry about the critics, and keep practicing. 

What is the worst piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?

When I started my journey as a creative and trying to make my life, I had to leave the architecture field because it was not authentic for me to be that. The worst advice I ever got was, “You just need to get a real job, ” when I lost my job at the spiritual center.  And while it’s not about writing, it totally is.  

What advice do you have for an aspiring writer? 

Be and stay true to yourself and whatever practice it takes to do that. Give it enough space - whether it’s through a mic, pen, or typewriter - to that inner guide, that voice on the inside. 

Aside from being a writer, you’re an interfaith minister. How did this come about? 

I taught English at various colleges and universities, but I have always been interested in social justice. When I moved back to Texas in 2018, I started working with my church doing social justice work and also preaching. I had been through trauma myself. I had gone through a very painful divorce and was looking for a way to be present for people to deal with their life crises. 

I found out about some programs in hospitals for chaplaincy. I applied for one and this became an extension of the work I was doing through my congregation.

Now I’m doing my seminary to become a minister and a chaplain. 

How has this role influenced your writing and your social work in Houston? 

I have always been interested in various religious points of view, how people think, and what brings them meaning and comfort. I hope to put these things into my main character in The Mountains Under Her Feet. 

It has influenced how I portray my characters. Also, I honor different kinds of journeys where people find ways to connect and can be part of something greater than themselves. 

What social justice areas are you passionate about, and how are they reflected in your writing? 

I have always been passionate about people connecting and dialoguing across racial and faith boundaries. 

I'm very passionate about women's rights, reproductive justice, immigration, and LGBTQ+ rights.

You’re also an instructor. Why do you teach? 

I used to teach freshman English at the university level. At the time, I felt like people didn’t like the class much because they had to take it and didn’t get inspired by it. I was very happy when I came to Writespace because I got the opportunity to teach things that I developed and felt were important. 

You teach at Writespace. How did you join the organization? 

When I moved back to Houston, I was looking for work. Unfortunately, many opportunities dried up due to COVID. 

I took a memoir class at Writespace because I wanted to work on a piece of my own. I was first a student and then became a teacher. 

What are you particularly geeked to teach about?  

I have loved everything that I have taught! 

Jamie asked me to teach lyric essay writing. Even though I didn’t know much about it, I did it, and now I love it. 

I developed a “Writing Through Your Dreams” class. Every dream that I have had has been like a narrative, and I have always been passionate about analyzing and understanding them. I’m geeked about using dreams in writing. I like the students to write about their dreams and work them into larger stories. 

The social justice writing classes have been the most meaningful because people share the things they have been through. All of these things are heart wrenching and important. The stories reflect not just what’s going on in Houston, but nationally and in the world. 

I can’t pick a favorite! 

What do you want your students to get out of your classes? 

I always want my students to get a sense of confidence, a sense that they have an important piece to tell, and a sense that we believe they can do it. I also hope they learn something new about the writing process and a wide range of writing techniques. 

How did you formulate your teaching philosophy of, “I consider myself a facilitator rather than a lecturer. The goal is to help students focus and develop meaningful stories and essays.  Learning to give and receive critiques in a supportive environment is part of the process also.  I provide a framework of writing prompts, questions for thought and class discussion, and examples of excellent writing for analysis.”? 

I’m a big advocate of reading other writers and looking at what’s being done and what’s really good. 

I like to use examples from other people and want students to focus on writing instead of just listening to me. I, and other teachers at Writespace, host these classes to help people write. 

Has COVID had any influence on how you teach students or influenced how you approach your lessons? 

The pandemic has influenced what people need to say. We have all been in a place of isolation and things are being done in different ways. We think differently because we have been afraid. We’re moving away from the pandemic and now there’s a body of COVID literature that shows the trauma of what the period has been like. 

We’re teaching to what people are going through and what they need to write about. Everyone has needed things to process, from having to do their classes online to being worried about family members. These stories need to be told. 

What has teaching taught you? 

I always learn more than I teach. The students are so vulnerable and forthcoming with what they share. They have a lot of wisdom and have gone through a lot of life experiences. I’m grateful for the stories the students bring to me.

They give you great ideas and will tell you what needs to be taught and what they want to learn. 

I have learned a lot of teaching techniques and how to use Zoom, too. 

What advice do you have for a future student or anyone interested in taking a writing workshop? 

Don’t let your financial situation hold you back because Writespace has amazing scholarship opportunities. They don’t turn people away. The organization wants to help marginalized and low-income individuals tell their stories. 

Also, know that it’s going to be a valuable thing to join a writing community. People tend to write on their own and talk themselves out of writing because they don’t have enough confidence. The community will reward and validate you.

If you want to be a writer, you can be a writer, but it’s harder if you do it all alone. 

​

Sophie Bonifaz has been a member of Writespace Houston since 2017. She’s working on her debut series called Long Way Down with her writing partner, Rose Usenica. She’s applying the lessons that she has learned over the years with the organization to write the series and publish it in the future. 

To follow along with Sophie and Rose check out their Instagram and newsletter. You can also check out the seasonal floral crowns that Sophie creates here. 

Tell us about your series of books. What are they about?  

The series, with the working title of Long Way Down, centers around a Catholic man from Northern Ireland named Tylor Goadby. He’s a detective working on a series of missing person cases. People suspect these young women have been killed, but they don't always find the bodies. While looking for clues about a kidnapping case, he meets a young woman named Naveena Kulkarni, who has come back to life, now with powers, and has taken revenge on her murderer. Naveena has been looking for him since he can speak to the dead. She agrees to help him find the missing girl before she’s killed. The story takes place during Allhallowtide. 
As the story moves forward, you learn more about these characters. 

You work with a partner to write your protagonists. How did this collaboration come about, and how do you compromise with the other person? 

We met online on a pop culture forum with a corner where people wrote together. We were RPing, or roleplaying. This is when people come together to write a story by picking a character to play, taking turns writing, and reacting to each other’s work. 

We discovered that we were very good at collaborating. Eventually, we broke off from the big groups and started writing little one-on-ones, and it evolved into what we're doing now.

For this series, we split the cast. She writes about Tylor Goadby and his family. I write about Naveena Kulkarni and her family. 

We both have input into the story and give each other ideas. Sometimes we accept each other’s ideas, and other times we'll go, “Mmm, that doesn't really fit.” 

We compromise to move the story in particular directions. We’re constantly checking in, trying things out, and seeing how the characters react. And then, if they react in a way that doesn’t allow us to continue, we go back to figure it out. 

What type of lessons have you learned from your partner? 

I learned to write in a way that’s enjoyable to read. It’s also helped me consider different perspectives because you get the point of view, or POV, of multiple characters in the same situation. 

It's not just the Naveena show. It's not just Tylor’s show. Their perspectives, and those of secondary characters, matter and actively affect the story.

In addition, I learned to write for an audience. My partner has to read the story and enjoy it because she has to respond. 

I’ve also improved my communication skills and my patience, because personal things arise that can keep us from writing.  

You’re conducting research for your series. What interesting things have come up during your research? 

A lot of interesting things have come up!

For example, when we started, we knew we wanted to include Allhallowtide, which takes place from October 31st to November 2nd. 

This decision inspired us to look up other death festivals around the world. We learned that a lot of people, especially in Eastern Asia, like to celebrate similar things in the summer. We also learned that Día de Los Muertos used to take place in August but was moved to October to match the Catholic calendar. In the Philippines, people celebrate a similar event called Undas, and in the voodoo culture, there’s a tradition called Fèt Gede. 

It has been a fascinating thing to learn about these celebrations, and I really love telling people about them.

How far along are you in your writing? 

We plan to publish once the full series has been written instead of one book at a time to make sure the beginning and the end match. 

We’re in the 2 ½  draft of book 1 in the series. We’re pretty solid and close to finishing it. 

We also started on book 2, got to 8 chapters, got stuck, and re-plotted things to fix the beginning. 

We’re thinking of making the series 3-5 books. 

How do you prioritize your writing? Do you have a schedule or routine? 

Unfortunately, I don’t have a routine! A part of it is because there’s a lot of research we have to do. We also have online classes. 

We do our best since we have different energy levels. Our current goal is to write 25,000 words in November. 

When did you first call yourself a writer? 

I decided to become a writer when I was 7. We had to write storybooks in first grade, and I went all out with the writer's bio! 

It wasn’t until I started writing fanfiction at 9 or 10 that I started to feel like a writer. I didn’t stop for over 10 years. I was constantly writing, publishing them online, and getting feedback. 

I have felt very lucky to have fandom spaces where I can write fanfiction and roleplay and have a writing community where the pressure isn't on making money. It's just about having fun and having a great time.

How did you join Writespace Houston?  

I lived in Houston and was looking for writing organizations since I was writing this book series. I wanted to meet other writers in person because I never took any creative writing classes in university. 

In a group, they advertised a volunteer opportunity. Everything, from their social media to their website, looked appealing, so I volunteered and started to take classes in 2017. 

How has the organization helped you with your writing?

I’ve enjoyed talking to other writers. Through them, I’ve learned what the “writing world” is like. 

I'm still very much on the periphery. I don’t have an MFA in creative writing nor was my undergrad in creative writing. 

The literary world has been a mystery for most of my life, so I feel like Writespace has given me the chance to learn what it looks like, what other writers are doing, and see how I might fit into it since I come from the fandom space.  

Tell us about your favorite Writespace workshop. Why was it your favorite?

My favorite workshop is called “Writing Violence” by Matthew J. Hefti. I was interested in the topic because there’s a delicate balance between being honest and true to different types of violence and then slipping into trauma porn, where the goal is to just shock people, and I don’t want that. 

In the past, I have been burned by books and other media that have been so insistent on being shocking that they didn’t take the reader into account. 

His workshop talked about the considerations that you have to have when you're writing violence, especially in different genres. 

He raised important questions. What's the purpose of it? And what are the different ways of presenting it? When do you pull back, when do you go all out, and how does that affect the reader? How does it affect the story as a whole, especially if you want the violence to mean something? 

I don’t want my inclusion of violence to re-trigger or traumatize someone. The workshop gave me some insight into things to consider when writing it. 

Are there any books or authors that inspired you to become a writer? 

Yes and no. 

Some books have taught me what books can do, like The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It changed my life, and I feel everyone should read it at one point in their lives. 

A Separate Peace by John Knowles and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier both reached through time and described frames of mind I thought no one else had experienced. I was floored by their ability to connect in such a small but profound way.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan has been influential because the book had eight different points of view. All of the points of view made sense, and you could follow them. It was the first time I really appreciated how you could have little stories and create large narratives. It was also the first time I had ever seen non-white culture expressed in English in a way where it was interwoven with what was going on. I felt seen as I was reading the book despite not being Chinese or Chinese-American. I was blown away and impressed. I hope to one day get to her level of storytelling.  

What book (or books) are you currently reading? 

I’m currently reading Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. I’ve been really enjoying it. It’s about a trans male brujo who’s trying to break into his own space as part of a family of cemetery caretakers. It covers many subjects, such as death and how cultures view death within a specific context. 

It’s exciting and the world-building is full of gems. I love learning while I read. The characters feel very familiar yet new. I’m having a lot of fun with it.   

What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing? 

A first draft is always perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It was such freeing advice; I realized I just needed to write things down. If I didn’t write them down, I couldn’t fix them.

Writing is like sculpting a big block of clay. In the same way sculptors are looking for the image in the clay, writers are trying to find the story in it. You take things away or add them as needed in the search for this story, but to do that at all, you need clay. The first draft is a block of clay you can work with. 

What is the worst piece of advice you’ve been given about writing? 

That you’re not a writer if you don’t write every day. I think that's so unfair. People have a lot of things going on in their lives, and I don’t think that’s fair and true at all. 

Don’t get discouraged if you can’t write every day. You can still be a writer.

What advice do you have for an aspiring writer? 

If it’s up your alley, write fanfiction and publish it online. You’ll get immediate feedback from people who are reading your stuff out of love, and you’ll quickly see what works and what doesn’t. People are very encouraging and are just excited to have you there. Writing fanfiction definitely boosted my confidence. Embrace fanfiction, love it, and use it as your playground. 

​Also try writing something while collaborating with someone, especially if you can bring yourselves to split the cast. It’s an exercise that inherently keeps your audience in mind. I’ve learned about the pitfalls in my own writing, what really gets people excited about it, and how to compromise for the better of the story. Collaboration lets a story breathe and helps character development grow exponentially. It's a great way to practice your writing, learn how to surprise yourself, and dig deep into a character. 

One of our favorite Writespace instructors! Yes, all of them can be our favorites!

Icess Fernandez Rojas has been teaching at Writespace Houston since 2018. When she’s not teaching at Writespace, she’s teaching classes at a community college. She loves to teach fiction, especially noir fiction. Right now, she’s working on her memoir called Problematic about the life experiences that have shaped her and led her to become the fierce and strong woman she is today. Learn more about her here and here. 

Trigger warning: This interview contains content about suicide.
 
You’re working on your memoir. Why are you writing it? 

It started as a way of healing. The memoir, called Problematic, is about mental health illness specifically. It's about having suicidal thoughts and fighting back from that. It’s also about my experiences of growing up Black in America, being of a certain age and not being able to have children, and being in a lousy place career-wise. All of that leading up to this thing. It started as a healing exercise that kept growing into something. 

When did you start writing it?

The memoir began as an essay called “Confession of a Surviving Liar” which was published on a website called Dear Hope in 2016. It was the most massive thing I had written thus far in creative nonfiction. I was still learning the genre, the different forms, and the different ways you can approach a story. It took eight months to write. 

How far along are you on your book? 

I’m really close to being done! I need two weeks of alone time in a cabin in the woods. I will emerge from that with a finished, mostly edited project. There’re only a couple of uncompleted pieces. 

What challenges, if any, have you faced during the process? 

It has been challenging to find time due to my workload as a professor at a community college and being my mother’s caretaker. 

Have you had any surprising results while writing the memoir? 

So many! One is that I realized that I can write creative nonfiction. For me, it has become a source of freedom. Fiction can be quite restraining because there’re so many rules, and nonfiction just has one rule: tell your own story, tell it straight, and to the best of your ability. 

Another thing that I realized, and experienced first-hand through nonfiction workshops, is that the nonfiction community is very open to your experiences. The community is very willing to read your work, give feedback, and teach. 

Do you have a writing ritual you follow? 

I don’t have a ritual other than sitting and writing. I can tell you about my past writing rituals. 

Before Hurricane Harvey, I worked at a community college and set aside an hour after my office hours to write, then go work out in the college’s gym next to my office, and go home. 

Before and after grad school, I used to write after work. I would come home, have dinner, relax a little bit, and start my writing sessions around 9 pm. I would write with a baseball cap. 

The baseball cap was my signal to start writing and put me in work mode! 

How are you balancing writing your book with being a teacher? 

I’m not! I wish I were better at it. Some days I tell myself to write for at least 30 minutes. On other days I can’t even find two minutes. 

It’s important to have some grace for yourself and remember that you’re a writer and that little things make you a writer, not just sitting down and putting words on a page. 

Why did you become an educator? 

I was a newspaper reporter for 12 years. When I started, I thought I would retire as a newspaper reporter. I thought I would eventually go into the editorial department and either be an editor or a columnist and write books. Then I got laid off. It was probably the second-best thing in the world to happen to me. During this time, I was accepted into a writing program and did my residency. 

When I graduated, I became an adjunct professor. My first class was a night class, and I finished it early even though I had prepared well. I thought I could do better. At that moment, I knew this was where I needed to be. 

What got you interested in teaching at Writespace Houston?  

I was a student at Writespace and took a memoir class with Joyce Boatright. It was a memorable class because she empowered me to get into memoir writing.

I talked to the Executive Director at the time, and she proposed teaching a class since I had an MFA.  

I ended up teaching a class on blogging that didn’t turn out too bad. 

I started thinking of teaching other things, and Jamie booked me for classes before I even told her! 

What are you particularly geeked to teach about at the organization? 

Noir. I’m enjoying doing the bigger thoughts about stories. Of the approach of the story, of the heart of the story, and what makes a story, whether fiction or not, beat. What makes it come off the page? What makes it a thing? I love those kinds of things!  

Is there a topic you’re interested in teaching that you haven’t gotten the chance to teach? 

I would like to teach a nonfiction or memoir class. 

Readers might want to sign up for one of your classes. Please describe a typical lesson. 

You’ll write. Don’t think you’re going to be scot-free. 

You can expect that I will strip everything down. I’ll make everything bite-size, so we’re going to build things up. 

You’ll write one thing, and then I’ll ask you to build on top of that, on top of that, and on top of that.  

In the end, you’ll have something to work with, not the final version of something or a final draft, but something you can jump from. 

How did you come up with your teaching philosophy, "A workshop is a safe space to explore and live the life you always wanted – the one of the writer. I always found that the best workshops allowed their participants to not only walk away with ideas but with a game plan”? 

I thought about the workshops I hated that were not useful and what made them not useful. Then I thought about the workshops I loved that were useful and what made them useful. 

What made the workshops useful was the safe space, the exploration, and walking away with an idea or game plan for the next project. The ones that were not useful made you angry about wasting your money and did not even help you come up with one idea. 

I want all my students to walk away with an idea or a game plan of what to do next. 

If they didn’t walk away with that, then I didn’t do my job. 

What has been a memorable teaching experience for you? 

The most recent one was about the conversations writers have in stories. Other than the fact that it’s the most recent one, it’s memorable because we were working on bigger ideas. We worked on “Little Things” by Raymond Carver and made it our own. We took what he had, which wasn’t a lot since it’s written in a minimalist form, and kept adding to it. By the end, we had many different versions, and they were all amazing. I hope the students keep working on them and publish them. 

What has teaching taught you? 

It has taught me how to be clearer. Sometimes I think I am, but I’m not. And to have empathy and that it’s ok if I don’t have all the answers because I’m not supposed to. 

Being a teacher doesn’t mean having the answer to a question, it’s about being humble, acknowledging that you don’t have the answer, and working with others to find it or create it. 

Teaching has taught me to be humble, gracious, and have empathy. 

Has the pandemic changed how you approach your lessons? And if so, in what way? 

I used to teach face-to-face for Writespace. Now, I just teach online through Zoom. I have to approach my lessons differently. I have to rely more on the written word than what I say. Even if I have a bad connection, the class needs to go on. And students could have Internet issues as well. I have to have something to hand to my students so they can continue with the class and catch up with us. 

What advice do you have for a future student or anyone interested in taking a writing workshop? 

Take the workshop, take it with an open heart. Don’t go with any expectations. Don’t go with the expectation that you’ll outline your entire book by the end of a three-hour class. It won’t happen. 

​Take it little by little.