Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing EP 166 - Wording Around with Kathy Mac and Neomi Iancu Haliva

In this episode Mark interviews Poet and teacher Kathy Mac who lives in Fredericton NB, Canada and teaches creative writing at St. Thomas University along with one of her students, Neomi about a book project, Wording Around with Prose, and the course it originated from.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word from this episode's sponsor . . .

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

Mark also shares comments from recent episodes and a personal update, which include the following:

• A walk through of the Draft2Digital payment splitting
• A talk about the writing and publishing Mark will be doing for Susie Moloney, the Writer in Residence for Edmonton Public Library on Dec 8, 2020. (It's free to attend but you can email susie.moloney@epl.ca to register
• The Let It Snow Audiobook Giveaway #snowaudio2020
• Working on adding courses to his Stark Publishing Teachable platform

During the interview, Mark, Kathy, and Neomi discuss:

• How Kathy got into academia in 2002 after a start in literary publishing
• The additions Kathy helped usher into the university, including the course on Literary Publishing
• Neomi's background in theatre and how that ties into her passion for poetry, prose, and script writing
• The strong and tight-knit artistic community in Fredericton
  - Getting into the desired course without having the pre-requisites, and the importance of trying and asking when you're passionate about something
• Details about the make-up and layout of the course
• How the course has evolved as digital publishing has grown
• The decision of the class to use Draft2Digital for the eBook, and how they came to that conclusion
• Where the manuscript that was published came from and how it was adapted into the course and the work that the students did
• The cancellation of the Wordspring conference and how that led to the origin of this course
• The different assignments that student groups worked on in the publishing of this book
• Creation of the video book trailer to help support the marketing of the book
• Neomi's learnings of the process and what surprised her about the business of publishing
• How we tend to minimize the amount of work that other people do
• The way the title "Wording Around" was inspired from a blog from writer A.J. Ripley and their blog
• What is next for Wording Around Press
• How there was a plan for making a partially-hand-crafted print version of the book, but how the second wave of Covid-19 ramped up, preventing that from happening
• And more . . .

After the interview Mark shares a few reflections and thoughts about the conversation and the project.

Then he welcomes new patron Tessa Smith McGovern and thanks all patrons for supporting this podcast at www.patreon.com/starkreflections.

 

Links of Interest:

• Kathy Mac's Website
• Wording Around with Prose
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
• Episode 165 - Rude Awakenings from Sleeping Rough
• Episode 164 - Reflections on The Creative Penn Podcast Episode 517
• Episode 163 - Getting a Creative Edge with Mickey Mikkelson
• Kobo Writing Life NaNoWriMo Promo (use coupon code NANO2020)
• Obsessions: An Anthology of Original Fiction
• Rude Awakenings from Sleeping Rough
• Mark's Canadian Werewolf Series
  • This Time Around (Book 0)
  • A Canadian Werewolf in New York (Book 1)
  • Stowe Away (Book 1.5)
  • Fear and Longing in Los Angeles (Book 2)
• Findaway Voices
  • Let It Snow Audiobook Event (Blog Post - Findaway)
  • Mark's Blog Post about Let It Snow
• Books2Read
• Draft2Digital
  • Payment Splitting Video Walk-Thru
• Wide for the Win Submission Form
• Patreon for Stark Reflections

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0