THE WOODSHOP: A.P.

This week's Woodshop comes to us from Zurich, Switzerland, courtesy of A.P. Review our submission guidelines here, then submit your own Woodshop to cutbankonline@gmail.com.

And don’t forget – print submissions are open as well! Review submission guidelines and submit your best work to our print edition and contests.

Where do you do your work?

Most of the time, I write and create art on an old French writing desk in my apartment in Zurich, Switzerland. However, living with an attention-seeker cat, I often have no choice but to evacuate my apartment in favor of a more peaceful setting. The table used to be in front of a large window overlooking my neighbor's lush lawn, but I soon moved it against a wall to avoid my ADD from flaring up each time I saw a squirrel desperately attempting to remember the whereabouts of his nuts.

What do you keep on your desk?

My MacBook Air, a notebook for creative drabble and one for travel-related blabber.

What’s your view like?

My view is a characterless wall. Great, if you want to avoid distraction.

What do you eat/drink while you work?

Depending on the season, my drink of choice is green tea with lemon, hazelnut coffee and banana-dates smoothies with coconut sugar. If I ate at my desk, I'd become victim to my cat's harassment, so I usually avoid it.

Do you have any superstitions about your work?

The red Daruma (a Japanese lucky charm) has to sit on my desk while I work. I have also convinced myself that I need to keep an organized workplace at all times, in order to avoid a cluttered brain.

Share a recent line/sentence written in this space.

Adorned with black rose crowns, we hitched a ride to watch fireflies dimming into dawn.

A.P. is a writer/artist who roams the globe sometimes. Her work has most recently appeared in Agave Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Toad, Rio Grande Review, SmokeLong Quarterly and Maudlin House. You can find her at: https://posthaltelei.wordpress.com/

THE WOODSHOP: Max Vande Vaarst

CutBank continues its online feature, The Woodshop, with this submission from Max Vande Vaarst. Review our submission guidelines here, then submit your own Woodshop to cutbankonline@gmail.com. And don't forget - print submissions are open as well! Review submission guidelines and submit your best work to our print edition and contests. 

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Where do you do your work?

Home is where the heart is! Unfortunately, home is also where the TV is, and the Xbox, and the junk food, and a kitchen full of busy work, so it’s hard for home to be where the writing is too. I handle my business best in quiet public spaces – places free of background chatter and piped-in muzak, places where I can be left alone for hours with no one looking to take my order or refill my chai. I’ve worked in laundromats, city parks, hotel lobbies and gym locker rooms. Libraries are totally where the action is though.

What do you keep on your desk?

My workspace isn’t a desk but a backpack, one that goes everywhere I do. Contents include: binder of notes, Macbook Air, four books for school, one book for me, power cord, headphones, pack of gum, car keys. The desk I keep at home mostly functions as a bookshelf spillover zone.

What’s your view like?

My current base of operations is the central library of the University of Wyoming. I work on a sofa in this beautiful wood-walled reading room, looking out on the snowy campus. I get a sufficient peripheral view of the busy undergrads milling through the nearby stacks to stave off cabin fever, but I’m also at a far enough remove to avoid distraction. That cabin fever thing is real, by the way. Sitting down to write is such a massively lonely act in its own right, I’d hate to compound it with any sort of true physical isolation.

What do you eat/drink while you work?

Nothing during the writing process itself, but if I’m going for an all-day library death march I try to keep myself fresh by taking a quick bike ride over to Jimmy John’s and fueling up on Turkey Tom. Jimmy John’s is the best major sandwich chain in America. Step at me repping Quiznos if you want to throw down.

Do you have any superstitions about your work?

Everything’s shit until you read it out loud.

Share a recent line/sentence written in this space.

“It’s a Saturday morning and you’re lingering around the curb outside the Family Discount like a fart in a car seat when Patrick Appleby comes walking by, says they’ve let your cousin Chicago out of prison.”

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Max Vande Vaarst is a maybe possibly someday up-and-coming writer of imaginative fiction and the founder of the online arts journal Buffalo Almanack. Max’s work has been featured in such publications as A cappella Zoo, JMWW and Jersey Devil Press. He received his B.A. in History and English from Purdue University. He currently lives in Laramie, Wyoming and is pursuing an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Wyoming. Max can be found online at www.maxvandevaarst.com.

THE WOODSHOP: Allan Peterson

CutBank Online returns to The Woodshop with this submission from Allan Peterson. Review our submission guidelines here, then submit your own Woodshop to cutbankonline@gmail.com.

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Where do you do your work ?

I start in a notebook, frequently in the heavily wooded yard. I print. I’m an early riser and cherish that time without interruption. When the weather is good, I am outside reading, making notes. For the actual shaping of those notes, I go to my writing room which doubles as a guest room when necessary. It is filled with books, poetry and non fiction, largely science. That library has been my poetic education, having never attended classes or workshop. I came to poetry through the visual arts.

What do you eat or drink while you work?

Nothing. And I do not listen to music. I really work best in silence.

What’s your view like?

From every window I see trees. Directly outside of the window by the desk is a huge incense cedar, from other windows facing the street or back yard, I can only see trees, a little of the mountains beyond. Because I am on the second floor, I am at the level of being in the trees. It is exactly the sense of immersion in nature that I seek, and that influences my work.

What do you keep on your desk?

It's pretty spare- computer, manuscripts of poems in progress, notebooks I work from. A few reminders of practical things like deadlines I might otherwise miss.

Share a recent line/sentence written in this space.

The book said happiness began in the 13th century

but was not applied equally a condition which persists

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Allan Peterson is the author of five books; Precarious, 42 Miles Press 2014; Fragile Acts (McSweeney's Poetry Series), a finalist for both the 2013 National Book Critics Circle and Oregon Book Awards; As Much As, Salmon Press, Ireland; All the Lavish in Common, 2005 Juniper Prize, University of Massachusetts; Anonymous Or, Defined Providence Prize 2001 and a number of chapbooks, most recently, Other Than They Seem, winner of the 2014 Snowbound Chapbook Prize from Tupelo Press.

A visual artist as well as a poet, he has taught (art) at The State University of New York, Geneseo, and Pensacola State College (FL) where he was chair of the art department and director of the Switzer Center for Visual Arts until retiring in 2005. He has received fellowships from the NEA and the State of Florida. He lives in Gulf Breeze FL and Ashland OR. www.allanpeterson.net