Tale of two books: Carolyn Williams-Noren's two paths to publishing her work
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Say you've written a book. Congratulations! Now begins the long process of trying to get it published. While you are sending out your work and waiting — and waiting — for that elusive “yes,” what do you do?
For Carolyn Williams-Noren, the frustrating process inspired her to start sharing her work without waiting for permission.
Williams-Noren began by following the path most poets take to finding a traditional publisher. She sent her manuscript to poetry contests and to open reading periods for various publishers, waiting months to hear back from each.
“I started to really crave just being able to share work more immediately. I started to actually take inspiration from cooking dinner, like during this period of extreme discouragement with being able to ever share or publish poetry publicly, I realized that I had actually been sort of cooking dinner for my family almost every night for a couple of decades, and that there was sort of no internal drama about that.”
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She started making comics: illustrated favorite recipes, sprinkled with comments and anecdotes. She emailed them to friends, and the feedback was great. The email list grew, and so did the stack of comics. She took a workshop on riso printing and started to think about printing her own zine.
Then, about a year ago, Williams-Noren got the call. Her poetry collection had won the Wick Poetry Center's nationwide first book contest, judged by preeminent poet and podcaster Pádraig Ó Tuama. Kent State University Press wanted to publish her collection. She was thrilled.
The book is called “Oil Courses,” and it came out earlier this month. Here’s how she describes the work:
“It is inspired by my experience growing up in Alaska with a dad who worked in the oil industry, and it kind of comes out of my lifelong, really deep understanding of how reliant we are on oil, and also of the harm that extracting and using fossil fuels can do.”
She also kept pursuing that zine, which she titled “This is Good.” Picture a staple-bound mini book with a homey, handmade look, printed in blue ink. It’s the first in a series.
“I bought the paper, so I'm in,” she said, laughing. “I have enough comics made to make four issues, and I'm planning to do four over the next year and do them quarterly."
It's a tale of two Creations: poetry collection on a weighty topic from a university press and a self-published zine that includes her favorite recipe for chicken noodle soup. But Williams-Noren says she's so proud of both.
“The publication of the poetry book is an honor. The making of the zine is fun and exciting, and I’m really not willing to say that one is more valuable or more important than the other. They both have their place in my creative practice right now.”
And she hopes her work inspires readers to create.
Williams-Noren is holding launch event for both books on Sept. 24 at 6:30 p.m. at The Toolbox Collective in Minneapolis.
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