Dara Yen Elerath

How did you become a writer?

I came to writing late in life. I pursued my MFA and began to work toward the idea of creating a book of poetry. I didn’t know much about the literary world at the time and never felt my writing was good enough to publish. I held off on submitting my work for years, which ultimately paid off, as my first serious poems were placed in reputable, established journals. These initial publications encouraged me to set my sights high and gave me a bit of credibility that has served me over time, publication-wise.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

There are many writers I love but only a few who’ve influenced me directly. I grew up reading Nabokov, D.H. Lawrence, Sartre, Dostoyevsky, Anaïs Nin, Virginia Woolf and other canonical greats, but found that when it came to personal inspiration I was better served by looking to writers who spoke to my own abilities and personal quirks. To this end I’ve spent a lot of time studying the writing of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Robert Walser, Francis Ponge and Mary Ruefle.

When and where do you write?

I write in the mornings, especially when I’m working on poetry. This is when my mind is most flexible. I usually lie on the floor, as this seems to open me to a playful, less logic-bound mode of thinking. I suspect this is due to the fact that I often sat on the floor to write or draw as a child. I also strive to write in silence. I find it important to listen to the music of my language, which means that I have to protect that space of quiet that allows me to hear it.

What are you working on now?

I’m currently working on what I hope will be a collection of pieces that straddle the line between prose poetry and flash fiction. When I find myself unable to write in this vein, I switch over to essays; these let me to focus my thoughts on the world around me rather than my interior life, which can easily become exhausted.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I think, more than anything, I’ve suffered from a fear of writer’s block; I’m always afraid I’ll lose track of the muse. When those moments of emptiness arise—those times when I can’t seem to access my voice—I usually shift genres. I find that, at any given time, there’s at least one mode of writing I can engage with. If I’m overflowing emotionally and a lyrical register seems appropriate, I turn to poetry, for example. When I’m less emotional I turn to hybrid fiction where my ideas can do more of the heavy lifting. Writing is my anchor, so I try to write as continuously as possible.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

I’m not sure that I’ve received any single piece of advice that has fundamentally transformed my writing process, it’s mostly been a slow accumulation of habits that have shaped me over the years, but, as a poet, I have been advised by various mentors to be wary of using academic, hypotactic language. I can easily fall into wordy, clause-heavy writing, and while this might elevate the tone of the language, it also detracts from the poetry and the intimacy of the writing, creating distance between writer and reader, so I remind myself to simplify my language and focus on being more direct. Writing with an ‘academic’ or ‘lawyerly’ voice is a security blanket I often need to toss away in order to reveal myself more honestly.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Becoming your own writer is a process of self-recognition and self-acceptance. I’ve slowly begun to discover my own voice, and learned that you have to trust yourself and lean into the things that make you weird. Don’t be afraid of being different from other writers. I write hybrid poetry/fiction that I sometimes fear is unclassifiable, but I’ve come to understand that there’s no way to escape your true self in art. You have to honor your interests, abilities and inclinations above all, instead of trying to fit yourself squarely into any category or align yourself with any group. It’s okay to be alone as a writer. The body of work that you build becomes your companion over time. It is the conversation you are having with yourself that you share publicly. Eventually, if you trust that conversation, it grows longer, more revealing, and hopefully more nuanced and interesting.

Dara Yen Elerath’s first book, Dark Braid (BkMk Press), won the 2019 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. In addition to poetry, she has received prizes for her hybrid flash fiction, including the Bath Flash Fiction Award and the New Flash Fiction Review Award. Her work has appeared in journals such as the American Poetry Review, AGNI, Green Mountains Review, Plume, Boulevard, Poet Lore and elsewhere. She is an alumna of the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA program and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.