Interview With Author Kurt Cole Eidsvig
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My work in both poetry and art criticism has been featured in regular columns and series for Big Red & Shiny, ArtsAmerica, SpinRecords, and Examiner.com. I have been featured and published in outlets like The Boston Globe, Whitehot Magazine, Slipstream, Hanging Loose, Borderlands, Main Street Rag, Poets Reading the News, The Improper Bostonian, and The Southeast Review. I have taught art and writing at UMASS Boston, the University of Montana, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I have won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, a Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Award, and the Edmund Freeman Award. A graduate of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana, I am the author of five books: ART OFFICIAL, OXYCONTIN FOR BREAKFAST, and POP X POETRY, with THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER (Broadstone Books) and DROWNING GIRL (Unsolicited Press) forthcoming in 2024. A visual artist as well as a writer, my work is part of numerous commercial and private collections and has been included in solo and group exhibitions. With deep Boston and Montana roots, I live and work in Key West, Florida, and maintain a website at www.EidsvigArt.com.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I have two new books on the way in 2024. The first, THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER, is a poetry collection. The title takes its name from a long poem in the collection that collages various notable creative works dealing with gun violence against news of mass shootings. The mystery author Raymond Chandler has an essay by the same name, and the poem considers the impotent relationship even the very best creative artists have had in stopping mass tragedies. The collection itself includes many different forms of poetry and works on themes of art and artists, personal experiences, loss, and longing.
The second book, DROWNING GIRL, takes its title from the iconic Roy Lichtenstein painting of the same name. I long wanted to write a story about the individual dots in a Lichtenstein painting, like a bibliography of tiny circles. As a result, music notes, Morse Code, ellipses, arrow holes, and Sperm Whale blowholes are among the various images and ideas that combine to make the story move forward.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I like to write everywhere and use a variety of methods to get words down. This includes calling myself and leaving voice messages, sending myself emails, and opening various Google docs to continue threads of ideas wherever I am.
When working on DROWNING GIRL, I hired participants to stand in front of the painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and count the dots. While I knew they would never be able to count them all, I actually was more interested in asking them about the experience of taking their time to look at the painting intensely. They each filled out surveys after the experience, and clips of these are included in the book.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
That’s a book in and of itself. Elmore Leonard, Herman Melville, Ada Limon, Denise Levertov, Ron Schreiber, Peter Scheldahl, John Donne, Martha Collins, Joanna Klink, Debra Earling, Paul Hayes Tucker, Layli Long Soldier, Robert Creeley, (takes a breath), William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, Octavio Paz, Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rumi, Kenneth Koch, Heather Cahoon, Martin Cockroft, Sandra Simonds, Dave Connolly, Patricia Goedicke, Nathaniel Philbrick, Steinbeck, Jimmy Buffett, Walter Isaacson, Kurt Vonnegut, Melanie Rae Thon, Tom Perrotta, Chuck Palahniuk, M.L. Smoker, Catherine Theis, Michael Davis, Richard Walter, Jonathan Lethem, David Sedaris… and so many more.
What are you working on now?
I am working on a novel and a series of poems right now.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
EidsvigArt.com
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write. Write. Write.
For much of my life, I have wanted to get into better shape. I read and learned about exercise science. I bought new equipment. I invested in gym memberships. I read more about new exercise science and nutrition.
None of this was as good as eating right consistently and working out.
I have done much the same with writing. I have bought great pens, new notebooks, and read at length about the secrets to the craft by famous authors.
It is nice to know what to do at the gym when you get there. But reading about being in the gym isn’t going to do much to get me in shape.
The best thing for writing is writing.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I read a poem every day from the Coleman Barks translation A YEAR WITH RUMI. There is a poem in there that says, “I should be suspicious of what I want,” which is some of the best advice ever.
What are you reading now?
I am reading LARRY McMURTRY: A LIFE by Tracy Daugherty, which is just wonderful. The author does an amazing job of weaving together storytelling about the lives of all these people who enter and wander through McMurtry’s history. They also take moments to show their own amazing abilities with prose and provide just enough magic to make the book enchanting without being obtrusive to the biography.
I’m also reading THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS by Jorge Luis Borges, and I have just finished THE CARRYING by Ada Limon, which is beyond amazing.
Another recent book I loved was THE RIGOR OF ANGELS by William Eggington.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Finish up this novel in progress and a new collection of poetry. I also have a feature screenplay and a pilot in the works. Combine that with editing galleys and prepping for the book releases, and 2024 is already a busy year.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE is up there, as is HENDERSON THE RAIN KING. I’d likely bring my daily Rumi and some novel by Elmore Leonard (I’ll pick BANDITS today).
Author Websites and Profiles
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