Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I was born in Anaheim, California, but have lived in Spokane, Washington for most of my adult life. I have only published one collection thus far, but I am currently working on the next one.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is Beneath Stretching Pines, which is a short collection of 30 poems. It was greatly inspired by my studies of modernist poets at Eastern Washington University—Williams Carlos Williams and William Butler Yeats in particular.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
No, I don’t think so. I like to go on walks around a local park that often serves as the initial inspiration for my poetry. Otherwise, my poems usually emerge slowly while I sit at the computer to type—sometimes they take weeks and other times they take minutes.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Spring and All and Paterson by William Carlos Williams are probably my biggest influences. However, I am also deeply influenced by translations of classical Chinese (Li Pai, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, etc.) and Japanese (Basho, Issa, Santōka, etc.) poets, and I really enjoy the works of many well known western poets—Yeats, Keats, Donne, Hilda Doolittle, etc.
What are you working on now?
I am currently working on a second collection of poems that doesn’t quite have a name yet.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am still figuring this out. Thus far, I have only really used social media (twitter and instagram) to promote my book.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I’d recommend spending as much time, prior to publication, planning out how you are going to market your work (especially if you’re self-publishing). Unfortunately, marketing is somewhat of a necessary step I hadn’t considered prior to publication. In the end, creating good art should be enough, but getting it out there isn’t always an easy feat.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I don’t know any published authors, so I haven’t heard much. But, I will say that patience is a virtue in this field (as far as I can tell). For me, I felt that I needed to be free of the work that composed Beneath Stretching Pines, and thus, I was eager to self-publish without much thought to anything outside of its composition.
What are you reading now?
Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I just plan to keep on writing until I have enough poems for another book.
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?
1. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (my favorite piece of fiction)
2. Spring and All by William Carlos Williams
3. The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
4. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Author Websites and Profiles
Kurtis Ebeling Website
Kurtis Ebeling Amazon Profile
Kurtis Ebeling’s Social Media Links
Twitter Account