Interview With Author Sabne Raznik
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a disabled Appalachian poet of Cherokee ancestry. I like to say I’m a supranational poet because I believe poetry transcends man-made borders and traditions and I like to write from that space – everything goes. I have published 6 books in total so far: 3 full-length collections (“Following Hope” Xlibris, 2007, “Linger to Look” Amazon, 2015, and “Rabbit Hole” Amazon, 2017), one homemade chapbook (Marrow, 2013), one e-chapbook (“Dreaming of Bono” VoiceLux, 2022), and one collection of visual art (“Renaissance: Visual Art 2005 – 2019” Amazon, 2019).
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“Dreaming of Bono”. It’s an echapbook from VoiceLux, 2022. I never had a stable father figure growing up so I kind of chose one: Bono of U2. When they released the “Songs of Experience” album, it sounded to me like they were preparing the hardcore fanbase for when U2 isn’t around anymore and I started having dreams about Bono and Seamus Heaney. I was doing some inner child work, I guess. Working through that personal psychology in relation to Bono and freeing both us from that parasocial parent-child thing. At first, I wrote the dreams down abstractly so that the reader can’t tell that they are dreams and that they are about Bono. But as the book developed, I got more direct. I think that was part of the healing process that was happening too.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t know if any writing habit is unusual, really. Every writer has a different process. My process changes for every book. I like the books to have themes, if I can, and each one is also different in style. Because the language has to change based on what you’re trying to convey and the way you go about finding and capturing that language is neccesarily different depending on the language you need at that moment. Something that does tend to remain consistent, though, is that I write in pieces and then organise those pieces into a whole later. It takes a long time to get a whole work that way. It’s a slow, painstaking process. But it feels like most of my better work comes out that way.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I am strongly influenced by world poetry and Irish writers. I didn’t want to be the stereotypical Appalachian poet. I wanted to show people that the stereotype is a lie. So I very much knew what I *didn’t* want to be. And so I didn’t read a lot of local, contemporary poetry until maybe the last decade. I read the Eastern European poets and poetry in translation from all around the world. And I’ve read all the important Irish writers and poets: Yeats, Boland, Kavanaugh, Kennelly, Muldoon. I’ve read literally everything James Joyce wrote. A lot of Beckett. My all-time favourite poet is Seamus Heaney: so much of his work could just as easily be Appalachian as Irish. Recently, I’ve been reading widely among contemporary American poets and sort of catching up on the Appalachain canon a little bit.
What are you working on now?
I’ve been trying to put together a little Selected bi-lingual collection. That’s been really challenging because I have to pull from all my books which are each so unique and somehow make the selection work as a cohesive whole in itself. And that’s out of my comfort zone as far as how I usually approach putting together a manuscript. I also am working on a collection of short stories, where the stories seem centered around making the choice of integrity over reputation. So many people read my poems and ask for fiction, and I thought “okay, why not? See how it flies”. I’m also currently on a virtual book tour to support “Dreaming of Bono”. And I’m editor on two literary journals (“AvantAppal(achia) Ezine” and “North/South Appalachia”) and keeping those running is a continual process.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Social Media is vital in today’s world when it comes to promoting anything, so I try to maintain a reasonably strong social media presence. Due to my disability, traveling is difficult, therefore most events I attend are virtual.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read, read, read! And study the business. Journals have submission guidelines for a reason: follow them. Most importantly, throw your ego out the door. There is a lot of ego-bruising inherent to being a writer – from the constant submission rejections to the book review process – there is no room for a writer who is going to take every rejection or criticism personally. You have to really truly not care what people think. Do the work because you love it, not because you want it to love you. because it won’t. It doesn’t love back. You have to do all the loving – for the work and for yourself. Self-pity will only get in the way of opportunities. You have to be emotionally stronger than average, but you can do it, if you love writing enough and if you have enough faith in what you write.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
As long as there is life, there is hope.
What are you reading now?
Wow. Um, I think you should just follow me on Goodreads to see my “currently reading” shelf because I can read up to 40 books at the same time. But a selection is: “The Story of Civilization” by Will Durant, “The Autobiography of Mark Twain”, “Drinking Guinness with the Dead” by Justin Hamm, “The Intimacy of Clouds” by Fatiha Morchid, “Brightening of Days” by Gabriel Rosenstock, The Works of Tolstoy, Chaucer, and a lot of haiku recently.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I think, after I finally wrestle out the Selected and that collection of short stories I mentioned earlier, I might go back to some old projects that I put down before because I didn’t think the time was right. I started writing a series of poems about the 9/11 “jumpers”, it might be time to revisit that. And I’ll probably go through some poems I’ve written over the last decade but haven’t collected yet to see if there is enough strong work there for another collection.
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?
The Bible, “Open Ground” by Seamus Heaney, Bono’s memoirs (the one he had written in interview style around 2006 and the one slated to come out in November 2022), “Facing the Lion” by Simone Arnold Liebster, and I seem to go back to “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton and “Under the Eye of the Clock” by Christopher Nolan every so many years.
Author Websites and Profiles
Sabne Raznik’s Social Media Links