By Holly Thorpe
This month, Write on the River spoke with local writer and board member Lorna Rose-Hahn.
Lorna is a Pacific Northwest writer and speaker. Her narrative nonfiction and poetry have been recognized by Pacific Northwest Writers Association and the Oregon Poetry Association, and have appeared in several magazines and anthologies. Lorna also speaks publicly on motherhood, finding resilience through writing, and her experience in AmeriCorps. You can check out her writing at www.lornarose.com.
You recently completed your term as Write on the River’s board president and accepted a new position with the Oregon Poets Association. How was your time with WOTR and what are your goals in your new board position?
WOTR is great. After returning to writing when my son was born, I found them and started volunteering. I was invited to join the board in 2014 and then became president in 2018. I learned a lot in that time, including about how the nonprofit world functions and also my leadership style. It was exciting to help steer WOTR, respond to what local writers said they wanted, and also develop partnerships within the community. I also got to look at workflow within the organization, a carryover of my life in Corporate America, which was cool.
A year ago I was invited to serve on the board of Oregon Poetry Association, or OPA, after presenting a workshop at their annual conference. I pursued them because more and more I find myself writing poetry, and I wanted to get involved in that community more. Washington does not have a statewide poetry organization. I’ve learned more about poetry and have gotten to see how another nonprofit functions.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m always working on poems and personal essays; themes in my writing include motherhood, raising two neurodiverse kids, and complicated relationships I’ve had in my life. My bigger work-in-progress is a memoir-in-essay, which I’ve been working on since my second child, my daughter, was born six years ago (why I chose that particular time to start a memoir, I don’t know. I guess I had a concern to preserve my writing life, and it was the way to find balance). The project is about going from LA party girl to trail worker in rural Alaska. It started as a straight memoir, but it wasn’t working. The narrative was uneven and just boring in places. Also, I didn’t have the voice I wanted. So I worked with an editor, and said “hey, I like writing essays, I’m good at it, and I’m thinking of changing my narrative memoir into a series of essays.” She was like “go for it.” So far I’m happy with how it’s developing. I really like my voice, and I like not being bound by the confines of traditional memoir, like writing scenes and characters all the time. With this current form, I’m able to reflect and also tease out what I want the reader to know. It’s good stuff.
You write both poetry and nonfiction – do the two go hand-in-hand? How do you know when something is a poem versus an essay or memoir chapter?
You ask such good questions! I’ve found writing poetry has helped my narrative nonfiction – and vice versa. Narrative nonfiction reminds me to keep the reader moving forward, and poetry reminds me that words have a shape and a lyricism – and gives me more explicit permission to play with language. I don’t have a hard and fast rule of knowing the form a piece of writing will take. Usually it’s an intuition. I have found that if I want the reader to shape the words, they’ll come out as poetry. If I want more of a voice to shape the words, they’ll come out as prose. And it becomes apparent quickly what genre this piece is meant for. For instance, I wrote a poem about complications I had while pregnant with my daughter (which found a home in the journal Third Wednesday). I think at one point I tried writing it as prose, and it didn’t work. There is definitely something minimalistic about poetry that I enjoy.
You often write about motherhood and parenting – did you expect that to become a big part of your work? Do you have advice for those who might want to write about their experiences with parenthood?
Parenthood is what brought me back to writing after a ~15 year hiatus. I started writing about motherhood – staying home, pumping breastmilk, grieving my old life – and it took off from there. My writing has been enhanced tenfold by my life as a mother. I enjoy sharing the process of writing and motherhood with others. My advice would be to write about the good stuff – feeding in the nursery, the night time cuddles, the moments that will leave and not ever come back – and write about the messy stuff too, because that is just as valuable. Write about what surprised you about motherhood.
What advice do you have for writers just getting started, especially in your genres?
Call yourself a writer! That was one of the biggest things that improved my craft. The other big thing is to find a critique group or writing partner. Meet regularly, ideally in person. Set rules, because sharing your work is vulnerable, and you want rules that everyone understands and abides by. When you start thinking about sending your work out, do it! Submission to literary magazines and journals is a process in itself. Find your own rhythm. And know that everyone gets rejected. Learn to harness that energy to improve your piece, or submit elsewhere, or both. Above all, keep going, keep improving.
Specific to narrative nonfiction, there’s an adage that says to write what you know. I say write what you think you know. For the criticism I have of novelist and essayist Joan Didion, she did say something that has stuck with me. She said (and I’m paraphrasing) that she writes entirely to know what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling, what she’s looking at. Once your thoughts are on the page, you can claim them in a way that perhaps you couldn’t when they were just in your head, and you can start from there. It is freeing.
What is your biggest weakness or greatest struggle as a writer?
Social media is a huge distractor for me. It has stopped me from getting into the creative flow, especially when I have very finite time (which is all the time). I have interrupted myself so many times to check IG or Facebook, and it’s no good. And it’s not just on a personal level, but from an author standpoint too. The amount of marketing authors are expected to do today compared to the past is significant. Especially if you are working on building a platform, like I am, it can really take away from pure writing time. To mitigate this, I sometimes turn off Wifi, or practice discipline to respect the flow and go with it, not sabotage myself by stopping to check social media. I know of writers who write in 20-minute spurts, and then will allow five minutes of social media or whatever.
Sometimes it’s hard to know when to put a project to bed - how do you know when you’ve finished something?
That is a question for the ages. I think every writer asks him/her/themselves that. I’ve been so guilty of submitting an unfinished piece to a literary magazine. My personal litmus test is when I think it’s finished, I put it away for at least a week. Then I take it out again, revise with fresh eyes, and then, if possible, workshop it – have another set of eyes look at it. Ideally this is a critique group, a fellow writer, or someone who reads a lot. Really consider that constructive feedback – a hole in the plot, a sentence that tripped the reader up – to make the piece better. The process of workshopping is often what helps the most in terms of getting the piece where it needs to be, where I feel good sending it out.
How does the revision process work for you? Love it? Dread it? What is most effective for you?
I really like revising. I get to hone my voice, deepen my language, and try different things within the context of my message. Usually it takes me at least a couple revisions to get there. It’s also the phase where I need to be the most patient with myself. Sometimes access to my best writing voice doesn’t come right away, and that’s ok.
What are you reading these days?
I’m just finishing “Leaving Isn’t The Hardest Thing,” an essay collection by Lauren Hough, and am about to start “Blow Your House Down,” a memoir by Gina Frangello.
Coming up next...
Oct. 20: WOTR and NCW Libraries NCW Writers Group
Every third Wednesday, 4-5 p.m.
Join NCW Libraries and Write on the River for an inclusive writers’ club for writers of all ages, skill levels, genres and interests. The NCW Writers’ Club is a virtual writing community created by local writers, for local writers. This club is designed to connect people and artists, discuss the craft, ask for advice and share resources. Meetings are every third Wednesday from 4-5 p.m., with an optional social hour afterward. Wenatchee librarian Nik Penny and Write on the River board member Holly Thorpe will host the club virtually on Zoom. In-person options may be added in the future. All NCW Libraries virtual events are free and open to the public. Meetings will be held through the zoom meeting platform. Find more information at ncwlibraries.org
To learn more about Write on the River, become a member, or register for events, visit writeontheriver.org. Membership is $35 per year, and offers free or discounted access to all WOTR events. Questions?
Contact info@writeontheriver.org.