Want to push your writing forward? Griffin Poetry Prize finalist Eve Joseph says to ask yourself, 'So what?'
CBC Books | | Posted: May 8, 2019 2:58 PM | Last Updated: November 5, 2019
Eve Joseph is an award-winning poet and nonfiction writer based in Victoria. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Malahat Review.
She was also a finalist for the 2010 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Her latest book of poetry, Quarrels is a finalist for the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize, an annual $65,000 prize for the best work of poetry.
CBC Books asked Joseph for her best writing tip .
"Two pieces of writing advice that stay with me are both from the late American poet Jane Kenyon, who said, 'Read good books, have good sentences in your ears.' And although I no longer know where I read it, I'm sure it was Kenyon who advised writers to apply the 'So what?' test to whatever they write. I do this all the time and, most often, what I write doesn't pass the test.
"But, perhaps, the best writing tip or advice I ever received was from my husband, Patrick Friesen, who advised me to hole up in the Sylvia Hotel with a bottle of whiskey and write. I followed his advice — not always with whiskey — and to this day I would say that solitude, wherever it can be found, is essential to the writing process."