Would you please tell us a little about your writing process?
I write in a journal, daily. I jot down bits and pieces, words and impressions. I take those pieces to my basement office at 4:30 on a few mornings out of the week. With a candle as my only light, I write and write and rewrite by hand in my latest journal. Automatic writing unfolds into drafts. Drafts grow into more drafts and soon my computer takes over. The drafts become more formal until we have something solid.
How do you believe a writer improves? Practice? Mentors? Reading everything? Attending festivals?
Writing is about getting as deep in the pool as possible. Do it all, making sure to keep scribbling in the journal.
What motivated / motivates you to write?
My mind is constantly churning, ruminating, and looking for stories. It happens naturally.
What have been your most meaningful or profound experiences as a writer?
A breast-cancer survivor asked me, at a reading, to read a piece of mine that dealt with a man’s love for a double-mastectomy survivor. When I said that wasn’t in the collection from which I was reading, she produced a copy from her purse.
Would you mind sharing a photograph of a part of your bookshelf (or your library) that is meaningful to you? What makes it meaningful to you?
This part of the shelf? It’s a hodgepodge, like my head. No. Really.
Where are the best places to live / visit as a writer?
I’d say that any place that fuels you or challenges you to write, writer better, then write better still is the perfect place. For me, Baltimore has been a wellspring of fodder. It is a city of wild contrasts and wilder characters. My instrument had been honed by interactions with elite, effete professors, destitute drug addicts, and so much in between. I am global citizen, though, and my writing spaces span the globe. The UK, Australia, Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Canada are just a few of the countries that have fed me.
E. Doyle-Gillespie is a Baltimore City poet and writer. He holds a BA in History from George Washington University, and a Master of Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University. His poems are drawn from his world travel, and his work in education, and law enforcement. These poems represent his fascination with history and culture, and how those forces play roles in the most intimate parts of our lives. His books of poetry include Masala Tea and Oranges, On the Later Addition of Sancho Panza, Socorro Prophecy, Gentrifying the Plague House, and Aerial Act. His most recent title is Father of the Red Grotto Used Bookstore. This year, he was first-place grand-prize winner of the Iridescence Award, the third-place winner of the African Diaspora Award 2024, the third-place winner of the Westmoreland Arts and Heritage Festival, and an honourable mention in the Rhonda Gail Williford award for poetry.