In a New Interview, Rose Solari Opens up about Publishing and Writing in the era of COVID
"At the beginning of ASP we were told 'You'd be lucky if you made it 3-5 years.'" 10 years and a million trials later, poet and ASP co-founder Rose Solari delivers this extremely honest interview to author Kathy Rampsberger
Author Kathy Rampsberger conducts this incredible digital interview as part of her "Story Hour" series.
It's been months now since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic and much has changed in the landscape of publishing and writing. Always attuned to change and always in conversation with the past, writer and poet Rose Solari discusses the art that matters to now and living through the age of COVID. In this interview you will learn about Rose's writing process, whether she outlines or writes spontaneously, her parents, her ear for music, the work and research that went into her first novel, A Secret Woman, keeping the doors open in the time of a nationwide pandemic, and so much more. This is a candid and emotionally vulnerable interview from one of Maryland's finest women of letters. It is not to be missed.
Blurring the boundaries between past and present, between the body and the spirit, between female and male, A Secret Woman is a sexually-charged adventure through time and space, a profound meditation on the mother-daughter connection, and an enlightening exploration of what it means to make love, to make art, and to make a life worth living.
A Secret Woman is not only a pleasure to read, it is sneaky serious in a way I particularly like. Rose Solari explores the eternal literary theme of self — who we are, who are the ones we love, and how we invent and reinvent these people, trying always to paint ourselves into the vast canvas of life and history. A very promising fiction debut. — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of Perfume River and Severance
Featured Poetry: “Toytown” by Grace Cavalieri
The name Other Voices, Other Lives, is not purely poetical, in fact, for Grace Cavalieri it is a mission statement. In her Legacy Book of the same name there are several sections in 3rd person omnipotent which aim to breathe the same air as famous women who have suffered adversity. Tragic figure Anna Nicole Smith, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Cora from William Carlos William’s Kora in Hell. All in all they are an admix of Grace Cavalieri’s poetic life, all brought together in one beautiful volume; so, perhaps, we might figure that Anna Nicole Smith converses with Mary Wollstonecraft for the very first time in the pages of Other Voices, Other Lives.
Today, from the Anna section we have the heart-rending “Toytown”
Talking Jazz and Rock with Poet Reuben Jackson (Laura Ritchie)
Author and music educator Lauren Ritchie sat down with ASP’s Reuben Jackson this week to talk jazz with the man himself. Reuben’s music credentials are long and impressive, from curating the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian to hosting a weekly Jazz radio show for NPR Vermont, to his poetry which takes inspiration from and frequently comments on the American Jazz idiom. Listen to or read the interview…
Rose Solari talks with Acclaimed Poet David Gewanter
This Sunday, October 21, at 8 p.m., ASP’s Rose Solari is reading with acclaimed poet, essayist, editor, and professor David Gewanter in a new poetry reading series at Second Story Books, 2000 P Street NW, Washington DC. In preparation for their reading, Rose talked with David about his work, particularly his most recent collection, Fort Necessity. Here is a part of their discussion…