What do you do when your creativity is not confined to poetry, but includes prose, recipes, and memoir as well? You publish a hybrid collection that includes all of the above, as writer Nadja Maril has done! Let’s pop open the lid of this creative mind and peek inside. 

Q: There is such rich variety even in the title of your latest book, “Recipes from My Garden: Herb and Memoir Short Prose and Poetry”. I’d like to know about the “seeds” of this particular combination; how the ideas came together, how you organized your pieces, and how it came to publication. 

A: The majority of the short prose, essays and poems included in my chapbook, Recipes From My Garden, were written during the two-year period when our world was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. January 2020 I’d just completed the Stonecoast MFA program in literary fiction at University of Southern Maine and was deeply immersed in writing a multi-layered novel while planning to host my daughter’s wedding in March. Then in February, everything--schools, restaurants, businesses—started shutting down. No one knew definitively how the virus spread or what precautions to take and it was difficult not to become obsessed with worry. We canceled the wedding and my husband and I both worked from home.

Many of my writing colleagues stopped writing. They told me they couldn’t concentrate. It was the opposite for me. Writing became my refuge, a way to escape my daily fears. As an alternate to writing longform, I began writing flash creative nonfiction as a way to document memories.Making sense of my experiences was something I could control.

Taste and smell are senses that helped to launch my brief memoirs that are often set in the kitchen. I love cooking with fresh herbs and my husband Peter planted a large garden. We did a lot of our dining outside, thought at the time to be a safer place to meet with friends due to the virus. I shared some of this writing, got favorable feedback and began getting short pieces published in various literary magazines. The idea of a small book with short prose poems about herbs and vegetables, something to put together after my novel was complete, began to germinate in my mind.

The opportunity for a chapbook came about when Dianne Pearce, the Co-founder of Devil’s Party Press (now Current Words Publishing) invited me to join a Poetry Collective she was starting. I was surprised because I write primarily in prose, not in verse. However, I went to the first meeting, and when I voiced my interest in short form prose and inquired whether it would be possible to publish a collection of short form prose, other prospective members of the group were receptive.

As I assembled work together for the book, I realized I had some short essays that would further extend the theme and decided to include them. I knew that by putting flash creative nonfiction, poetry, and essays together into one book would make it difficult to categorize for marketing and cataloguing purposes, but I didn’t care. I think it’s important to experiment. Pushing the boundaries is how we learn to become better writers. Initially these longer essays were all placed in the second half of the book, but two of the three members of the collective liked them so much they encouraged me to place several closer to the start of the collection, to insure they wouldn’t be overlooked.

Q: Tell me about your process as a writer. If you could paint a picture of what that looks like with words, what would you say?

A: Every one of us sees the world differently. I gravitate towards colors, sounds, textures, smells; small details that make a setting unique. Transcribing those images into phrases, is something I like to do after a morning walk, as a form of journaling. Sometimes these word doodles become poems and other times they are notes to myself. 

Whenever I get a new idea for a story or an idea for a writing prompt that might generate interesting memoir, I write it down in my journal. I usually have a half a dozen projects going at a time, so a new idea may need to wait.

I spend part of my writing time penning new material and another part of my writing- time, further refining works in progress. From experience I’ve learned that even if I feel initially a piece is wonderful, if I let it sit for a day or two and pick it up to read, preferably out loud, I’ll find all sorts of faults. You can be your own editor, by distancing yourself from your work.

I also workshop pieces with writing colleagues. Reading other people’s work and thinking about what resonates with me and what needs further revision, helps me evaluate my own strengths and weaknesses. In my weekly blog posts on Wordpress, Medium and Substack I try to share what I’ve learned and if it generates a writing prompt or an original cooking recipe that becomes part of my post.

In another part of my brain, I’m still working on my novel, further revising it. This process includes thinking about certain scenes, maybe when I’m driving somewhere, andlater sitting down at my computer and reading pages aloud, reviewing notes that may lead to changing, addingor deleting sentences. 

Q: What book are you currently reading? Thoughts? 

A: I regularly listen to books while I’m doing household chores such as folding laundry and putting away dishes. Yesterday, I finished listening to this year’s National Book Award winner James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the viewpoint of Jim. Having read Huckleberry Finn multiple times, I was worried I’d be disappointed. However, I was thoroughly entertained by Jim as he transforms into James. It’s a delightful “listen” and I look forward to seeing the movie which I’ve read is under contract. 

This week I’ve begun listening to Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, the story of a Korean family, spanning four generations, who immigrates to Japan. Some readers may be familiar with the storyline, as it is a multi-lingual streaming series on Apple TV.

Simultaneously I read a hard copy of another book and currently it’s Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford. Over the summer I read Apple: (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth, a stunning memoir told in poems that provides insight into Gansworth’s early life growing up on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in Niagara County, New York. 

Crooked Hallelujah, also written by a female Native American author, is a novel that begins in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma during the 1970’s. The novel tells the stories of four generations of women, with few material possessions but plenty of grit and determination. The author intermixes first and third person in the narrative to bring the reader into the worldview of the characters. It’s a powerful first novel.

About the Author:
Nadja Maril is a writer whose work appears in The Lumiere Review, Lunch Ticket, Litro Magazine, and more. She has authored books across genres, including Recipes from My Garden, children’s stories, and reference guides. A former editor and columnist, she has written for The Washington Post and other publications. She shares writing prompts and recipes on her blog, Nadjamaril.