Lisa Romeo Power Profile
I met Lisa, as one does, online. It must have been about fifteen years ago. I started following her blog, and we chatted through that, and I did some guest posts for her, and we soon found out we had other things in common—namely, father loss.
I have long been impressed with Lisa’s incredible generosity towards writers. She exemplifies “literary citizen” and her creative nonfiction will slice you open. I’m thrilled to share a little bit about her with you!
LH: What issues/ideas/questions do you find continue to circle through your work?
LR: Four areas mainly: How our upbringing, family dynamics, and especially our parents, informs who we become as adults. The influence of a life that, for nearly 20 years, once revolved around horses. Who we are at different stages of life, and how much that’s tied to what’s been lost almost more than what’s gained. And finally—death, grief, illness, tragedy. Since I write mostly memoir and personal essay, so that final one is perhaps expected!
LH: How do you engage with literary citizenship and its role in building a community of supportive writers?
LR: For a dozen years, I’ve published a blog focused on helping other writers—posts about my own writing and publishing experiences, craft advice, author interviews and guest posts by writers, poets, editors, writing teachers.
When a writer I know has new work out in the world, is doing a reading or other event, I try to promote it on all my social media channels, newsletter, etc. Some other ways have been judging student writing contests for a regional nonprofit for developmentally-challenged youth; speaking to library-based writers’ groups; and donating editing services to charity auctions.
I’ve been a (voluntary) editor for several literary journals over the past eight years (and currently edit the “Writer to Writer” craft essays for Cleaver Magazine). I encourage any writer who is able, to spend time reading or editing for a lit journal. What you give is paid back tenfold not only by those warm feelings of helping bring other writers’ work to the page/screen, but also by how much you will learn yourself.
LH: Self-promotion is a necessary task in today’s marketplace. How do you approach self-promotion and have your views changed on it over time?
LR: I’m typically rather pragmatic about it. We write so that people will read what we’ve created. And how will they find us, find our words, unless we lead them there? So, create a plan and get on with it!
Well, that’s how I suppose I’d have answered this a few months ago, earlier in 2020. I’d have added that as a former public relations specialist, I look at promotion and publicity as important parts of the marketing process. Sure, as a writer (of in my case, personal true stories), it may feel uncomfortable at times, but building awareness and delivering messages about your “product” (book, essays) is essential, so we must just learn to do it, try to enjoy it if we can, and not be coy or disingenuously modest. Tell the world! Lead them to your words!
However, I’m answering this in 2020, hence most of the world has been at home for way too long, and the question of self-promotion feels somewhat different now. As soon as the pandemic became news in the U.S., and stay-at-home/quarantine began, one of the first things I did was stop talking about my own work on social media; it just didn’t strike the right tone. As time went by, I started trying to help friends in the literary community with new books out or about to publish, and who had to cancel launch parties, readings, and other events. It seems more important now to boost others. Readers want to discover new books, new authors, find new things to read.
It will be interesting to see how this question feels to me whenever we get back to some kind of normal.
LH: There are so many extreme crises in the world today demanding our attention. Often, we hear push-back from others about how art doesn’t matter or isn’t worth the time of the artist or the receiver. What is your answer to those who say art is a waste of time?
LR: See above: readers need and want great stuff to read. But way beyond that, let’s think about how, in the last 12 weeks alone—while coronavirus-related stay-at-home orders were in place—tens, no hundreds, of millions of people of all ages around the globe have been staying sane, finding connection, and learning about the world and themselves. The answer is art.
Italians singing on their balconies. People watching the online gallery tours and plays made free by important museums and theater companies. Creating sidewalk art. Listening to music, watching films, documentaries, making their own videos. Dancing (sure, TikTok might not be high art, but dance is an art form!). Playing musical instruments, cooking, listening to podcasts.
These are all ways of either consuming, participating in, and/or creating art. We’d be nowhere as a society without it!
LH: What metaphor best expresses your creative process?
LR: How about – a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
I tend to begin with “brain dump” drafts – sheep. Too mild and non-threatening, too long and not particularly compelling, skimming the surface without much hint of strong interest lurking underneath. Out of that seemingly inconsequential morass, I work to excavate, challenge myself to figure out what the story is really about, force myself to look at experiences that I may flinch from, and then hopefully, the wolf emerges: something with literary teeth, demanding attention, sharp and unrelenting on the page. If I’m lucky.
LH: What are you currently working on and why does it matter to you?
LR: In fall of 2019, I returned to riding horses after being away from the sport for 25 years. Between the ages of 14 to 35, I’d been a horse owner, competitive equestrian, horse show judge, and equestrian journalist. I started a memoir about how much that world had shaped me, but I wanted it to have a now component to the story. So, as a 60th birthday present to myself, I signed up for lessons a few times a week—to see if I still could ride, at my age, weight, and (lack of) fitness level, and find out what that would bring up for me. (I could, but in other news, began losing weight along the way—58 pounds thus far.) The love of the horse world was still there, still so strong. That’s what I was doing and writing about until coronavirus closed the stables.
At the same time, over the last year or so, I’ve been writing and publishing essays about my maternal grandmother, a feisty, strong Italian immigrant who raised four kids on her own during the Depression after tossing out her bigamist husband. And I’m always writing about marriage (sometimes to the chagrin of my husband of 32 years!).
LH: What writer’s work would you like to elevate here?
VL: Oh, so many. Rather than list here, can I ask folks to take a look at my blog, Facebook author page, Instagram, etc.? (Links in bio.)
Lisa Romeo is the author of the memoir Starting With Goodbye (University of Nevada Press). Her shorter nonfiction works—which have been listed in Best American Essays 2018 and 2016, and nominated several times for Pushcart Prizes—have been published in the New York Times, Longreads, Brevity, O The Oprah Magazine, Under the Sun, Harpur Palate, Inside Jersey, Sweet, and many essay anthologies, including Flash Nonfiction Funny, Feed Me, and Why We Ride. Lisa teaches in an MFA program, presents frequently at conferences, and works as an independent editor. She lives in New Jersey. Connect with Lisa at her website, blog, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
