Linda Della Donna’s Little Red Mail Box Interviews Janet Grace Riehl about “Sightlines” and “What’s it like to be living your dream?”

Linda Della Donna has a cool blog named “Little Red Mailbox” filled with print interviews, and now I’ve joined the throng. You can check it out by clicking here.

Clocking in at around 2,800 words–quite long for an interview of this sort–it’s very in-depth–I’d say that Linda’s Little Red Mailbox is in danger of being stuffed.

Here are the 24 questions I speak to in the interview with Linda:

ABOUT WRITING IN GENERAL

1. Janet, please tell readers a little about yourself?

2. How has living in the Midwest affected your writing?

3. How long have you been writing?

4. Where do your ideas come from?

5. What is the difference between anthologies and literary journals and getting published in them?

6. What is special about being in anthologies?

7. Janet, was there ever a moment in your writing career when you thought you just couldn’t write?

8. Do you have a favorite writing tip? A favorite book? Perhaps a favorite author?

9. Any advice for a writer working at maintaining a blog, creating a website, and writing a first book?

10. What’s it like to live your dream–book, author, ISBN number?

ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF WRITING AND PUBLISHING SIGHTLINES IN PARTICULAR

11. When was Sightlines published, how long did it take to write, and can you describe the feeling?

12. Why did you decide to write the book, Sightlines?

13. Where did the words for Sightline come from?

14. What about themes. Where did they come from?

15. What is a story poem?

16. Once you wrote the poems, where did you get the structure for a book?

17. Was there risk? In as much as you write from the heart, did you find it difficult to put your work out there?

18. How did you manage your time to write “Sightlines”, the book?

19. Would you say this was your soul baby? Can you describe how it felt to write this book?

20. I understand that your father contributed to “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary”. How did that come about?

21. Were any other family members involved?

22. Was there a hard part in writing Sightlines?

23. Did you receive help? What kind?

24. At what stage did you start to feel it was really a book?