Meet Editor and Poet Kelly Davio: Co-founder of the Tahoma Literary Review

Poet, Editor, and Co-founder of TLR

I first met Kelly Davio through a women's promotional book group -- BookLift -- that I founded five years ago. Kelly was new to the area and it was immediately apparent that she was full of energy and intelligence when it came to the world of books, journals, and the publishing world. It was also apparent that she was generous and had an open heart. The Tahoma Literary Review has just released its first issue --- and you can download it for free or better yet, for a small donation. In view of full disclosure, my poem, "Sunday Evening Retrospect" is included in this issue. You can see what Kelly writes about publishing people she knows -- it may surprise you. In a good way.

Kelly Davio is the Poetry Editor and Co-Founder of Tahoma Literary Review. She is the author of the poetry collection Burn This House (Red Hen Press, 2013). Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, The Rumpus, and others. She earned her MFA in poetry from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and teaches English as a Second Language in the Seattle area.

1. What was your impetus for beginning TLR — is there an inception story? 

       My cofounder, Joe Ponepinto, and I worked together for some years on another journal, I as managing editor and Joe as book reviews editor. When we both moved on from that project, we knew we wanted to continue to work together in some capacity, and we kicked around a number of ideas for what our next venture could be. We had no desire to simply add another literary journal to a world that's already teeming with magazines. Instead, we wanted to address what we see as a hole in the literary marketplace; when we took the time to really listen to writers' wants, we heard that people were looking for publications that pay writers, and for more fair and transparent editorial policies.

2. Now that the first issue has hit the net and the physical book shelves, what have you learned about this endeavor that surprised you? 

When Joe and I began to work on a business plan for the journal last fall, we kept transparency and payment at the forefront of our priorities, and we spent a few months working through a variety of different financial scenarios in order to arrive at our current business model. Rather than simply plunging ahead with a concept, we spent quite a bit of time developing solid answers to tricky questions: how could we ensure payment for our writers in every issue, every time? Where could we eliminate typical costs inherent in running a literary journal? How would we make our processes as open and clear to our submitters as possible? We're pretty pleased to be literary people who've managed to also be businesspeople enough to create a sustainable journal without institutional funding.

But we've had some great surprises, too. We've been overwhelmed by the positive response writers and readers have had to our journal. The number of submissions we received for our first issue exceeded our expectations, and we've been equally surprised by the number of readers we've garnered for this issue. We so often hear that "nobody reads journals these days," but in the one month following the issue's release, about one thousand people have downloaded or ordered a copy of the journal. That tells us that, yes, there is a readership for great literary writing!


3. I love that you’ve set-up a structure that includes paper and on-line formats. What was your thinking on this? 

Our goal is to get as many people as possible to read the great work in our pages. Some people will only read books in print, and have a devotion to the physical book. Other people want to have the portability and accessibility inherent in the digital text. So often, the choice between print and e-reader formats feels like picking sides in an ideological battle, and we didn't like that. Instead of choosing a single method of presenting work to readers, we wanted to give people as many opportunities to enjoy the journal as possible. Luckily for us, we have great in-house knowledge of both traditional and e-reader book production and formatting, so we were able to start distributing the journal in both formats from the get-go.

4. The transparency with which you’ve set-up your journal is impressive. Has that caused problems with writer friends that you do no solicitations? How have you handled that? 

You know, I've always avoided soliciting friends for work, even when working on journals that openly solicited! I never wanted to give anyone the slightest reason to feel that his or her work would only be published if he or she had an "in." (That probably says more about my own self-doubt as a writer than it does about other people's mindsets.) So not receiving solicitations from me is nothing new to my writer friends! I like to think that my literary friends can see the enthusiasm I have for a policy of fairness, and that they'll be on board with the idea.

5. I’m assuming TLR is a labor of love and the funds you receive go out to the writers. You are volunteering hours of your time that you could be writing or sleeping or hanging out with a friend. What motivates you to do this work?

TLR is definitely a labor of love. We hope that one day, each of our editors will receive some a monetary compensation, but for now, we're happy to put the publishers' share of TLR's earnings right back into payment for writers. Even though we are a journal that is dedicated to paying our writers--not because we're setting a monetary value on art, but because we believe art should be valued in our culture--Joe, Yi Shun and I don't do this for the money. We simply love good writing, and we love writers. We want to showcase great work from a genuinely diverse range of writers, and we want to help artists to grow their careers. Making connections with writers and helping their work find an audience is tremendously rewarding, and we hope to be doing this work for years to come.

Road Trips, Revelations, and Poetry Readings

Oliver de la Paz and I @ Village Books Oct 2nd

I think the point of poetry readings is to bring people together. I like to hear the stories behind the poems and to listen to the voice of the poet. Oftentimes I need that pattern of tones and syllables in order to understand how to read a writer's work. As a poet who is reading out a goodly amount this fall, I like to think about what makes a good poetry reading.

Next Thursday, October 2nd I will read with the wonderful Olive de la Paz at Village Books in Bellingham, WA. The following night, Friday, October 3rd, I'm reading for the Words, Writers, West Seattle Series, a program of the Southwest Historical Society, and talking about how to conduct historical research for creative purposes.

But what I am most excited about is the new WordsWest Series that I'm curating with Katy Ellis and Harold Taw at C & P Coffee Company. Each month we invite the West Seattle community to come hear world class writers and help us nurture the West Seattle literary community. As new curators, all well published, we want to do something different with this series --- and so far --- we are. Next up is "Politics and Poetics: Rick Barot and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha."

What if someone telephoned to say you had 3 minutes to run for your life? What if a bomb was about to be dropped on your family’s home? Can words ever do justice to the shock, bewilderment, and fear that such wartime “courtesy” calls provoked during this past summer in Gaza?

                                  *******

For the October 15, 2014 edition of WordsWest Literary Series, poets Rick Barot and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha will read their work and explore with the audience how poetry confronts what is painful, confounding, and divisive in our human experience. Can we draw closer together by delving more deeply into our complicated cultural heritages, lost histories, and political struggles?

Rick Barot is the author of three poetry collections with Sarabande Books: The Darker Fall (2002); Want (2008); and Chord (forthcoming 2015). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Trust, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and Stanford University. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry, The Paris Review, and The New Republic. Rick is the poetry editor of New England Review. He lives in Tacoma and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University. He is also the director of The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at PLU.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha has lived the experiences of first-generation American, immigrant, and expatriate. In the summer of 2014, her poem “Running Orders”—written from the voice of a Palestinian evacuee in Gaza—went viral online. Her heritage is Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian and she is fluent in Arabic. She has lived in and travelled across the Arab world, and many of her poems are inspired by the experience of crossing borders: cultural, geographic, political, borders between the present and the living past. She translated the screenplay for the award-winning film “When I Saw You”, written and directed by Annemarie Jacir in 2011. She has poems in Floating Bridge Review, Taos International Journal of Poetry and Art, and in the print anthology Being Palestinian, to be published by Oxford Press in 2015.

Top 10 Things to Consider When Sending Your Work for a Contest or Residency

Rule #1 - Stand Out

This week I have judged two poetry contests and reviewed residency applications back to back. It's a perfect time to consider what makes a judge put your work into the "read again" pile rather than the "no thank you" pile. As a poet who has been on both sides of the desk, here's what I've learned.

1. Subject matters. The poems I'm reading for this contest are almost exclusively: natural world is transformative, loss of a loved one, a childhood memory. Any poem that goes outside that triad I put in the "read again" file.

2. Humor is great when it works... Oftentimes it doesn't. Maybe check-in with writer and non writer friends to see if what you think is funny resonates.

3. "Poetry" words (such as dance, twirl, illuminate, or any gemstones) need to go. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard.

4. As a general rule, poems shouldn't go beyond one page. This was my feeling as I read hundreds of entries.

5. One line that's off, one word that's off, can make a difference.

6. Endings need all your attention. So many poems begin strong and then falter as they move towards the middle of the poem. The end of the piece is what leaves a lasting impression.

7. Judges are fickle. What I am telling you as a judge of chapbook prizes and residency programs might be very different than what another judge would say. Each year judges change and so your chances for the same contest will be fresh each year.

8. Winning is, in part, a numbers game. The poets I know who seem to be winning everything apply for at least 5 times more than they win. They are actually terrific losers. They just aren't afraid to play.

9. Persistence pays off. The poet Spenser Reece who this year is up for a National Book Award had his first manuscript rejected over 200 times. 200 times.

10. Believe in your work; send wild cards. Every time you send your work into the world you are saying Yes! to possibility. Yes to mystery. Yes to deserving an audience. My poems that have won contests were never the ones  I thought were contest worthy. Always it has been a surprise poem that I sent as a wild card.

If you have added tips and suggestions, please add them in the comments box. A community of helpful writers is beneficial to us all. Get your poems out now --- contests are waiting for you.

Longlist for the National Book Award in Poetry Just In!

Congratulations to all --- but especially to Spenser Reece!

Here's the longlist for the National Book Award in Poetry! 

Roget's Illusion
Linda Bierds
(G.P. Putnam's Sons/ Penguin Group (USA))

A Several World
Brian Blanchfield
(Nightboat Books)

Faithful and Virtuous Night
Louise Glück
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Gabriel: A Poem
Edward Hirsch
(Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)

Second Childhood
Fanny Howe
(Graywolf Press)

This Blue
Maureen N. McLane
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The Feel Trio
Fred Moten
(Letter Machine Editions)

Citizen: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine
(Graywolf Press)

The Road to Emmaus
Spencer Reece
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Collected Poems
Mark Strand
(Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)

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Projects Keeping Me Busy - WordsWest, Gaza, and Poets on the Coast 2015

WordsWest at C & P Coffee 

I can't tell you how excited I am to be working with Harold Taw and Katy Ellis on this brand new arts series: WordsWest Literary Series happening at 7 pm this Wednesday, September 17th at C & P Coffeehouse in West Seattle.

Our line-up for Fall is pretty awesome 

In the fifteen years I've lived in West Seattle there has never been a literary series in any coffeehouse, arts center, bookshop, or other venue --- at least not that I've been aware of. And now, five minutes after meeting Katy Ellis for the first time and then inviting Harold to participate...Well, we have a really exciting group of writers in a superb coffee shop. And we have area businesses participating in the Favorite Poem Project by reading one poem that has meant something to them in their lives and sharing it with the audience. We're also archiving every reading and creating a podcast -- with the authors' okay.

And what else has been happening? Well, I was honored to be invited by Elizabeth Austen, Washington State Poet Laureate to read my poems on the Seattle NPR affiliate, KUOW. This was especially meaningful to me because I am reading and talking about my time in Israel and Palestine. You can listen here just click on Listen to the Story.

New home for Poets on the Coast 2015

Finally, just back from a wonderfully successful Poets on the Coast 2014, Kelli Agodon and I are deep into planning for Poets on the Coast 2015 --- the 5th Anniversary of our Poets on the Coast retreat for women. This year we added a collaboration with the fabulous Northwest Museum of Modern Art (NoMA) which gave poets full run of the museum to write ekphrastic work which will soon be published by NoMA on their website. Stay tuned!

I think there are several more projects and readings happening. For example Kelli Russell Agodon and I read for LitFix at the Rendezvous Room next Thursday, September 18th. We'd love to see you.