Christopher Kuhl’s Comments

I have no formal training in writing or literature, except what I got in high school. But I’ve always written and I’ve always read, and that has shaped me, and continues to. I’m always learning new stuff, trying new things. I also (being a neo-Luddite) write with pen and paper, and keep a notebook in which to jot ideas, words, images, etc. Those eventually make it to my top-spiraled notebook, where I work on the draft and revisions. When I get these done, I go to the laptop and type up the poem, making little tweaks as I go. I just signed a contract for three poetry books in three years with a book publisher. For the first time, I’m not self-publishing; they’re paying me, along with hefty advances. I’ve one book in the hopper already; it’s about the Holocaust and the new lives of the survivors and their first generation. (My family was wiped out, except for my mother and her mother, who went first to Canada and then, in 1952, northern New York, which they hated: a farming town, no culture, no Jews, lots of anti-Semitism, etc.) I hope to have the manuscript done by the end of January and off to the publisher.

Return to Archive