Associate professor of creative writing Mark Spitzer coordinated a student-led interview with Arkansas poet Paulette Guerin that was published July 10 in the Parhelion literary journal.
In the interview, titled “You Can’t Carry that Raft on Your Back Forever,” graduate students Janet Uchendu, Kathy M. Bates, Amber Wagoner, Sydney Austin and Savannah Moix-Rogers go in depth with Guerin about her poetry tactics, stages of life, influences and more.
Guerin is a UCA graduate and teaches courses at Harding University. Spitzer knew he wanted to work with her on this project after he spoke to one of her classes as a visiting writer and learned that she had a new poetry book coming out soon.
“Since I’m always looking for ways for students in my upper-level and graduate courses to interact with writers and have conversations with writers, the idea of having them study Paulette’s book naturally popped into my head,” Spitzer said. “It’s always a win-win situation when students can learn from a professional role model and help her promote her work.”
In March, some of Spitzer’s advanced forms and theory of poetry students conducted a Zoom interview with the author. Afterward, Spitzer spent class time projecting the text on the whiteboard, allowing the class to make edits together.
“I knew there was a lot of theory packed into Paulette’s verse, plus a lot the class could discuss in terms of forms and poetics. Since Paulette is a young and ambitious writer, I figured she’d be eager to embrace this opportunity. Plus, I suspected my students would connect with Paulette’s style and voice, and they did,” Spitzer said.
Spitzer has been helping his students publish interviews for 15 years at UCA. He introduces his class to writers that they end up interviewing with their own questions. The class then comes together to edit and frame the interview before sending it off for publication.
“The success rate for this tactic is extremely high because literary journals are always on the lookout for interviews of contemporary authors to accompany the overload of poetry and fiction they always receive. I’ve helped hundreds of UCA students get published with this method, and it’s an extremely empowering experience for emerging writers,” Spitzer said.
In his teaching creative writing class, Spitzer was recently able to set up an interview between his students and author Kishor Vaidya. The interview is titled “Playing the Fool in Charge as a Tool for Educational Leadership: An Interview with Dr. Kishor Vaidya and Contributors to Teach Creative Writing with a Sense of Humor.”
Having worked alongside Vaidya on another project, Spitzer was able to involve him in a class project where students held a diverse conversation about teaching and leading with a sense of humor. Students were assigned chapters to study from Vaidya’s book and interviewed him.
“It was a fun project to study the role of humor in pedagogy for all of us, and everyone learned something, and we met our mutual objective via cooperation,” Spitzer said.
The interview will be published next year in Vaidya’s edited collection “Lead with a Sense of Humor: Why (and How to) Be a Funnier and More Effective Educational Leader and Laugh All the Way to Your Institution.”
Spitzer believes his students learn best from hands-on experience. He said that having students plan and conduct interviews builds confidence and helps students build their resumes.
“These interviews also provide a critical response for the interviewee whose work is worthy of being showcased on not just a regional or national level, but in the case of the reach of online journals, for an international audience,” Spitzer said.