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For our fifteenth episode, we talk to Katerina Stoykova, author of Second Skin and Senior Editor of Accents Publishing. Katerina discusses how she uses her journals to create writing prompts for herself and offers advice for doing so with your own journals.
A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. A partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
12_22 Prompt to Page Stoykova
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[00:00:00] Carrie: Welcome to the Prompt to Page podcast, a partnership between the Jessamine County Public Library and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. I'm your host, librarian and poet Carrie Green. Each episode we interview a published writer who shares their favorite writing prompt. Submit your response to the prompt for a chance to have it read on a future episode of the podcast.
Our guest today is Katerina Stoykova. Katerina is the author of several award-winning poetry books in English and Bulgarian, as well as the senior editor of Accents publishing. Her latest book, Second Skin, received the Vanya Konstantinova Biannual National Poetry Award, as well as the grant from the European Commissions Program, Creative Europe for transla,tion and publication in English.
Katerina acted in the lead roles for the independent feature films, Proud Citizen and Fort Maria, both directed by Tom Southerland. Her poems have been translated into German, Spanish, Ukrainian Bangla, Farsi, and a volume of her selected poems translated into Arabic by acclaimed poet. Khairi Hamdon was published in Arabic from Dar Al Biruni Press in 2022.
Welcome, Katerina. Thanks for joining us on Prompt to Page!
[00:01:23] Katerina: Thank you so much, Carrie, for your invitation. I'm very happy to be talking to you.
[00:01:28] Carrie: So one of the things I wanted to ask you about first, and is highlighted so wonderfully in your bio, is the aspect of translation and your work. So you write in both
Bulgarian and English, and you translate between the two languages. Can you talk a little bit about that process and how it plays a role in your writing?
[00:01:53] Katerina: I read sometime ago a quote by, I think it was Wittgenstein, who said that the limits of my language are the limits of my world, and I guess I am fortunate to have my world bigger because I have a wonderful connection with my own language,
Bulgarian, and a wonderful connection, hard earned connection with the English language. I started studying it when I was 20 years old, when I was in college, and we started studying English, and it so happened that I was pregnant. And while everybody else was out partying, you know, freshman in college, I wasn't, I was studying and talking in English to my unborn child who, you know, lives in the USA also right now and
and it's an artist of his own. Mm-hmm. . So the connection, my relationship with the two languages is kind of like an interchangeable one. I don't even know when I code switch. So when I start writing, I might use languages. I might start a sentence in English and finish it in Bulgarian, and if you know, poetry is very nuanced, so the right word could be in one language while the poem is in a different language.
So I'll have to go back and figure out how can I be true to the energy and the intention of the poem? So this is the translation of my own work and writing, because I write not only in English, and not only in Bulgarian, but also in a mixture. .
[00:03:51] Carrie: Wow.
[00:03:52] Katerina: , uh, and, but translation is something wonderful that happens because, and it stems from the desire to share,
to share beauty to audiences. And that kind of really underscores what is valuable to a person to spend the time and the effort to, to translate. The, tragically late now, Frederick Smock, he has said that translation is another really close reading of a poem. . And if you wanna be a poet, you need to learn to read really closely.
And I have found that translating really helps me in my quest to learn how to write poems because when I translate a poet in a very real way, I learn how to write like this poet. It, it just kind of like you slide into the person's mind and think like the person and translate the poem successfully, hopefully.
[00:05:06] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. It's so interesting that you write sometimes in a mixture of both Bulgarian and English. When you have a poem in Bulgarian and English, your own poem, do you have a preference for one or the other, or do you feel like they become two different things?
[00:05:24] Katerina: Well, it is on case by case basis. But first part of the question, do I have preference? No, I don't have a preference.
[00:05:34] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:34] Katerina: I feel right at this point, I feel like both languages are equally near and dear to me. And may I tell a story about how I found that out?
[00:05:45] Carrie: Absolutely. .
[00:05:46] Katerina: Okay. So once a friend of mine and I were driving across country and listening to the, on the radio.
About Vladimir Nabokov's story, life story. And, you know, he was you know, Russian was his first language and then he learned English and he wrote he wrote Lolita and any, in anything else, in, in English. And then I said out loud, wow, I want to go to a foreign country and to learn the language and write in it. And then it took me a moment to figure out, well, you know, that's what I did.
That's what I did, and that's what I've done.
[00:06:33] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:33] Katerina: and then that let me know, after a little bit of time for it to dawn on me that actually I do not think of English as a foreign language anymore. It is such an integral part of me and part of who I am right now.
[00:06:50] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. That, that's, that's a great story to illustrate that.
And of course you're also editing books in English as well.
[00:06:59] Katerina: Yeah. And all that said, I still have a native speaker, read and edit my my work in English.
[00:07:08] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:07:09] Katerina: However, I do that in Bulgarian as well because
[00:07:12] Carrie: Right.
[00:07:12] Katerina: I no longer live there full time, so I feel like the language doesn't stay static.
[00:07:19] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:20] Katerina: and and I don't want my work to sound outdated or antiquated or to have forgotten some nuances.
[00:07:28] Carrie: Mm.
[00:07:29] Katerina: So when I first immigrated to the United States, I met a priest who had lived here for like 40 years and he had accents in both languages, . And I said, I don't want that to be me and maybe it will be me.
and that's not tragedy if I sound funny
[00:07:50] Carrie: mm-hmm. ,
[00:07:51] Katerina: and people ask me where I'm from that used to bother me a lot and now it doesn't bother me so much.
[00:07:56] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:07:56] Katerina: what would bother me though is if in my poems I sound like I don't know
[00:08:04] Carrie: mm-hmm. ,
[00:08:04] Katerina: the language. That kind of accent, I do not wanna have.
[00:08:09] Carrie: Right. Right. Other than language, do prompts play a role in your writing process?
And if so, how? And you know, maybe that role has changed over time or, you know, maybe you can talk about your relationship to using writing prompts.
[00:08:28] Katerina: Of course. Thank you so much for the question. I started writing when I was eight years old. And my writing process has changed over time. And I'll tell you what I do now.
I never, or almost never sit down and say, okay, let me write a poem. Even if I receive a prompt write about, I will end up writing something, you know, if I receive a prompt. But it, it's one thing to write it and it's another thing to actually like it. And use it. So what I have found is that, that kind of prompt, rarely if I ever yields something that I end up using. Here is how I work.
I journal a lot and whenever I journal, I write things down and I write things down for me to process things. And whenever I have some time for writing, I look through what I have written before and then I pick out something that holds emotional interest to me, and then I start exploring it. And that's how my last few books have been written in that.
[00:09:52] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:52] Katerina: in that way. Interesting facts about surrounding that process is that whenever. Write in journal. I write in journal in a way that I myself cannot read. So I deliberately write unreadably so that, so that I know myself that this is not
[00:10:18] Carrie: mm-hmm.
[00:10:19] Katerina: usable. Do not waste your time reading this. And also something happens to me.
I don't want anybody else to read it.
[00:10:27] Carrie: Right. .
[00:10:28] Katerina: Yeah, so that in that way I can be completely open, honest with myself because I'm my only audience. And then from that platform, then whenever I write something that is even remotely interesting or usable, and I know it immediately. If something I could, if something from what I've written could be used in the future or be used as a writing prompt, then I would either underline it or out write it in legible way.
So if you open my notebook, you know, journal, then have nothing. Page of nothing, page of nothing. Here is a sentence. Three pages later, maybe there is a sentence, maybe there isn't. And periodically I go and harvest, that's the word I use. I harvest my journals and I destroy what's left.
[00:11:32] Carrie: Oh, wow.
[00:11:33] Katerina: Drastic, isn't?
[00:11:34] Carrie: It is. I love the commitment though.
I mean, that's. Yeah, I'm going to try that ,
[00:11:43] Katerina: You know, if I didn't do that, I would have no poems.
[00:11:46] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
[00:11:47] Katerina: But your listeners cannot see that, but this is what is left from my couple of journals.
[00:11:56] Carrie: Uhhuh,
[00:11:57] Katerina: this probably would, are the prompts for probably several poem.
[00:12:04] Carrie: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:05] Katerina: in a future book, hopefully.
And if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have any poem. .
[00:12:10] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
No, I think that's a really interesting process. I, I, I mean, I keep a journal as well, but I often don't know what to do with it. You know, I don't, the idea of writing illegibly and, and then just writing the things that I think I might wanna keep legibly.
I really like that idea.
[00:12:37] Katerina: You know, in very real sense the, my books are my journals. The ones that I have published, I have found valuable and everything else I have destroyed because I want to have, create creative freedom over my own, and creative authority, over my own creative output. And also it's writing for the writing itself and liberates me from the need to say something that is usable. If it's not usable
so what, most of it isn't.
[00:13:16] Carrie: Right. Right. Yeah.
[00:13:19] Katerina: And, and then the other thing is all these journals, what do you do with them?
[00:13:23] Carrie: Exactly. ,
[00:13:24] Katerina: I would rather them be private, you know, .
[00:13:28] Carrie: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I, I really like that idea. So is that the prompt that you wanted to share today or do you have another one?
[00:13:38] Katerina: Well, I guess my prompt, if I have to structure one would be, yeah. Look through the oldest journal that you have on your bookshelf and find a seed for a poem and develop it into one.
[00:13:56] Carrie: Okay.
[00:13:57] Katerina: I don't have any other prompt that I personally use. But I have a good one from my friend and author, Andrew Merton.
If I may add that one too.
[00:14:09] Carrie: Sure.
[00:14:10] Katerina: Which I think is quite good. And he says pick up a poetry book you like, find inspiring line, write it as a first line for your poem, then write the poem, then remove the first line. So that is the ghost line poetry prompt. And I've given it to people and it has worked well.
[00:14:34] Carrie: Yeah, that's a great one too. I've heard variations of that before and, and done it myself. I think one of the things about that prompt and even your journal prompt is that it's, I think the blank page can be really scary and both of those prompts are sort of letting you evade that, you know, cuz you're starting with something already on the page.
[00:15:00] Katerina: And also it reduces the importance I, I'm going to mention again Frederick Smock. We miss you, Fred. I guess that's why I'm, you know, remembering you today. Who said that he and his wife would reduce the importance of and the tension, you know, that that comes with that pre-writing anxiety by never saying, I'm gonna go write.
But they would say, I'm gonna go scribble .
[00:15:31] Carrie: Yes.
[00:15:31] Katerina: Yeah. I'm gonna go scribble. I love it.
[00:15:33] Carrie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Do you have any other writing tips you'd like to give our listeners? You've already given us some great ones. Also, you're an editor, so perhaps you might also have some tips for people who are submitting.
[00:15:48] Katerina: Well, the most important thing that I can say right now that comes to mind to for writers is learn to write when you don't have time for writing.
Because if you learn to write not when you don't have time, that shows a lot and that prepares you a whole lot better for stretches of time when you do have time for writing. Because if you don't write, when you don't have time for writing, then you disconnect from your own work and just feel a lot of anxiety.
And then whenever you have a few days off or a vacation, then that's a shock to your system and then you end up writing nothing and with a lot more sense of guilt and anxiety. I've seen it to happen to many people. I've done it myself. And I, again, that's the most important you think you can do to write when you don't have time.
[00:16:50] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:16:51] Katerina: and as for submitting submissions to, of books or magazines. Right now I'm writing a craft book on how to conceive a poetry book, how to arrange it, how to edit it. How to place it to be published and how to market it. Basically a vertical slice through the process.
[00:17:21] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
[00:17:22] Katerina: And the most important thing to say, I at this moment right now is that for anyone of those five stages, you need different qualities.
That's why you you one can get stuck.
[00:17:39] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
[00:17:40] Katerina: So being clear on what qualities you need and how to get help in any one of those stages is important. . . So at different points in time different people could be your allies and you do not have to have all the qualities, or at least not during the first time around through the process.
[00:18:04] Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
[00:18:07] Katerina: Nothing is beyond anyone. It's just persistence and education and learning to do things better.
[00:18:19] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:18:20] Katerina: at all times.
[00:18:21] Carrie: You mentioned, you know, to write when you don't have time. Do you have any tips for how to do that, to write when you don't have time?
[00:18:31] Katerina: The way that I do it I set up sprints. I call this sprints,
[00:18:36] Carrie: mm-hmm.
[00:18:37] Katerina: I have creative goals and I have monthly creative goals. Whenever I plan my month, I list everything that I need to do and I figure out what I have time for. And I think it's a self-defeating thing. I think it's a mistake to set your creative goals in vacuum, because we don't live in vacuum. We also go to work.
We also have children. We also have myriads of other things to do. So having sober look at everything that you have to do, plus things that you would like to creatively accomplish, then basically you can commit to, to a goal, even if that is, I want to, stay connected to my writing. So that's the lowest goal that I've given myself.
One, one minute every day I will think about my project. But that's a commitment and that's a creative goal. And it still keeps you connected. But in they could, my goal could look like something like, in January I want to finish a draft of my current project, or in February, I want to submit 10 poems for publication.
But if you have something going on at all times, then that is writing when you don't have time.
[00:20:13] Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:20:15] Katerina: you always have time though. If you are alive hour by hour, you make a choice for your time. So that's never true. You don't have time. That is, I have chosen to take care of my children, or I have chosen to keep my job this month rather than write.
So, and that's okay. That's okay. But I think that it's important to call things with their real names.
[00:20:41] Carrie: Mm-hmm. . . Yeah. Well, that's great, Katerina, thanks so much for, for all your tips and inspiration. We really appreciate you being here.
[00:20:52] Katerina: Thank you, Carrie. I admire your work on and off the page.
[00:20:58] Carrie: Thank you.
Thanks for listening to the Prompt to Page podcast. To submit your response to Katerina's prompt, visit us at jesspublib.org/prompt-to- page. To learn more about the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, visit Carnegiecenterlex.org. Our music is by Archipelago, an all instrumental musical collaboration between three Lexington based university professors.
Find out more about Archipelago: Songs from Quarantine, volumes one and two at the links on our podcast website.