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We’re excited to announce the launch of “Voices from the Hill” a podcast dedicated to showcasing the incredible talent right here in our literary backyard. As a proud member of this vibrant community, Telegraph Hill Arts & Literature believes our local authors deserve a platform to share not just their published works, but the stories behind them.
If you’re a Bay Area author interested in being on the show, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us at submissions@telhilit.org.
Welcome to Voices From the Hill, celebrating the vibrant literary voices of the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm your host, Jennifer Barone, along with Joseph Carboni, owner of Telegraph Hill Books. Each episode, we sit down with a local author to explore their creative process, inspirations, and the unique stories that shape our community. Today, I'm happy to welcome Burmese American poet and educator, Maw Shein Win. Maw is the author of several beautiful poetry collections, including her latest Percussing the Thinking Jar and Storage Unit for the Spirits Spirit House and Invisible Gifts.
Jennifer Barone:Her workplace pays close attention to memory, the body, and the small meaningful moments that shape us. She's also deeply committed to the literary community in the San Francisco Bay Area as a former and first poet laureate of El Cerrito, California. She's a longtime and active teacher and mentor and a cofounder of Maker Mentor Muse. I'm so excited to have her here today. And personally, I've had the pleasure of reading with Maw over the years and watching her give, like, some of the most, like, amazing experimental performances, including working with musicians, with artists, and just everywhere.
Jennifer Barone:She's incredible. So let's dive in. Welcome to Voices From The Hill.
Maw Shein Win:Thank you so much, Jen. I'm so happy to be here.
Jennifer Barone:I'm so excited to have you here. So I'd love to kick us off with a passage that you've chosen to read for us today from your latest book, Percussing the Thinking Jar. And I'd love you to talk a little bit about the book and tell us why it holds special meaning for you.
Maw Shein Win:Of course, of course. Well, at the beginning of pandemic times, like almost all of us, I started well, firstly, I'm a teacher. So I started teaching at home and basically was inside all the time like us all, like many of us. And just spending a lot of time by myself. My husband Tom, for his job he had to actually continue to go into the city.
Maw Shein Win:So I was kind of faced with having all this time. And I just started keeping I mean I'm a journal keeper anyways but I just started keeping all these different journals and just copious notebooks. So And I just kept writing and writing and writing and writing and it was like kind of like I was almost channeling like maybe some of the anxieties I was feeling about well of course the pandemic and just what's going on in the world etcetera, etcetera. And at a certain point, maybe about six months later, I started looking at all these notebooks and I realized that I was writing in these patterns. And for example, one pattern I noticed was that I was writing with paired juxtapositions, a little surreal.
Jennifer Barone:I think you're kind of like a surreal artist. I go with like the way you write, the performance, the way you collaborate. You're on the surreal path.
Maw Shein Win:One of my instructors said that in college but I don't think it was a compliment. Really?
Jennifer Barone:Why? You're so cool this is always.
Maw Shein Win:Anyways, so I started putting together these poems which I called thought logs because I felt like these journals were basically logging my thoughts and my feelings and my observations. And I start putting them together. And after writing about 10 or 12, I noticed that I was again like maybe not so consciously, subconsciously creating a form. And then I intentionally created a form which I called a thought log. So I had to go back and revise all of the thought logs.
Maw Shein Win:So each thought log is 16 lines and might include an observation, a sensation, a thought, an observation, a mantra, etc. So I felt like this was a good container for me and I wrote many of them. And then it sort of led into other types of logs. So I wrote weather logs, observation logs, which were short poems. And those short observation logs, I started each poem with two words which ended up being the last line.
Maw Shein Win:So I wrote backwards. So in a way the first line was the last line and then worked up from that. So I did that and then I started writing just kind of slightly longer pieces that had a log like journal like quality. And it's a long book, it's 180 pages. Thank you, Omnidon.
Maw Shein Win:And I guess one more thing I'd like to say about it is I'm a collaborator and my friend Mark Dutcher did the cover, which is a beautiful painting. And he did 16 Sumi ink drawings that are inside the So on that note, I'll start off with the thought log. Excellent. Ephemeral locations rebroadcast on radio. Sleep talk under a blanket of ice.
Maw Shein Win:Amethyst tadpoles, rumble strips, sacred airspace. We reconfigure our belief systems, discover the misting spot, share, scream. I catch the baby in the falling landscape. I drop into my body and pay attention to the alarm system. Our calico is shrinking.
Maw Shein Win:Enshrine insights for future meetups. We pantomime in different rooms, smaze, folk, flare, Hold open a space for coincidence. Banana fellas, succulent pathways, butterfly farmers, flamadidal, radamacue, long roll. Stomped on the teleprompter.
Jennifer Barone:What's the flamididal?
Maw Shein Win:Oh, those are, part of the rudiments for drumming.
Jennifer Barone:I was gonna say it sounded like a word that
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, different rhythms.
Jennifer Barone:Maybe I've heard of, is it paradiddle? Paradiddle, yep.
Maw Shein Win:That's a one of them. Rhythm on
Jennifer Barone:a snare drum or something? Yes, yes.
Maw Shein Win:Are you a drummer?
Jennifer Barone:No. I have a lot of musician friends.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you
Jennifer Barone:know that word?
Maw Shein Win:Well, okay, so firstly, you probably don't know this about me, but this is many decades ago. I was in a post punk band and I was one of the drummer percussionists. Oh, now that's But coming then, well, yeah, but I am not a professional musician by any means. But then decades later, I met Tom, Thomas Scandura, who is a drummer. And I don't know, I think I was thinking a lot about that time period as kind of like a series of percussions.
Maw Shein Win:It felt like we're all I mean it was more than that of course. There were just other aspects of that time period. But I thought a lot about rhythms and I don't know, I guess I just started thinking about drum rhythms and I looked up the rudiments and so it was really just kind of fun playing with the language because it is so percussive. Paraediddle.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Paraediddle. Can I ask you a question about that? Like, so coming from a punk rock background. Uh-huh.
Jennifer Barone:But, like, has that played into, like, your poetry in a sense? Because, like, there's a little bit of a punk rockness to your approach to poetry.
Maw Shein Win:Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:Which is like, you're I feel like you're always like, here you're saying you created a new poetic form. Uh-huh. Like, there's something totally punk rocked about that to me which is like, you know, I'm going I'm not gonna necessarily fit into like a pre prescribed paradigm of the way things exist. But I'm gonna go out and break out of the box and invent something new or kind of experiment. And so have you pulled into your approach like how you approach writing coming from that perspective where you originated?
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, yeah. Great question. Storage Unit for the Spirit House, which was published in 2020 also by my fabulous publisher, Omnidon, I didn't really use received forms. And this happened rather organically when I started working on percussing, I just realized how exciting it is to invent your own forms. So there's a long tradition of invented forms.
Maw Shein Win:But like writing those thought logs and log thoughts, etcetera, I also created another form called the thinking jar form.
Jennifer Barone:What is that? What's a
Maw Shein Win:thinking A thinking jar form. Okay. So every stanza has a color. They're all three line stanzas, tercets. And every pinky jar poem has a typographical symbol of less than, greater than and then an animal.
Maw Shein Win:So it was kind of fun. And so I just got really into writing thinking jars. So I mean, I wouldn't say the whole. There's standalone poems, of course. But it was this book I would say is very different from Storage Unit and also Invisible Gifts in that I kind of just, I mean stylistically it's kind of different too because storage unit, the poems are just so tight and just what's the word shorter.
Maw Shein Win:But this one I feel like stylistically is so different which was really enjoyable actually to write in a different way.
Jennifer Barone:So you have like music as background which obviously music rhythm meter like plays into writing poetry but now do you have art as a background?
Maw Shein Win:That is the one thing that that's why I collaborate with artists. You
Jennifer Barone:have an appreciation for art but it's not like a form that you're also doing yourself.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. I am not I can barely draw a circle.
Jennifer Barone:But you bring so much imagery into your work. Like you mentioned making a form where you're talking about color, talking about animals, talking about shape and form. There's obviously an appreciation where I almost feel like art is a big piece
Maw Shein Win:of Oh, your most definitely. Well, firstly, I have a number of ekphrastic poems that are in the book. For my teaching as well, art is very important in like my teaching and my writing. As an inspiration but also as collaborations. So I have a number of ongoing collaborations that I do.
Maw Shein Win:And then, oh, I forgot to mention this as far as music. I don't know if you know this because because I know we've known each other a long time. Do you remember when I was studying Ayurveda? Oh. I got it a while ago.
Maw Shein Win:Well, anyways, I was very pinto about it. And so I have three musical collabs. One is Pitta of the Mind with composer Amanda Chaudhary and another is Vata in the Vine with Evan Karp. Evan.
Jennifer Barone:He was one of the originators of Quiet Lightning?
Maw Shein Win:Yes, yes. And Evan wrote music to all the thought logs in my book. Oh my gosh. But the early versions. Wow.
Maw Shein Win:So it's kind of interesting. Very cool. Because you can, I mean if anyone's interested, you can listen to the early versions of the thought logs because that's when we recorded them?
Jennifer Barone:Is there a QR code in the book where people could find that online?
Maw Shein Win:No, it's just on my website.
Jennifer Barone:Okay, there's a URL in
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, the yeah.
Jennifer Barone:Okay, excellent.
Maw Shein Win:Then as I mentioned, Tom is a musician, so we don't perform too often, but we have a little trio called Kapha and Its Kind.
Jennifer Barone:I'm a Kapha.
Maw Shein Win:Oh, you come on. Thought so. You've got that lovely Kapha earthy energy. So I think I knew that when I met you.
Jennifer Barone:Kapha Pit, would guess.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fortune.
Maw Shein Win:Yep. Yep. Lucky.
Jennifer Barone:Do you find like the process of writing in a poetic form liberating or confining when you're working within one?
Maw Shein Win:I actually especially now after doing percussing I actually feel that having these constraints in containers is mean I guess liberating in a way.
Jennifer Barone:It could be counterintuitive because I think sometimes people think of poetic forms as being like restricting.
Maw Shein Win:Well, think my younger poet self always felt that way. I was an English major after I graduated from high school. I just remember that I wasn't so drawn to forms. And then I mean now I'm just feeling like, Oh, forms are just wonderful to work with. Although I do have to say I haven't written in many received forms.
Maw Shein Win:So just a few out there. So I'm so in admiration of the poets who can just like write a sonnet, write a whole book of sonnets and etcetera, etcetera.
Jennifer Barone:Or create a new form like modern.
Maw Shein Win:Well, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. I'm brilliant inventing forms.
Jennifer Barone:Read us another
Maw Shein Win:poem. Oh, sure. Okay. So let's see. This one is a weather log.
Maw Shein Win:Where's Dawn? She's Alexa's house. Nerves permeate air. I visit with honeydew. Last light dips through shutters.
Maw Shein Win:We make sourdough. Wild saffron swift wind. What is air breath, crocus nest. Yvonne's rusty locks, my brittle nails, meadow burns, gold flinches look up. Thank you.
Maw Shein Win:And I will read one more. This maybe two more. Okay, this is called Grapefruit Log. So this is a longer poem that has prose sections and each section is divided with a typographical symbol which is like the add sign. The plus sign, sorry.
Maw Shein Win:Grapefruit Log. One year I ate a grapefruit every day. My husband is allergic to grapefruit. After surgery, I examined three scars on my abdomen. One above my navel, two longer incisions to the right and left, wingspan of a sparrow.
Maw Shein Win:My ovarian cyst was the size of a grapefruit. In 1964, Grapefruit, a book of instruction and drawings by Yoko Ono was originally published in a limited edition of 500 by Vuternan Press in Tokyo. I wonder why tumors are compared to the size of food items. On a medical website I read, Common food items that can be used to show tumor size in centimeters include a pea, one centimeter, a peanut, two, a grape, three, a walnut, four, a lime, five, an egg, six, a peach, seven and a grapefruit, 10 centimeters. Lying on the surgical table, heated blanket across my body, I remember the surgeon holding the complete dramatic works of Samuel Beckett, startling and comforting.
Maw Shein Win:In post op, I notice he has shaved his three inch beard. Cut piece from Yoko Ono's Grapefruit. Cut. This piece was performed in Kyoto, Tokyo, New York and London. It is usually performed by Yoko Ono coming on the stage and in a sitting position placing a pair of scissors in front of her and asking the audience to come up on the stage one by one and cut a portion of her clothing anywhere they like and take it.
Maw Shein Win:The performer, however, does not have to be a woman. This morning, I checked my wingspan in the mirror. Layers of healing, a disappeared bruise. My friend gave me a grapefruit. I sliced it.
Maw Shein Win:And this is my last poem. So I also have a series called Catalog. Catalog, apply anti itch cream on scar as if no one is looking. Message from Dropbox that storage is full. Jot down, floating weeds, breakaway props.
Maw Shein Win:Worry about mom in hospital, doctor draining one and a half liters of fluid from her lungs. Look up meaning of shim then wild wall, make ginger tea, search pink vintage A line dress. Text friend who can't move from bed. Buy dark chocolate sunflower buttercups. Read about latest drive by shooting.
Maw Shein Win:Snip dead daisy petals. Think of my students in Yangon unable to leave their homes. Note number of white hairs falling on black sweater. Remember found nest on last week's walk. Right on back of envelope, grief broke up visions of ourselves.
Jennifer Barone:I'm gonna ask you an unusual question. Yeah. Like in the dream world, like when you're having sort of a surrealist dream at night, you know, there's a sort of a series of random things that happen. Do you feel like daytime life is like that to a certain degree sometimes?
Maw Shein Win:Well, now for sure.
Jennifer Barone:Like, just listening to that poem, was like this kind of I was almost feeling like images images that can be cutting or really cut down into your heart kind of coming at you. But then beautiful things too. It's like this like kind of mixture.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. Well, I think to like when I write in my journal, mean of course I'll have stuff like, Today I talked to my aunt, blah, blah, blah. But often my journals are just really like stream of consciousness stuff.
Jennifer Barone:And your poetry is kind of reflective of that as well.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, some poems definitely reflect that kind of stream of consciousness. I mean, of course, I go back and I think about placement and revise. I love revision. But yeah, think there's definitely that element especially for this book where I felt like all the things that are just happening even when in a way ironically, little is happening, right? Because we kind of came to a standstill with that time period.
Maw Shein Win:And so it was really about paying attention and documenting and recording, which is kind of the joy one of the joys, right, of keeping a journal. And not just a joy, but, you know, also so important. Feel like to to so everyone journal.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Well, your previous book was called storage unit for the spirit house. The spirit house is obviously coming from your Burmese heritage, like, as a cultural experience of that. Like, how does spirituality and, like, having this almost, like, relationship with the spirit realm. So like that's that's kind of not necessarily part of the everyday life of like Americans per se but maybe we're moving towards that in popular culture as of recent times.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. But that is seems like it's coming from your cultural heritage and part of your life in a natural way of how you move through the world Yeah. Like, and how you perceive the world as as not being only three-dimensional objects but having this kind of greater relationship with spirit. How does that play in your process when you go to write? How does that play like as a theme in your work?
Maw Shein Win:Great question. Well, so my parents, as you mentioned in my bio, were immigrated from Myanmar to The United States. But I was born in The U. S. First born in our family.
Maw Shein Win:But the majority of Burmese peoples are Buddhist. And so we were raised Buddhist. I recently wrote a poem yesterday. Someone was asking me about Christmas and said, were you raised with Christmas? Because I don't have the strong attachment to Christmas.
Maw Shein Win:I'm like, well, we started celebrating when I was about seven or eight because my parents were like, What's Christmas? So anyways, I'm digressing. So I was raised Buddhist and then of course my parents, I mean they were Burmese immigrants and living in this new world, completely different world. And I feel that we grew up with having monks visiting our homes. We moved a lot over the years.
Maw Shein Win:And so with meditation, with Buddhas in our home and my mom, you might not know this, but my mom became a bokuni which is, do you know what a bokuni is? Yeah. Like a female, like basically a female monk. And so she has a monastery in Joshua Tree. Wow.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, she started one. And I remember 70 she and she had been working as an anesthesiologist all her life. My dad was a surgeon and I remember that she would tell us, One day I'm going to shave my head. I need to get rid of all my worldly possessions and I'm gonna go live by the ocean and meditate.
Jennifer Barone:She had clarity.
Maw Shein Win:And we were just like, Oh yeah, right mom.
Jennifer Barone:You had vision. Yeah.
Maw Shein Win:And one day she called all of us, all the children and said, Well, I've made this decision that I'm gonna do this. I just thought it was great. Said, Mom, that's wonderful. Yeah. She didn't end up at the beach, but No,
Jennifer Barone:she ended in the desert.
Maw Shein Win:She ended up in the desert.
Jennifer Barone:Location was different, but vision So was I think
Maw Shein Win:that especially for storage unit that my background of being raised Buddhist and being Burmese definitely informed the writing. And maybe even a little bit for this book too. I have some poems about my mom had a stroke at the beginning of the pandemic and that's one of the things, the thread that's in this collection. And so I have a couple poems about her stroke and those are called stroke logs.
Jennifer Barone:I noticed you're part of a workshop where you were talking about ritual around writing. Is there an alive and active relationship for you when you go to write with like the unseen realm?
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. Well so I just had a workshop with M. K. Wonderful M. K.
Maw Shein Win:Chavez and we this is well we've taught together a lot, but for this workshop in particular, it's like a seasonal workshop. And it was around, yeah, like around rituals, midwinter threshold writing. And so for myself, I think a lot of writers do this anyways. Have like a little bit of a ritual. So I have these little objects.
Maw Shein Win:So basically my desk is our dining room table because our place is a little bit on the small side. So I use our table, dining room table as my desk and then I kind of just like make the space, prepare the space for I mean prepare is not the right word. I have stacks of books and papers everywhere so that yeah and so I should be totally honest. But I have these little objects that are always near the flowers because we always have flowers on the table. This little black cat and then MK gave me.
Maw Shein Win:And just these tiny little objects. I play music that would be ambient music. Right now I'm really in a dark ambient. And so have the tea or the coffee. And I guess these rituals are just very common.
Maw Shein Win:And I would say another part of it's not so much a ritual, guess, but I don't know, maybe it is. I love writing with other people.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah, I was gonna say like, well, not only do I see you writing with other people, obviously mentoring new, like emerging writers too, which is so so crucial at this time. But like you do so many collaborations with artists, and then also teach workshops with a lot of other writers. I'm noticing a lot of women writers. And I was gonna ask you about that. Is there something specific like around wanting to collaborate with women writers in particular that you want to bring forward?
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. I mean I would say I guess you're right. I mean I guess I do have a lot of collaborations with women. But I think that I've always been collaborator and just I mean ever since like my early days, just like being in that band and I'm using quotes. And no, it was fun.
Maw Shein Win:It was a fun time. But doing performance art, living in a little house in North Long Beach with a lot of artists. Like I have a collaborative project right now that I've been doing with my other bestie, Adrian de la Pena, and it's called Literary Cherry. And we started it last summer. And it's funny because I wasn't teaching in the summer and I was like, Oh, I need something to keep me out of trouble.
Jennifer Barone:Or get you in is a good
Maw Shein Win:Or get me in a good trouble. I guess it was good trouble. So I reached out to Adrian and I just said, let's have a collaborative website because he has all the skills. I have zero. Get out of the tech skills.
Maw Shein Win:And we're still doing it. We basically meet every single Monday. This is a ritual. Only for an hour. And within that hour, we write in real time.
Maw Shein Win:He's in LA so we write in real time. Then we take turns choosing a photo on our phone. For me usually it's an accidental photo because I save all my accidental photos which is a great prompt by the way.
Jennifer Barone:What is an accidental photo? It's like when you take something and it's blurry
Maw Shein Win:and Yeah, like a I love blurry photos. They're my favorite.
Jennifer Barone:See again, we come back to punk rock approach.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. Blurry photos are the best. I'm like, don't delete that. Keep that writing prompt.
Jennifer Barone:That's a piece of modern art.
Maw Shein Win:I mean some of them are kind of cool. So and then we post it. So anyways, like we don't revise, we don't edit. It's just purely for the enjoyment of collaboration.
Jennifer Barone:What draws you to person to collaborate? Are you looking for somebody who has a completely different perspective than you? Are you looking for somebody who has similar? What is it about the collaboration that you're kind of getting drawn into?
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, well, I mean it kind of depends because I've done very small collaborations like this one with Adrian. It's just the two of us. Well, I just knew that we would collaborate well together. Natural. And then of course with Mark and Adrian collaborating with both of them as artists because we've known each other for forty years plus.
Maw Shein Win:And then I've been involved in like much larger collaborative projects through Clari and Alley mural project through CAMP with 12 poets and 12 muralists and just different projects. So I think I'm drawn to collaborations and then artists will reach out to me and I'll reach out to musicians. And Adrian makes films and so we've worked on some film projects together, like little small poetry films. And so I guess I'm attracted to the idea or the concept. And I'm also, of course, the person.
Maw Shein Win:But sometimes I have not known who the person is. Like an artist said, Oh, I heard I mean, is a while ago but, Oh, I was asking around trying to find out about poets who like to collaborate. And then they reached out to me and of course I'll check out their work and like, Oh, yeah, this sounds cool. Yeah, I mean, there are definitely things that can go awry with collaborations for sure. You never know.
Jennifer Barone:Until you really meet with the person and connect. Tell me a little bit about your collaboration with Kenneth Wong. Kenneth. Yeah. I feel like that's so important.
Maw Shein Win:Oh my gosh, Kenneth Wong is incredible. He teaches Burmese at UC Berkeley and he is a translator and a photographer. Check out his And an amazing So
Jennifer Barone:multi talented.
Maw Shein Win:So multi talented. And Kenneth did two translations of two poems that are connected to Myanmar. And they're in the book. And we have collaborated on teaching. So we taught a poetry class for an organization called Joy House, which is a wonderful organization that helps Burmese refugees.
Maw Shein Win:And the two of us have participated in readings together with other poets who have a Burmese background. And it's really been lovely. I've known think I might have met you around the same time. Yeah. In the 90s, right?
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. And then I mean for people who, listeners you might not know, there's quite a bit of political unrest around Burma and the border between Thailand and Burma. So right now, yeah, what's happening like for instance in that situation with poets that are there that we're trying to get their voices? I mean, because some of this work I think is in translation crucial to get access to these voices that being suppressed essentially. Yes,
Maw Shein Win:absolutely. And I just really feel so grateful to nonprofits and organizations and activists, of course. It's not really highlighted in the news as we know. But yes, the situation there is ongoing. And I just feel like poetry has a very rich history, long deep rich history in Myanmar.
Maw Shein Win:There are a lot of Burmese poets, political poets.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. And some of the poems that I've seen like Kenneth and you post, they're just so beautiful. Yeah. Like the language is beautiful. The subject matter is beautiful.
Jennifer Barone:Gorgeous writing. So there's that aspect too of like wanting to bring those voices forward. Yeah. Talk a little bit about how translation, the importance of that in your life. I'm sure you've had your work being translated into Burmese.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this was So like I said, I've known Kenneth since the '90s. And it was interesting. I don't know if So Facebook has been accessible in Myanmar and sometimes not. But I guess some poets in Myanmar translated my poetry And I didn't know that.
Maw Shein Win:And then Kenneth, because I have to admit I do not speak Paris, unfortunately, someday. And so I think Kenneth told me, he said, Maw, there are poets translating your work. And I was just so touched and had some connection over the years with them. And then, of course, Kenneth has translated my poems and Kenneth has just been like the translator for a lot of folks in the Bay Area and beyond. Really helpful.
Maw Shein Win:So the obvious reason why translation is so important for poetry, for literature is that to get these voices that normally wouldn't be translated into English or other languages and give a voice to the people who are there and struggling.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah, it's important. Also I just love having relationships with these poets from other countries and getting their different perspective on life and even the art form itself.
Maw Shein Win:You're a translator, right?
Jennifer Barone:I'm not really a translator but I study Italian personally and have attempted also to have readings where I'm doing language. But to have connection with people across borders literally and create friendships that are international for me is so enriching just to my life.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:I just wanna keep moving toward building like international community in that way across borders. Tell us a little bit before we like kind of wrap up around Maker Mentor Muse and like what's available there in that project for writers?
Maw Shein Win:Yeah. So in 2022, I started having conversations with a wonderful writer, Mary Volmer, who also teaches. And we just started kind of just talking about writer stuff and teaching stuff. Then we thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to start some kind of platform that features writers with different voices and poets, fiction writers, non fiction writers, etc. And also for some people who want to teach, maybe offer Like new teachers?
Maw Shein Win:Yes, new teachers. So we've had a few new teachers I'm trying to think of a better way to say that who have just offered these wonderful salons. And we offer reading and or a salon every month, pretty much. We try. And they're low cost because a lot of the workshops are, and I understand are really expensive, so we try to really keep the costs down.
Maw Shein Win:And because they're virtual, I think we've had like a couple things in person, but mainly this is still a virtual platform. It's accessible to people who live outside of the Bay Area. And so Mary and I were just brainstorming. We love brainstorming. Anyways, oh, what about this?
Maw Shein Win:What about this? And I was just like, Mary, you know what? I think we need a third person. We're both great at coming up with ideas. I just said, Let's have a third person who's maybe younger than us.
Jennifer Barone:Different generations.
Maw Shein Win:Different generations. I'm the elder and just is a writer of course and would be wonderful to collaborate with. And I had this wonderful student at some of my workshops at the Grotto, the Writers Grotto, which where I'm a member. Her name's Dawn Angelica Barcelona. And she was seriously the first person that popped into my head.
Maw Shein Win:I was like, Oh my gosh, I would love to collaborate. Now I'm calling it Collabiteach. Collaborate with Dawn. So the three of us formed Maker Mentor Muse and we have just continued to do it. It's And been wonderful and we're excited about this upcoming year and just had a meeting the other day about people who are gonna feature.
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, so please check us out. Make or Mentor Muse.
Jennifer Barone:Make or Muse. All right, Mo, my last question that I wanted to wrap up on was like you are so inspiring. You're offering so much to the community. You have all these different collaborations, all these different efforts where, yeah, you're inviting people to, you know, work on craft, work on ritual. What if you had to give like some advice for emerging writers Uh-huh.
Jennifer Barone:Like to keep their creative fires burning and to and to either branch out and try collaboration or branch out and try experimenting like even creating their own form. Like what advice would you give to emerging writers?
Maw Shein Win:Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of collaboration, I would definitely say like, A, we all know someone who's an artist, I hope, or a musician or a filmmaker or a dancer, just ceramicist, reach out to someone whose work you love and admire. And maybe you don't even know them and see if they'd be interested in doing a collaboration. Honestly, I love it when I hear because that is a piece of advice I share. And when I get an email from someone and they're like, Maw, I did it.
Maw Shein Win:I reached out to blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, That's fantastic. And then also as far as community, go to open mics, host your own reading series, start your own reading series, start like a collaborative project with different writers in the community. Just kind of jump in because and we are so lucky in the Bay Area that we actually do have things going on, right?
Jennifer Barone:So much.
Maw Shein Win:So much almost every night.
Jennifer Barone:A very vibrant literary community.
Maw Shein Win:Yes, yes. So I feel like there's so many opportunities for
Jennifer Barone:San Francisco and the East Bay.
Maw Shein Win:Yes, completely. Yeah. East Bay, oh my gosh, all sorts of things going on.
Jennifer Barone:Well, if there was one thing when you're thinking about the legacy of your work and your work is very special. What what do you feel like you wanna leave writers with with the work that you're creating in your poems?
Maw Shein Win:Oh, maybe. No one's ever asked me that.
Jennifer Barone:Maybe like
Maw Shein Win:might hopefully my poetry might be inspiring as far as like thinking about different ways to approach writing. And I think also too I like the idea of wildness and just kind of as writers, of course, we all have that questioning and self doubt. I certainly do. If you have this impulse or this idea in mind that just seems kind of wild but you're like, Oh no, that's not going to work. I say just go for it.
Jennifer Barone:Do it. Do Do
Maw Shein Win:it. Just do it. Yes. Because you don't know what's gonna happen unless you try.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Usually there's a lot of like that energy behind it so it's probably Yeah. Gonna be good.
Maw Shein Win:Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Well,
Jennifer Barone:you are so inspiring. Oh, dear. I feel like watching you move through the world of poetry and perform especially if you've never seen Maw perform. It's just like the energy is so on fire. And, yeah, I think you're like a big shining yes.
Jennifer Barone:Go for it.
Maw Shein Win:You're the best. Thank you, Jen. Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:Shaina Lynn. Sharing your work today.
Maw Shein Win:Oh, you're welcome. My pleasure. Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Thank you. For listeners who'd like to learn more about Maw Shein Win and her work, you can visit mawsheinwin.com and find her books including Percussing the Thinking Jar, her latest book, at your local independent bookstores including Telegraph Hill Books. Yay. Telegraph Hill.
Jennifer Barone:Thank you.
Maw Shein Win:Thank you. Thank you, Jen. Aw.
Jennifer Barone:This podcast is brought to you by Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review. Visit TelHiLit.org to find out about our local events such as author talks, writing workshops, and more. Consider making a donation to support our public programs. If you are a Bay Area author interested in being on the show, we'd love to hear from you.
Jennifer Barone:Reach out to us at submissions@TelHiLit.org. Thanks again for tuning in. I'm Jennifer Barone along with Joseph Carboni at Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature. And this has been Voices From The Hill. Until next time, keep reading, keep writing, stay inspired, and come visit us at Telegraph Hill Books in North Beach, San Francisco.