Alex Carrigan
Why did you submit to trash to treasure lit?
I'm always looking for new places to submit to, and when I came across trash to treasure lit on my social media feed, I was immediately interested. Aside from the fact that I had plenty of options to submit to the publication, it felt like a good chance to finally, truly, retire some of my poetry. If the publication accepted them, then they were redeemable. If not, then I could let them rot in a folder on my laptop forever knowing it was never meant to be. I was excited to finally gain that closure, and that made me want to submit ASAP.
How would you describe your writing practice?
I tend to write a lot of my poetry in very specific moods and periods. I usually demand complete environmental control and mood stabilizers, such as having absolutely no chores or social obligations, having lofi hip hop music playing on my laptop on the far side of the room, and having a hot drink and a cold drink at the ready. It can vary, but those are the consistent elements of my writing practice.
What is the biggest thing that stops you from submitting work to lit mags/journals/publications?
It seems weird to say the guidelines for submissions, since they are reasonably fair and designed for the sanity of the editorial team. I'm generally not dissuaded when they're restricted for specific demographic groups, since I know there will be plenty that I can submit to anyways. Even word/line limits, while frustrating, are easy to work with and not too discouraging if I'm unable to submit as a result.
What generally stops me are various bugbears like "past your submission in the body of the email" and "no simultaneous submissions." The former bothers me because, while I'm not someone who does a lot of formatting in his work, really likes the control of putting together a word doc and being forced to destroy that to fit an email field unnerves me. The latter is annoying because I do simultaneous submissions up the wazoo, and I don't like the idea of a publication owning a single or multiple pieces for potentially months when I could easily find other publications that would be interested in reviewing them sooner.
Do you think the writing industry has an impact on your confidence in your work (good or bad)? Why?
One of the best pieces of advice I received for submissions was "you have no idea who is reading your work." A team of seven could be reviewing my work, and three could be in favor of it. That has allowed me to handle rejections a lot more easily because I know there are discussions and arguments I am not privy to. I may want to know what they are, but I also know that there's too many factors involved and virtually all of them are out of my control. Submitting work is just finding the right person or persons to review the work, and frankly, they are somewhere out there. That's why it helps to just submit as much as possible and not be too dissuaded by rejections.
When do you start to doubt a piece that you are working on?
I tend to write in bursts, such as how I'm spending November 2022 trying to write a new poem per day. A lot of times I doubt my work when I find it hard to respond to or I don't feel like it fits with the rest of my work. For example, I wrote 30 cento poems this past April, and I found that while some were easier to make than others, it also came down to which ones I was most excited to start submitting. The ones I submitted later or submitted less often than others are the ones I start to doubt, and that does require me to really think the piece over.
Once you trash one of your pieces, what makes you come back to it (if ever)?
A lot of times I am reminded of the piece for some random reason, and that makes me wonder if I should look at it again. For the most part, I don't go back because ultimately, I realize the kind of poet I am is constantly changing, and while I don't hate any of my abandoned pieces, I realize they don't fit in with who I am, so I'm fine to leave them in the past.
How many pieces do think you have currently in your 'abandoned' folder?
I counted 36 pieces in my file labeled "Retired Poems"
What is the ultimate reason that you trash your work?
Ultimately, I realize there's just not much else I can do with the work, and I'm ready to move on. Like I said before, I feel I'm constantly changing, and I see a lot of my retired pieces as parts of me I'm ready to leave in the past. I know I will always grow and become a better poet, and I think it's fine to acknowledge that there are pieces that I should just leave behind if I am to grow.
Is there anything that would stop you from trashing your work? (More education in writing, more publications/less rejections, a change in the industry, etc)
Honestly, not really. I feel like I don't retire a lot of work that often, and it comes down to just wanting to decide what pieces are worth working on further. I feel like rejections are part of the game, and there's not much I can do about it. I wish I could be the sort of writer who fires on 100 at every point, but that won't happen. I will abandon work, and I've accepted it, so I don't think I need to look at retiring pieces as some great failing or some real difficult choice to make.
What writing advice have you been given that has changed your perspective on how you treat/view your work?
I don't know if there's any specific advice from a specific source, but I think something I learned is that someone will always find some positive quality in your work even if you don't think the entire piece is good. Even one of the pieces I published in trash to treasure was created in a workshop where people there said many good things about it. So even though I retired it for some time, it was still something that there was joy and positivity found out of, so it was worth revisiting again.
If you have any upcoming work (books, publications, features, art, etc), feel free to mention them here, so that we can support you!
I published my first poetry chapbook with Alien Buddha Press earlier this year. "May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry" is a cento poetry collection created from the official Twitter accounts of 16 current/former Real Housewives to make absurd found poetry. You can find it online here: https://www.amazon.com/May-All-Our-Pain-Champagne/dp/B09TDSWX83/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GV6L4E5WV9YR&keywords=may+all+our+pain+be+champagne&qid=1661220208&sprefix=%2Caps%2C49&sr=8-1
Alex Carrigan is an editor, poet, and critic from Virginia. His debut poetry chapbook, May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), was longlisted for Perennial Press' 2022 Chapbook Awards. He has had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Barrelhouse, Sage Cigarettes (Best of the Net Nominee, 2023), 'Stories About Penises' (Guts Publishing, 2019), and more. For more information, visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak.