Dominic Loise on the Love of Rewriting
Interview by Katie Lynn Johnston
This week, I talked with the short story writer and poet, Dominic Loise about his mental health advocacy, his writing process, and how he got started with his piece, “the Season.”
What is it that drew you to writing? Do you remember the moment you first realized you were a writer?
Writing came out of an effort to remain present in my daily life through therapy. I started writing poetry about images I was taking pictures of on my commute to work. In therapy, I was working on not being stuck in the past or spinning a not-yet-living ideal future. When I started, this poetry was to help me focus on the moment and get me out of my head. I would take a picture of discarded trash or something mundane like tree roots and then write these urban fables on Instagram while sitting on the train instead of having anticipatory anxiety about going to work. It was my gateway to being present. So to answer the second part of the question, I guess the first time I felt like a writer would be when I didn’t dread the grinding commute, but wanted to get out and discover what today offered to tell on the way to work.
“The Season” is a piece framed within volleyball, phrases, and sectioned in perfect bite-sized bits. What was it that inspired you to structure the story this way? What initially inspired you to write “The Season?”
My wife surprised me with a short story writing class at Story Studio in Chicago. I highly recommend Cyn Vargas’ class for anyone in the Chicagoland area interested in short story writing, and I recommend Story Studio as a whole. That class had me completing “The Season” and starting to submit it by the last session. Going back to being present, the story started with the image of the pigeons on the telephone wire, which I saw while waiting for the bus to a therapy session. From there, the piece came from being open to the class exercises and feedback of the instructor and others in class.
What is your process for writing, whether poems or short stories? Do you have any particular steps you like to take in telling a poetic or fictional scene?
I have open documents on my phone that I go to for writing. When I first started, I would email parts of a short story to myself daily because sending an email was manageable in my mind. I was already sending multiple work emails on my commute so why not one more email for myself that was a paragraph of a short story. It was a nice trick to take the intimidation away during the beginning stages of starting a writing routine.
What writers would you say have inspired you most?
Gwendolyn Brooks’ words have been an influence since high school helping me grow and know Chicago. An editor recommended Charles Baudelaire, which was an eye opener for brevity. And I am thankful for the work and words of Adam Falkner for helping me to further know and speak my truth.
As a mental health awareness advocate, how do you bring your advocacy into your writing?
First, I am open and honest about who I am today. I am a middle aged, white man functioning with bipolar disorder. I have lived with it for all my life, but have only just recently gotten help for it about a decade ago due to the stigma around mental health. That stigma and other factors caused me to have a breakdown and I spent time in the hospital learning about what I was dealing with and I am still learning the best ways to go about my daily life. I do my best to tell my own story and not tell other people’s stories.
As someone who has been published in many lit mags before, what advice would you give to writers just beginning their publishing journey? Is there something you wish someone would have told you before sending out your first submission?
The favorite thing I learned in the submission process is a love of rewriting. The version of “The Season” in Mulberry is not the version from the class I took at Story Studio. After each rejection, I try to reread work before just sending it off again to another journal. As I continue to work on myself in therapy, the version of me sending that new submission is not the same person. I find that I notice things to change that like in therapy, I was too close to that previous draft to notice without some distance.
Are you working on any new and exciting projects you would like to share? Where would you like to take your writing for the future?
I am excited about the pop culture and mental health awareness essays I have been doing for F(r)iction and helping them with their Literary Tarot Deck Kickstarter. Other updates of my work can be found on Instagram and Twitter at @dominic_lives.
Dominic Loise is open about and advocates for mental health awareness as seen with his essay writing for F(r)iction. His work has appeared in Alchemic Gold Poetry Society, Alt.Ctrl.Jpg, Analogies & Allegories, Calm Down, Clementine Zine, Collective Realms, Emotional Alchemy, Frances, Goat's Milk, Innsaei Journal, Mulberry Literary, October Hill, Ouch!, Push up Daisies!, Raven Review, Re.Collective, Refresh and Silent Auctions. Dominic was a finalist in Short Editions’ “America: Color it in” contest.
You can follow Loise on Instagram at @dominic_lives .