LindaAnn LoSchiavo,
Special Guest Judge of the War chapter
Biography
Native New Yorker and Elgin Award winner LindaAnn LoSchiavo
released three new books in 2024: “Apprenticed to the Night,” “Always Haunted:
Hallowe’en Poems,” and “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide.” Her memberships
include British Fantasy Society, HWA, SFPA, and The Dramatists Guild.
BAM: Where are you located, LindaAnn?
LindaAnn: Greenwich Village, New York, NY
BAM: Specifically, where’s your writing space?
LindaAnn: home is where the Siamese cats are.
BAM: Let’s start with some icebreaker questions. Tell
me about yourself.
LindaAnn: I’m a vegetarian who dotes on fruits,
legumes, dark-skinned vegetables, and cashew nuts. Sugarless licorice from
Australia and Grether’s pastilles are my favorite sweets.
Favorite poets are Molly Peacock, Richard Wilbur, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, and Sarah
Hannah.
I don’t own a TV but when I go out to watch a film, it’s likely I’ll choose a
documentary.
BAM: Okay, I’ll try a random question on you. What’s
the best animal on earth?
LindaAnn: The best animal on earth is the Siamese cat
because they have a higher intelligence than other feline breeds, love to be
trained and please their owners.
BAM: Unique answer. Coffee or tea or something else?
LindaAnn: COFFEE!
BAM: Me, too, but only in the morning unless I want
to get lectured by my partner. She’s very health conscious. How do you relax?
LindaAnn: I type the writing I have done in long-hand.
Also, I have a massive indoor garden I like to fuss with.
BAM: Who is the author you vehemently
hate, and why?
LindaAnn: Sharon Olds, a shallow, boring poet who just happened to get
lucky.
BAM: On writing, do you have a writer circle?
LindaAnn: I used to run a speculative poetry critique group. It was
valuable and even produced a collaborative poetry book, but I had to bow out
after 3 years.
BAM: Busy with other obligations, most likely.
LindaAnn, is there something you passionately want the human race to stop doing,
which you might be subtle about in your writing?
LindaAnn: Yes. The trend is towards eliminating the middle class as well
as affordable housing. The lack of affordable housing guarantees one outcome:
an increase in homelessness. I wish I had enough money to personally ensure
there is no more homelessness – at least in my city, New York City.
BAM: True. The system is not middle-class friendly. So,
tell me, what’s the best way to write?
LindaAnn: To be fired up about the topic.
BAM: You’ve worked hard on your topics. What's your
greatest achievement in writing?
LindaAnn: Though I don’t feel I’ve reached it yet, having three
different publishers releasing three of my poetry books in 2024 is no small
feat.
BAM: Once achieved, it’ll be an amazing achievement. So,
tell me, what got you into writing?
LindaAnn: When I was 3 years old, I hated reading Hallmark cards aloud
to my family, with their stupid rhymes and absurd sentiments, so I started my
own greeting card business with my aunt, an illustrator. Also, I had been taken
to Broadway theatres a lot, and so I had my first play onstage in NYC when I was
9 years old. Both ventures gave me a keen sense of what pleases an audience.
BAM: Was that when did you realized you liked
writing? Why?
LindaAnn: At age 3 -- because our homemade greeting cards were praised
and appreciated.
BAM: I’ll bet some people still have copies of your
original cards. Tell me about your writing process. While writing, do you play
music, or watch shows/movies?
LindaAnn: NO.
BAM: All-righty. Is anyone in your family a writer?
If yes, who?
LindaAnn: NO.
BAM: On drafting, what’s the most you’ve gone
through?
LindaAnn: For my stage play “Courting Mae West,” I wrote 19 drafts.
BAM: Are there any specific works of yours that you
think someone should start off with?
LindaAnn: A reader who likes Hallowe’en will enjoy my
fully illustrated book “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems” [Wild-Ink Publishing,
2024] and “Messengers of the Macabre: Hallowe’en Poems” [Audience Askew, 2022]
- - and both can be found on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.
BAM: Could you tell me about how you organize writing
in your life?
LindaAnn: This method works for me. I will rarely write a stand-alone
poem nor respond to an off-the-wall “writing prompt” for a contest. Instead, I stay
focused by always having a few themes in mind. Consequently, each new poem will
be a building block in my next book. Right now I am working on a collection
about true crimes and a speculative poetry collection on the werewolf.
BAM: What was the first story you ever wrote about, and was it published?
Elaborate.
LindaAnn: While in high school, I was in a creative
writing class and a staff member of the school’s literary magazine. I wrote a
lot of forgettable stories, and they made it into print. But then I became
seriously ill (at age 15) and I was hospitalized. My parents pre-signed all the medical paperwork
so they wouldn’t have to come and visit me.
I had almost no visitors, which made me cry during visiting hours
because everyone else in the ward had numerous family members who stopped by
daily, bringing the patient snacks, balloons, stuffed animals, and flowers. My
stupid teenage boyfriend used the excuse he wasn’t visiting me because he “didn’t
like hospitals.” Naturally, I got rid of
him when I recuperated.
BAM: Really. What happened next?
LindaAnn: Anyway, the hospital volunteers, The Candy
Stripers, and the nurses took turns visiting me. Invariably, the nurses were Hispanic
immigrants who were living in bad neighborhoods, and they had seen it all. These conversations “wised me up” and my next
short story “No Way Out” was about drug addiction.
BAM: Oh.
LindaAnn: It won my high school’s gold medal for Literary Achievement,
and I walked onstage to accept it.
BAM: Quite an achievement.
LindaAnn: Years before, at age 9, I began having my one-act plays
onstage in NYC and I thought of myself as a poet and a dramatist. Now I was an
award-winning writer.
BAM: Keep it up. Thank you for your time with this
interview. As a sendoff, would you like to include a personal message to the
authors of the chapter that you read?
LindaAnn: I selected the section on WAR because I
feel this is an important topic.
Though a few authors treated the theme playfully, most of
you addressed the topic with gravity, focused on the physical dangers, the
munitions, the loss of life.
As you did in 42 words, I have also incorporated these themes into my work.
Recently, my two war sonnets "Mekong Delta" and "The Wall,
Washington, D.C." were published in the journal Vietnam War Poetry, Summer
2024 issue, on June 25, 2024; LINK:
http://www.vietnamwarpoetry.com/lindaann-loschiavo.html
Social Media:
Twitter: @Mae_Westside
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/LindaAnn-LoSchiavo/author/B084WSGD5K?
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/18972725.LindaAnn_LoSchiavo
LindaAnn LoSchiavo released three new books in 2024:
“Apprenticed to the Night” (UniVerse Press, 2024);
“Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems” (Wild Ink Publishing, 2024);
and “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide”
(Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024).
"Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems" can be read for free here:
NetGalley ― https://www.netgalley.com/
BookSirens ― https://booksirens.com/book/
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