Interview with Linda Crate

Our latest interview is with Linda Crate, who contributed the poem “scoundrel” to the latest issue. 

 

 

Describe your work in 25 words or less.

Whimsical, emotional, honest, raw, full of color and life I cannot contain.

 

Tell me about your poem “scoundrel.” 

This one was about an ex of mine who was everything he claimed he wasn’t. 

 

Who or what inspires you to write?

It depends on the day. Sometimes inspiration seems to jolt me out of bed in the morning or when I’m in the shower. Music and interesting turns of phrases I hear are my biggest inspirations at times. Right now, I seem to be drawing a lot of inspiration from the bands VNV Nation, The Cruxshadows, and Apoptygma Berzerk. Kate Bush also seems to inspire me a lot. 

 

What authors have influenced you as a writer?

T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare (sometimes I have a penchant for inventing words as he did, but it doesn’t always seem to catch on. Pity that.), etc. 

 

Do you have a blog/website?

I do. I have a Facebook page that I maintain daily located here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linda-M-Crate/129813357119547, and my blog that is updated a little less frequently here: http://theravensnevermore.blogspot.com/.

 

What are you reading at the moment?

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

 

What are you working on right now?

Poetry, and a few ideas for my novels.

 

Any advice for other writers?

Never give up no matter how many rejections you get. It’s easy to throw in the towel when you receive more rejections a day than acceptances, but a lot of famous authors have been rejected time and time again, people like J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, and the like. So never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it (I had a cousin who once told me that, and that motivated me to prove him wrong). So take all those negative experiences and turn them into something positive.

 

Anything else you’d like to say?

If anyone would like to contact me, though, they can reach me at the following email: amethystepiphany@hotmail.com. Amethyst Epiphany happens to be the title of my first finished novel – I’m just pursuing different publishers/editors in an attempt to get it out into the world.