Conducted by: Bella Faggiano, Lauren Hickey, and Grace Higgins
Thea Prieto is the author of From the Caves (2021), which won the Red Hen Novella Award. She is a recipient of the Laurels Award Fellowship, as well as a finalist for the international Edwin L. Stockton, Jr. Award and Glimmer Train‘s Short Story Award for New Writers. She writes and edits for Poets & Writers and The Gravity of the Thing, and her work has also appeared at Longreads, The Kenyon Review, New Orleans Review, Entropy, The Masters Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches creative writing at Portland State University and Portland Community College.
Thea Prieto Interview-2.pdf
THE ALEMBIC: What was it that sparked your interest in editing and publishing when you were in college?
THEA: I can easily point to one specific moment: I was in an undergraduate creative writing class, and we had just finished workshopping a handful of my flash fiction stories. One of my classmates, who edited a student-run journal on campus, suggested I submit my work because he thought one of the pieces would work well in their upcoming issue.
That moment, reinforced by the joy I felt months later when my story was published, was my first experience with publishing, and it taught a few things. For one, I was happy to learn that sharing my work with a broader audience was not only possible, but that I was welcome to participate in the process. It also taught me [that] publication opportunities aren’t handed down from above, as though from some unseen god, but more like a compliment extended by a fellow lover of stories—a conversation. I discovered I enjoyed the conversation and in turn realized I could be on both ends of it. I joined the team of the Berkeley Fiction Review the following term, which was my first experience as an editor.
THE ALEMBIC: It is evident that you have had major success in both publishing your own works such as your novel From the Caves and also editing others’ works such as in the literary journal The Gravity of the Thing. Do you find editing/publishing or writing to be more enjoyable? What do you believe has brought you more satisfaction in your career?
THEA: Thank you for your warm words—it’s difficult to say which role gives me more satisfaction. There’s certainly overlap, though the work and the enjoyment can feel very different. I believe the overlap has much to do with the dialogues I build with others—while workshopping my writing, through author interviews, while developing writing for publication and publicizing the work of others—but there’s also a solitary aspect to each role that’s unique. I suppose another way to describe it, it’s that each role holds its own space in my work life and personal life. Editing and my seasonal agricultural work feel similar in that way. In the vineyards, when I’m lifting vines or pruning water suckers—to allow more sunlight or preserve the plant’s energy—it can feel like editing, but instead of working row by row I work sentence by sentence, helping a story grow where it’s already growing. Writing, though—I have what feels like a strong friendship with my fiction writing. I’ve been writing since I was a child, and like any warm, long-term friendship, it doesn’t seem to matter how much time has passed; I can return to fiction writing and we pick things back up naturally, like no time has passed at all.
THE ALEMBIC: When editing a work, what do you find to be the most challenging aspect or part that you experience before the work is ready to be printed?
THEA: I think the most challenging part is all the way at the beginning, when deciding what to publish. Once the editorial team has decided what pieces we’re going to publish and I’m in conversation with the author, that part I love—when the author and I drop into the flow. Editing creative writing can be as meditative as ag work, just like formatting can be as pleasurable as puzzle-solving, and sharing edited drafts back and forth with the author pre-publication always sheds light on writing I enjoy and shows me new artistic practices and preferences.
Over the years, though, I’ve discovered the more I engage with authors of diverse creative processes and backgrounds, the more difficult it is for me to determine what gets accepted for publication and what does not—perhaps because it has become increasingly easy to see the wonderful creative potential in many different kinds of works-in-progress. Luckily, The Gravity of the Thing’s team is filled with thoughtful, insightful writers and editors, and so deciding what gets published each issue is a communal effort.
THE ALEMBIC: Can you explain The Gravity of the Thing‘s central theme of defamiliarization? How does this interest you as a reader and writer, and how is this theme reflected in all the works that you publish?
THEA: Defamiliarization is a literary technique that presents the familiar in unfamiliar ways, to make strange what might have grown commonplace in literature, craft, art, life. I first learned the concept in Leni Zumas’s defamiliarization seminar at Portland State University, and Viktor Schklovsky, who coined the term in his article “Art as Technique,” said something that will
always stick with me, that habit will eventually “devour work, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war… and art exists that one may recover the sensation of life.” So defamiliarization aims to break up the habitual, to see, as though for the first time again, that which has been taken for granted.
In Leni’s class, I realized defamiliarization—without even knowing what it was—had been pulling me along for years, as a reader and writer, and learning more helped me build an awareness around my own creative interests and practices. The editors of The Gravity of the Thing share those interests in different ways, which means defamiliarization might enter the works we publish at any number of levels: at the word level, by creating new words or unique word combinations; at the sentence or line level, by experimenting with unexpected or refreshing rhythms or grammar; at the craft level, by bending or breaking expectations in favor of new effects; or at the thematic or media level, by turning familiar content around and inside out.
THE ALEMBIC: Other than this central concept, are there any other specific themes, writing styles, or types of authors from which TGOTT seeks to publish?
THEA: We often experiment with themed issues, some that are geared towards specific elements of defamiliarization like our Multimedia: Duets issue, which pairs writing with music. It’s also our goal to promote creative writing by emerging writers, as well as publish work by writers historically underrepresented in literary publishing, including (but certainly not limited to) writers from the BIPOC communities, as women and nonbinary writers, writers with disabilities, and writers from the LGBTQIA2S+ communities. By creating opportunities for emerging and marginalized writers to submit their work, and by regularly evolving our publishing practices with accessibility and representation in mind, I hope The Gravity of the Thing offers the same opportunity my fellow classmate extended me years ago, when he suggested I submit my work for publication. There are many ways a person can find themselves in publishing—a friendly offer was my way in—and the publishing world needs new, diverse voices.
THE ALEMBIC: What do you typically find to be the most intriguing aspect of a literary work? On the other hand, are there any aspects of a literary work that will cause you to reject the work?
THEA: The Gravity of the Thing publishes short works, primarily because we enjoy short works, but also because the journal is run by volunteers, and reducing the editor’s time commitments helps us avoid fees for our writers and readers. It means we sometimes publish extremely short works, and lately I’ve found myself focusing on endings and beginnings, and in that order. Once I know where a piece ends up, and I return to the beginning for a second read, the conversation
between the ending and beginning can reveal a very telling kind of story movement or a very fascinating lack of movement. It can also reveal, though, whether I’m reading an incomplete piece of writing, or whether the piece is only its final sentence. All of our readers and editors approach submissions differently, and lately—perhaps because of where I’m currently at in my writing practice, having just published my first book From the Caves during the pandemic—I’m currently interested in exploring the ways language starts and ends, departs and arrives.
THE ALEMBIC: Do you prefer writing or editing? How do you compartmentalize the two processes when you are so heavily involved in both?
THEA: In the fall I teach a course called Literary Magazines at Portland State University, where my students and I study the path of a creative writing submission on its way to publication. We begin the course by reviewing the craft of creative writing, then we move along to reading submissions for Portland Review, so students gain vocational experience with a literary journal, and at the end of the course we write essays about ethical practices in publishing. Since students are introduced to many different processes and roles in the publishing industry, I often find it important to note that in my own writing practice, I think of my roles as different hats, and I try not to wear more than one hat at a time. For example, when I sit down to draft my fiction, I cannot also be an editor and publisher and publicist—I would never get a word down. Likewise, when I’m editing, I don’t think it would be fair to the author if I were also trying to be a writer and a publisher and a publicist at the same time. Of course there’s overlap and I’m always learning, but I find this “hats” metaphor helps me remain focused.
THE ALEMBIC: We see on your website that you also teach creative writing at Portland State University and Portland Community College. What advice do you offer your students that helps them become better writers in general, and what tips do you offer aspiring authors to help make their writing stand out?
THEA: In my creative writing classes, I often think of myself as a guide and an individual example, as students build an awareness of their writing preferences and strengthen their writing practices, and as I share aspects of my own writing practice and experiences with publishing. In terms of becoming a better writer, I believe an awareness of practice helps a writer determine for themselves how and when they’ve become better, so we can recognize and celebrate milestones more regularly, to find the motivation to keep writing more often, beyond the sporadic positive reinforcement that formal publication provides.
In terms of tips for aspiring writers, I’m often transparent with my students about what’s worked for me, and also transparent about my mistakes. Rejection letters are a normal part of the submission process, but they can also take a toll on the writer, and when I first began submitting my unsolicited writing broadly, I quickly accumulated a lot of discouraging rejections. It wasn’t
until much later that I realized I was submitting my work incorrectly—I was sending my work to publishers whose work I was unfamiliar with and whose preferences and submission guidelines I barely understood. I thought I had been throwing a handful of darts at a dart board, hoping I would accidentally strike a bullseye, but it turned out I wasn’t even throwing the darts at the right wall. So I learned the importance of researching publishers and their publications prior to submitting my work, because more often than not, I learned the writing will stand out if it’s sent to the right publisher.
THE ALEMBIC: What has been your proudest moment of your literary publishing and editing career thus far?
THEA: The first thing that comes to mind is The Gravity of the Thing’s New Writers Issue, which we rolled out in 2020 despite the pandemic. Since it’s one of our goals to support emerging writers, the editors and I wanted to provide a dedicated space for those new to publishing, so the issue would only include work by writers who had never published their writing outside of a personal blog or a journal based at their school. It meant all the submissions we received that summer rang with a special kind of bravery—every writer was venturing into a conversation that was new to them. Our volunteer readers, who were also emerging writers, would carry the experiences they gained into editorial positions and creative writing programs. Many of the writers we declined continue to submit to us, with our encouragement, and the writers we did publish were extremely grateful and asked thoughtful questions during the editing process. In all these ways, our first New Writers Issue felt, to me, like a creative springboard for everyone involved. Our editors look forward to running another New Writers Issue in the years ahead.
THE ALEMBIC: Where would you like to see your career go in the next year, 5 years, and long-term?
THEA: Great question—I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what the future might hold. Usually, I end up convinced that I should live more presently rather than guess at my long-term plans, ha; but I foresee myself continuing to maintain a diversity of occupations that reflect my interests and energy. I currently teach in the fall, winter, and spring, which is largely a sedentary job, and I engage in more active ag work in the spring and summer. This means I focus on deskbound writing and editing projects during the school year, and during the spring and summer, my family gets to travel, and my sister and I get into her screen-printing workshop to work on print projects. The balance has worked well these last few years, and it provides inspiration in all aspects of my life.
THE ALEMBIC: Where do you see the future of TGOTT going? How do you plan on keeping a journal new and exciting for loyal readers?
THEA: I see The Gravity of the Thing continuing to publish seasonal online issues, and in this way provide an ongoing and reliable space for exciting, defamiliarized writing. We will also continue to offer unique publication opportunities through our Baring the Device column and special annual issues, such as our Multimedia: Duets issue, our New Writers Issue, and we have especially exciting plans for 2022. We were recently awarded a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council to fund our first print anthology, Stranged Writing: A Literary Taxonomy. As the editors of The Gravity of the Thing aim to support defamiliarized writing, so will we design our upcoming anthology with defamiliarization in mind. The contents of the collection will be curated according to biological taxonomy (species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain) using word count, and the final form of the collection will be a cloth hardcover with a screen-printed dust jacket. Each dust jacket will fold into a unique literary organism or book sculpture, the goal being a dimensional and tactile reading experience during these largely digital times. I look forward to holding the anthology in my hands, and to other creative projects in the future.
THE ALEMBIC: Is there anything or anyone specific that has impacted your writing, editing, and creativity?
THEA: Leni Zumas has been an amazing inspiration in my writing and editing practices. Her guidance and her writing helped my new book From the Caves come to be, and The Gravity of the Thing would simply not exist had she not taught her defamiliarization seminar at Portland State University. Matthew Robinson, who founded The Gravity of the Thing, brought me onto the journal when we discovered how much we enjoyed each other’s writing, and seeing as Matt and I are married now, it’s a partnership that’s deepened more than my creative writing. There are many other artists I could name here, and collectively I know my community has impacted and propelled my creativity in ways that I’m still learning.