Looking Back with Mark Liebenow: Finding The Words Waiting For Us

with Assistant Editor Abigail Peabody

"Words have a power to them, and I don’t think we should take that lightly."

In the following interview, Chautauqua contributor Mark Liebenow reflects on his writing process and the power of words, offering some great advice for young writers. Mark Liebenow writes about nature, grief, prostate cancer, and the wisdom of fools. The author of four books, his essays, poems, and critical reviews have been published in numerous literary journals. His account of hiking in Yosemite to deal with his wife’s death, Mountains of Light, was published by the University of Nebraska Press. He studied English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, creative nonfiction at Bradley University, and can often be found writing outdoors at Cyd’s Café.

More information about Mark’s writing and books can be found on his website www.markliebenow.com.

Can you comment on your writing process? How do your essays begin? Also, how do you approach revision in your writing process?

My writing often begins from a number of sources. It can be a strong experience I’ve had, a strong emotion, a curiosity, or a subject I’d like to know more about. Basically, I get up at five in the morning and start writing. I generally have about half a dozen essays I’m working on and a bunch of poems. In the morning, I’ll page through all of those and see which one sparks my interest.

There are some days when none of my current projects interest me. So, I’ll start writing, and two hours later, my cats will come in and remind me that they want to have their breakfast.

My dog also reminds me to take breaks from writing. Do you write any fiction, or is it just nonfiction and poetry for you?

It’s mostly nonfiction and poetry.

And how do your essays begin?

My “Hiking Over the Edge” essay began as a journey of traveling to Yosemite, hiking around, and paying attention to what nature was doing—the sounds, scents, and what everything looked like.

“Broken Hallelujah” started with the emotions of sadness and grief that I felt when my mom disappeared into dementia. I wanted to understand what she was feeling—or at least get of sense of it. But I was also recapping what brought her to this point in her life. I also did research into dementia to learn about the trauma that losing someone you love to this brings.

The “Speaking of That” essay was actually a form essay. I was reading Judith Kitchen’s The Circus Train, and she just goes from thought to thought to thought. Each thought connects to the next thought but not necessarily to the original thought. I don’t know if she had an outline—I wasn’t picking up on one—but the image of the circus train keeps winding through the whole thing and pulls all the thoughts together like a drawstring on a bag. I thought that was just wonderful. I’d been writing about grief for quite some time, and I thought, well, let’s see if I could use this form and bring all of my thoughts about grief together.

Now, revision. That’s an interesting idea.

Everyone has a different revision strategy.

For me, revision is where the magic happens. I would love it if I could just sit down and write stories, and they came out whole like a watercolor painting where you just dash the colors down and it’s done.

Some of my brief essays, the ones around 750 words in length, sometimes come out that way. But the four thousand words essays really don’t. I might have one paragraph that is perfect as it is.

So, I intentionally write a horrible first draft. I don’t even try to be perfect or polish the language as I’m going along. What I want to do is sketch out the scope of the essay. Then, I will prune away things that don’t seem to be as important and go deeper into certain aspects that seem to have more of the focus of the essay. I prune away again, and I keep that process going. I probably go through about a dozen drafts before I reach the point where I feel good about it.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a class with college students, and the professor mentioned that they would have to do revisions on their work, and they were all moaning and groaning. But then, we went around the group, and each of the students commented on each other’s writing. And they were saying—“Well, you missed something here. I don’t understand what you’re saying about this. Can you go deeper into this aspect of it?” And the students realized that what they had in their heads was not showing up on the paper. That let them know that they had to go back and put these things in so that the readers could understand. I think feedback from others is indispensable.

I’m in two writing groups: one for poems and another for essays. Their insights, not only about how to say things differently but also about form, make my writing better—especially with poetry, which has so many different kinds of forms. It’s exciting, and kind of funny, when half of the poetry group loves something in a poem and the other half doesn’t. So I get to choose what I’m going to do. I enjoy the creativity that exists in the minds of other writers.

"What I want to do is sketch out the scope of the essay. Then, I will prune away things that don’t seem to be as important and go deeper into certain aspects that seem to have more of the focus of the essay. I prune away again, and I keep that process going."

In my Intro to Creative Writing class, we just did our lesson on poetry forms, and I said, “Here’s your glossary of forms, but it’s not a complete list. Just try to use one of the forms that isn’t free verse.”

It’s helpful to learn how to write the sonnets and villanelles so that writers have these tools in their toolbox and they know how to play with rhymes and cadence. One of the important things to do with your writing when revising is to read it aloud because your ear catches mistakes.

Yeah, I usually do that when I think something is complete. I read it aloud, and then usually do one more round of revision. Okay, the next question I have for you is what are you reading currently? And does your reading feed your writing process, and if so, how does your reading feed your writing process?

Very much so, very much so. One book I’m reading right now is Monica Weis’s The Environmental Vision of Thomas Merton. At the end of Merton’s life, which was shortened, he was writing about nature and spirituality, which are two topics I love to write about. I’m really curious to see how his thoughts were changing because shortly before he died, he was writing about Rachel Caron and the environmental crisis caused by DDT. He was beginning to think about wilderness—how we preserve it and how we should think about wilderness. So that’s guiding my writing currently.

There’s also a wonderful poetry book by Alaskan poet Julie Hungiville LeMay called The Echo of Ice Letting Go. The way she works with images is just astounding, so that’s guiding me with poetry and challenging me quite a bit.

And the other book is Pico Iyer’s The Half Known Life. He’s a writer who travels around and writes about the different places he visits. He gets into the history, what he encounters on the street, and all that. But he also writes about his personal reactions and how the places he goes change him. So, he’s interacting with the places and goes deep into his reflections. I will read anything he writes, whether it’s essays or books.

Mark Liebenow's Reading List:

I love travel writing, so I’ll need to add that to my list.

Perfect. I read for inspiration. I also read to understand what people are experiencing. In Yosemite, I used to camp with the rock climbers quite often. I’m not a climber myself, but I liked to talk with them, and I would read books by other rock climbers because I wanted to understand their courage and passion for spending days climbing up a rock face—how they felt and the beauty they saw.

I also read to discover how other writers are using language. There are creative ways that I never would have thought of using.

Definitely! When I was reading your essays, I noticed that you would bring in some kind of outside information, some type of research. And I was wondering how much of that is dedicated research for you. How much of your research comes from you saying “I’m going to sit down and read this to help with this essay”? And how much of it are you just pulling from things that you’re currently reading or thoughts that you’re having?

Good question. I’m always reading, and there are certain topics I read a lot about: nature, spirituality, grief, and cancer. If I see a book on any of those things, I will pick it up and read it. Later on when I’m writing an essay, I will recall reading about a certain aspect of my subject, and I’ll find the relevant passages to include.

So, it’s kind of both ways.

Yes. I’m reading to find background information to understand, but also to expand my own writing and push deeper into that subject.

And with that, reading and writing about nature, do you consider yourself a nature writer? And thinking about the tradition of nature writing, are there any nature writers you’ve read that have inspired your work?

John Muir, of course. Sigurd Olsen who wrote about Lake Superior and life in northern Minnesota. Aldo Leopold. Rick Bass. Kathleen Dean Moore. Lisa Knopp. Terry Tempest Williams. Nan Shepherd. There’s quite a few nature writers that I like.

Are there any other authors who you think serve as inspiration to you or whom you try to mimic?

In terms of essay writing, I don’t try to mimic much because that’s just too big, well, except for Judith Kitchen. I tried to mimic her. But in poetry, I try to mimic what other poets are doing because, as a shorter piece, I can get an idea of the form and then use it see how to express something I’m writing differently, like how they use whitespace on the page to break up thoughts and provide pauses for readers to breathe.

And then my last question I have for you is what advice do you have for other writers?

First of all, write every day even if you don’t feel like it. My feeling is that words are waiting for the door to open.

"My feeling is that words are waiting for the door to open."

I like that.

Write about what excites you. On my morning walk this morning, I saw one of the neighborhood dogs come out of a house. That white dog was just so excited to come out and see what was happening in the world today. I think writers should be like that. You sit down and become excited about what you’re writing. Then revise. Revise until you get to where you like it. And then, of course, share your writing with other writers. They’re a great sounding board. They can tell you this works or maybe you need to shore up this area a little bit more. Read your writing aloud, as we were talking about earlier, to catch grammatical mistakes but also for the delight to the sounds of words and the cadence of the sentences. And when you’re not writing, you should be reading what other people have written to experience the worlds they have created.

If what you’re writing doesn’t seem to be coming together, or doesn’t seem to be saying anything, you may be focused on the wrong subject. Say you’re on an ice floe in the middle of the ocean and you’re trying to write about the shore, and the words just aren’t coming. Maybe what your focus should be on the ice floe that is holding you up. Where you are focusing makes a difference.

Mountains of Light by Mark Liebenow Book Cover — Purchase Mark Liebenow's recent book *Mountains of Light*, winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize

Words can certainly entertain us in novels and stories. You know that. But they also have the power to transform lives and spark imaginations. Words encourage people to hold on to hope in the midst of their darkest days and to dream again of what might be possible. I’ve written about grief for over twenty years to help other people who are suffering. Now I’m writing about cancer to let people who have cancer know that they’re not alone in what they’re going through, and to help those who don’t to understand what their friends are having to deal with. Words have a power to them, and I don’t think we should take that lightly.

I one hundred percent agree with you on that. This was really great getting to speak with you, and thank you so much for your time. It was nice meeting you.

It was good to meet you, and it’s always wonderful to connect with Chautauqua.