Personal highlights: 

What kindles your creativity?

Other creatives. I am never more inspired to write than when I read a sentence that lifts up from the page and lodges itself in my heart. Then I start the process of breaking it down- why does it work? What makes it so poignant? How does the work involve my senses? Is there a particular memory I have that it speaks too? And then I try to emulate that in my own work. 

 The other, less consistent source is my dreams. I keep a dream diary and often wake up with character arcs or even words I want to use in my work.  

Are there any artists/ heroines/  idols/ friends that you look up to?

The feminists, the workshop leaders, the ones advocating for the world to be a better place, the healers, the fact-checkers, the ones who show us how to use a post-colonial lens, the thinkers, the craftswomen–they all live in my inner mindscape and I am grateful to them all. Writers I admire include Carmen Maria Machado, Cate C. Wells, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison and Deepti Kapoor. I am currently reading a lot of romance-how the novelist makes two people fall in love intrigues me. 

We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you?

Routine is the only thing that gets me going. Before the start of each month, I take a look at all the writing workshops and book talks I would like to attend and make them fit my schedule. Some of these workshops have led to fully finished pieces, while others help me hone on certain storytelling aspects like themes, conflicts or climaxes. 

 I get into a creative rut once every few weeks, lethargic, knowing I need to create but unable to. And then I’d be unable to sleep and the only thing that works is letting go and inviting my dreams in. And somehow, I wake up with the next big idea I have, something that was almost there in all my writing, but was finding it hard to rear its head. And then things make sense. It’s wonderful how we can harness our own minds to inspire us; I’m awe-struck each time this works. 

Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Currently, there’s a  novel I workshopped over a year ago that I need to get back to. It’s a thriller set in a commune in India which two college roommates help solve.  I write a lot of short stories and plan to find them a home once I finally finish them.This year I got into beadwork and fiber arts and have found it cathartic to explore another art form–the pressure is far less. Dabbling in a new artform definitely keeps me motivated and opens up my creative pathways. 

What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

If there was only one short story I could recommend, it would be the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I read it as a freshman in college and each time I come back to it, I find a new layer. It’s a wonderful example of mastering the craft of writing. 

Where can people learn more about what you do?

You can follow me on Instagram at ravneet_recommends.  

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Workshop:

What inspired your workshop?

I chose my college education to be a better writer and double majored in English Literature and Psychology. I ended up graduating with a graduate degree in psychology research. My thesis was on narrative immersion in different forms of media. I looked at how people reacted to the same narrative in short stories and short films. (Attach link to thesis, if possible). Once I left academia, I realized how separated these two fields were. My workshop idea was born in another workshop, where I thought the insertion of some psychological concepts would be worthwhile for a creative to explore. I also use my own dreams for my stories, inspired by a college class that focused heavily on dreams and sleep. 

Can you tease what workshop attendees might expect? 

We’d take a journey into the collective unconsciousness and explore common archetypes in stories, myths, and dreams.  I plan to make this personal, so that people leave the workshop with their own list of symbols. 

What do you hope they might gain from the workshop? 

I hope people leave with a clear idea of archetypes, how to identify and employ them in stories, and also how to use some dreamwork techniques in their art.  If someone is motivated to explore even one of the concepts we discuss in the class, I would consider it a job well done!

What is your favorite part about workshops? 

How intimate they are! I always leave with a new perspective every time I finish one. One reason I like the Tiny Spoon workshops is because we get two days in the same (Zoom) space. Four hours of dedicated time to a topic with a bunch of creatives always sparks creativity. 

My graduate thesis can be found here for those interested in learning more about my work: https://www.proquest.com/openview/1148baf342896f452d707aeafb93c3cc/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Maggie Dillow is our Summer 2025 Tiny Resident, who ran our workshop Mourning Papers: Writing the Future into the Present.

What kindles your creativity?

The word kindles feels so correct here. What is always rumbling beneath, begging to be caught up by even the smallest flame? For me, the answer is to read what I most want to write and then walk in the woods. But that’s only for work that feels like it needs to take its first breaths in solitude. But some work arrives only in the company of others; I love creating in community, especially with my collective, the Post-apocalyptic Poets for a Pre-apocalyptic World. The absurdity, the tenderness, the wild laughter, the inconsolable joy that arises from making art in a serious way with people who understand the value of making art in an unserious way? Immeasurable. Precious.

Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

So many. Currently, I find myself turning repeatedly to Molly Brodak’s The Cipher and Little Middle of the Night. Brodak’s words are placed so carefully; her work displays a degree of precision so at odds with my naturally haphazard way of writing; reading her poetry, looking for how/what’s operating beneath its (at first sight, at least) opaqueness helps me slow down when I turn to my own page and asks me to leave more underneath. Also, growing up in the ’90s, the Guerrilla Girls and the Riot grrrl movements had a profound impact on my desire to always marry poetics to performance. Also also, the photographers Sally Mann, Graciela Iturbide, and Justine Kurland. And all of my friends, of course. In particular, my podcast co-host Marin, for her unwavering ability to have a singular focus and see a writing project all the way to its end every single time. I envy this. Deeply. 

Are there any natural entities that move your work?

The natural entities that move my work are the natural entities that move us all, I think: the wind (both breezy and dangerous) the water (especially Lake Michigan, the lake that raised me) the dirt (clay, silt, sand) the moon (obviously) the sky (open and closed) the clouds (full or hazy sheets) and any flowers and everything else. Even if that isn’t what I’m writing about. I’m moved to make when I’m staring at what is already made, what makes itself, what we wonder about having been made. This always leads me to the question of god, who I do not believe in, who I cannot believe in, but who anyway finds themselves in all of my work, much of which is a prayer to anything. 

We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you?

My work begins in my mind. Well, obviously. But I mean, paragraphs worth of what I intend to say start creeping in, like the invasive kudzu vines currently covering acres of wild land in a violent swaddle here in Southwest Virginia. It feels that heavy, infectious, even. And eventually “it” begins to spill out, either into my notes app (if I’m walking through the woods) or on sheets of copy paper I’ve cut in half to use as scraps due to my inability to print out the correct amount of copies for my students (if I’m inside) or even— but much less likely— in one of the many half-used and frequently-forgotten  journals I’ve purchased for just such an occasion. 

But when it begins to creep, I try to get to the woods as soon as possible and walk through them until the first of it has been divulged via the talk-to-text function on my smartphone with whom I of course have a love/hate relationship due to how central it is to my writing process, for better and worse. And I know my phone is not a person. And I know this all sounds a bit melodramatic. But it’s just how it arrives: when I’m walking, all at once, like heavy vines and then disseminated directly into a dystopian tool of communicative technology. 

Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

I’m really, really trying not to have any projects right now. But I do have one, called (shockingly) Mourning Papers. It’s a work in progress and I talk about it in the workshop. 

What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Books: The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Literally any poetry ever. Everything by Toni Morrison, of course. And anything written by your friends. Artwork: See: Photographers I listed in question 2. Music: Lingua Ignota. The Distillers’ 2002 album Sing Sing Death House. Portishead. Martha Wainwright. Too many to list. Also: consider giving the following cult-classic ’90s shows a (re)watch: The X-files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks. They are by no means perfect, but they are by all means of a very particular point in time to which we cannot return. 

Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

I have a guinea pig named Guillermo Girard Rocket Coyote “Popcorn” and he is the light of my life. He recently had to have emergency surgery and it broke my heart entirely in two. He’s currently on the mend and my partner and I are already planning the birthday bash we’re gonna have for him for his 5th solar return on November 20, 2025. It’s gonna be a rager. 

Where can people learn more about what you do?

I’m currently on a social media hiatus because scrolling through the algorithm was beginning to fill my body with the same sensation as smoking used to. And I really miss cigarettes. But since leaving the ethers of Instagram, I don’t really miss the algorithm. Which is worth saying, I suppose, since I decided to write it out. Anyway, you can still find me there from time to time to announce things: mainly pictures of Guillermo: @_saint_margaret_ and with my collective: @postapocalpytic_poets and with my podcast: @girlhoodmoviedatabase. Mostly, though, I enjoy writing essays on Substack at a little page called Epistles from an American Poet. I also have a website: maggiedillow.com. Oh and Girlhood Movie Database can be listened to anywhere you get your podcasts!

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Jessica Lee McMillan from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Jessica Lee McMillan: Some quiet time outside or in my corner bookshelf nook + other artists and poets, music, nature and science!

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Jessica Lee McMillan: I look up to so many living poets. To share with them at a reading, in community or in an issue is really all I ever wanted.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

Jessica Lee McMillan: I am very observant about whether I am starting something new or letting something go according to moon phase. Very occasionally, I pull out my Rider-Waite deck, which is storytelling that follows rhythms of life and death we still have trouble understanding.

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

Jessica Lee McMillan: A poem comes differently each time. The one in this issue was an ars poetica/research journey into the number 72 as there was a period of time when all my poems were 72 words.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Jessica Lee McMillan: I’ve started a poetry collection about the physics of light.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Jessica Lee McMillan: Right now, I am reading Japanese Death Poems, written by Zen Monks (Tuttle). While I am enjoying the new Horrors album, my little has been listening to lots of ABBA and I would always recommend that.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Jessica Lee McMillan: jessicaleemcmillan.com

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Aaron Lelito from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Aaron Lelito: I find a lot of inspiration in natural imagery and experimentation with language. For me, visual and literary artforms overlap quite a bit, and creativity seems to come out maintaining a connection with the natural world and looking closely at what I came across, whether it be something on a large scale like a landscape or a big old oak tree, or something much smaller like the pattern of a leaf or moss growing on the sidewalk.

Natural imagery crosses over from photography into my writing as well. In writing, the speaker can comment on these settings in a way that isn’t as prominent in visual art (although I do enjoy creating titles for visual art pieces — that’s one way to connect text and image more directly). In poetry, I find room to express more of my inner life via the natural world. The main themes explored in these poems are relationship, self-reflection, impermanence, and transformation.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Aaron Lelito: Certainly, writers like Henry David Thoreau, Gary Snyder, Jane Hirshfield, and Mary Oliver come to mind. I’m drawn to writers with a deep interest in nature, but also a drive to investigate the human condition in all its messiness — desire, love, subjectivity, spirituality. Also, the novelist Don DeLillo has been a longtime influence. His writing style has always “clicked” with me, and I try to revisit his work every so often. He’s such an astute cultural commentator as well, so the subject matter of his novels seems perennially relevant. As for friends, I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with so many amazing writers and artists through Wild Roof Journal — I can’t really single anyone out here for the sake of omitting so many more! It’s important, though, to acknowledge the inspiration that these friends offer in my own creative journey. While the “greats” supply the needed aspirational guidance, the independent writers out there provide the practical step-by-step process that is necessary to get things done, submit them, and ultimately, see them published.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

Aaron Lelito: I love that there is a sense of mystery around the creative process — how ideas pop up out of nowhere, how we make connections we didn’t see previously, how we’re drawn to certain creative directions and not others. I try to leave some room in my creative process for an intuitive approach, whether it’s experimenting with layering images together or playing with lines in a poem that don’t quite fit what’s logical or expected. I suppose trusting my creative intuitions is a bit of superstition, in the sense that it involves believing in something (like a specific piece or larger creative project), putting energy into it, and having patience to see it develop into a reality.

The connection between my meditation practice and creativity is certainly interesting as well, and it’s something that I think about a lot. I don’t know if this relationship can really be quantified, though. In more general terms, my mediation practice impacts my interaction with the world and my writing comes out of that interaction, so clearly there’s an impact happening.

I can add that the types of meditation I’m referring to are shamatha/vipashyana, which are typically more focused on getting familiar with “what is” than a mystical approach to achieving a goal or manifesting a new reality to replace the current one. Of course, there are some more mystical, esoteric aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism that are fascinating to me; however, shamatha/vipashyana is the foundational practice is a part of my routine.

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

Aaron Lelito: The writing process usually starts with my notebook, where I write lines, fragments, and phrases that I can piece together or add to existing poems. Sometimes micro poems became the building blocks of longer poems, and I find something appealing about the conciseness and sparseness of these pieces. Since the initial drafts can have an objective, observational style, I revise with more pathos in mind, building on some of the emotional context that was surrounding me at the time of writing.

I love keeping a notebook for creative writing — good quality paper and a decent pen. For my poetry, that’s usually where it all starts. Second, I have a digital camera, and these photographs are typically what I use for different forms of digital art. Also, I enjoy bringing both of these elements together, layering nature photos with photos of my notebook pages. In these cases, the text of the notebook page can come through in unexpected ways. I put together a collection of “notebook-art” last year, using notebook pages from several Wild Roof Journal contributors. I layered their pages with my own nature photos and called the collection If We: Connections Through Creative Process.) A download of this collection is available on the Wild Roof Journal website.)

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Aaron Lelito: I have a mirco-chapbook coming out as part of the Ghost City Press Summer Series. This is a
collection of notebook-art images similar to the piece included in Tiny Spoon. I’m also sending out a poetry manuscript for publicaiton. Other than that, my main project is Wild Roof Journal, so I’m usually in progress with various parts of the issue cycle and organizing a weekly Substack feature.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Aaron Lelito: Years ago, I wrote down a quote from Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, so perhaps this is a fitting recommendation to share here: “Sit in a room and read — and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.” Having said that, I’d recommend the writers listed above (Thoreau, Walden and “Life Without Principle,” Snyder, Turtle Island and Practice of the Wild, Hirshfield, The Asking, Oliver, Devotions, DeLillo, White Noise and The Body Artist). As for music, I appreciate 90’s indie bands like Pavement and Built to Spill, and since I’ve been out of the loop with new musics lately, I go back to that genre the most. As a poet and musician, David Berman of Silver Jews was influential as well. The 1998 album American Water features Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus and is definitely worth a listen for its lyrics as much as the music.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Aaron Lelito: Speaking of music, the title of the piece in Tiny Spoon Issue 13, “Drive South, Feel Meaning” (which appears written in the upper right corner of the image), comes from the nostalgia heavy “Ann’s Jam” by Chastity Belt. Something about that song is so evocative to me, and I’ve listened to it a lot, so variations of the lyrics appeared in quite a few places in my notebook during that time.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Aaron Lelito: As for social media, I’m most active on Instagram (@aaronlelito & @wildroofjournal). My personal website is aaronlelito.com has more about me and previous publications and my editor profile is available on Reedsy . Also, wildroofjournal.com has everything you need as far as learning about the publication — issue archive, submission info, and podcast episodes.

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Nikoletta Nousiopoulos from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: My creativity is kindled by reading old texts such as the Bible, the Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Divine Comedy, and through conversations with my students. Poetry podcasts, specifically Kevin Young on The New Yorker Poetry Podcast and the Ode and Psyche podcast hosted by Vermont poet laureate Bianca Stone, also inspire me. Additionally, spending time in nature, particularly by the ocean or near flowers, initiates my creative urge.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: My husband, fiction writer Daniel Giovinazzo, is my biggest inspiration. His daily writing practice and standards for excellence mirror what I hope to achieve in my work ethic. I also deeply admire the work of Anne Carson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Alice Notley, Clarice Lispector, Louise Glück, Anne Sexton, Dorothea Lasky, and Maggie Nelson. I am drawn to work that centers gender, the body, astrology, the occult, surrealism, spirituality, and experimental/avant-garde literary forms.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: From birth, I was raised in the Greek Orthodox faith and exposed to various rituals and practices, such as burning incense, chanting, icons, scripture readings, and fasting. These experiences fostered an early onset of existential thoughts concerning life and death. My paternal grandparents, Greek immigrants from Korifi, a small village in the province of Kozani, were religious and superstitious. For example, they believed in the sanctity of the church while simultaneously holding beliefs in the power of hexes and reading fortunes in the remains of Greek coffee grains. Their beliefs blended these traditions in my childhood and upbringing. Today, these rituals manifest in my home through the presence of icons and an altar dedicated to deceased loved ones. Tarot is a daily practice for me, used as a tool for setting intentions or freewrites. While I do not always adhere to some doctrines of the church, I feel able to access the Divine and a feeling of holiness through reading the Bible and other religious scriptures. Additionally, I engage with astrology by reading current transits and considering their relationship to my natal chart. Since 2020, I have kept an astrological log of major transits and events that have occurred in my life.

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: “How to Talk to the Dead” originated in a lyric essay workshop offered by Muse Writing, an organization founded by the poet, essayist, and scholar Joanna Penn Cooper. I participated in the workshop to experiment with prose writing. It was in this workshop that I encountered Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, a book that fundamentally shifted my understanding of lyrical prose. My creative process is a bit like research, in that reading and inquiry take up more time than writing. While I wish I was more generative and could write every day, what is more typical of my pattern is sudden bursts of creativity, moments when I feel called to the page in a way that is energized and spontaneous. These generative moments will last two to three months and eventually decrease until I am only able to notetake and journal. During this time I conduct research, read new books, journal throughout the day, keep a commonplace book, and revise old work. All of my work is handwritten in a notebook, then transferred to a computer.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: My second poetry manuscript, Penelope’s Dream Almanac, is complete and currently seeking a publisher. In these poems, I explore themes of the female body, pregnancy loss, dream interpretation, and the mystical landscape of Greece, using Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey as a lens for a contemporary understanding. My current prose projects include a collection of short stories, spanning fiction and non-fiction, and a non-fiction novella investigating the suicide of a high school friend in a prison cell. This novella is informed by intuitive connections to various books, music, and visual art, and it also employs major astrological transits to illuminate aspects of my friend’s character and the details surrounding his death.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: Having listened to the Ode & Psyche podcast episode from February 12, 2025, titled “It’s Raining in a Dead Language: The Fragments of Franz Wright, with Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright,” I began reading Franz Wright’s books. My favorite so far is F: Poems (2016), particularly because of my interest in longer and prose poems. Eventually, I hope to attempt an epic poem of my own.

Regarding novels, Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby, with its blend of memoir, literary criticism, travelogue, and more, was an enjoyable read. Maggie Nelson’s Bluets and The Argonauts have been the most influential on my prose style, inspiring a similar collage or hybrid approach to Solnit’s book. I am curious about psychological associations during my writing process and intend to document them as these writers do.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: I am a mother of three young children, and I work as an educator and academic advisor for the Thames transition program at Mitchell College. For over 11 years, I have taught writing and literature at various institutions, including community and private colleges, a Catholic high school, and York Correctional Institute, the only women’s prison in Connecticut. My current professional project aims to broaden perspectives on the dynamics between neurodiversity and creativity, specifically by addressing bias and misunderstanding around talent and ability. Additionally, I helped establish The Thames Review, a literary journal showcasing the work of neurodiverse students within the Thames program at Mitchell College.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos: My Instagram handle is @nikogiovinazzo, and additional information can be found on my website: https://nikolettapoet.my.canva.site/.

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with finch greene from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

finch greene: I just love reading good things. Things so good they make you feel like crawling up the walls and maybe give you a little bit of impostor syndrome, but in a good way? Then they make you want to sit down and make something that’ll give that feeling to someone else. I love theatre and live performances and feeling the pulse of a piece of art. Also, unfortunately, nothing makes me want to open a new document like having a debilitating, unrequited crush.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

finch greene: I’ve been fortunate enough to have met almost all of my writer friends over the past 3-ish years. They’re all so darn cool and so darn good at what they do and so darn generous with their time, hearts, and critiques. My Undercurrent Writing Workshop crew are some of the most brilliant minds I have ever shared space with, and watching them work is a magical experience. Folk artist Andrew Montana is one of the greatest living lyricists of our time, and one of the only Virgo men allowed to exist. That guy churns out bop after bop and I need to know how he does it.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

finch greene: I 100% believe my dead loved ones communicate with me through music and dreams. They rarely have any wild wisdom to pass along, but it’s nice waking up from a dream where all I did was sit in a chair next to my dearly departed and feeling like they just popped by to say hey. I also have obsessive-compulsive disorder, so almost everything in my life is a superstition.

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

finch greene: One thing about my process is that it is inconsistent as hell. I write when I can—a minute here, a few minutes there, in the middle of a workday, on the train (while trying not to get motion sick), frantically tapping out a few lines in my notes app before I succumb to sleep. I’m a perfectionist, so sometimes I have to drag a draft kicking and screaming out of me, because I don’t want to have to deal with something that isn’t immediately perfect! But I’m working on loving the parts of my work that are messy and difficult, too.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

finch greene: I’m in the process of editing a full-length poetry collection—with the help of beautiful wizard poet Liv Mammone—that’s been in the works for the last couple of years. Stay tuned if you like gender and sexuality and sprinkles of erotic fan fiction…

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

finch greene: I’m serious. Andrew mother-effing Montana. You will not be disappointed. Tell him I sent you. We as a society seriously need to bring The Muppets back into the foreground of pop culture. I will not stand for Muppet erasure any longer! Give Miss Piggy her spotlight back!! I’m also a huge supporter of getting back into any media you loved as a tween/teen. It’s good for the soul.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

finch greene: I have approximately 200 bottles of nail polish and it’s only a problem if I say it is. Being the sole provider for my chronically ill, special needs cat is the only thing tethering me to this earthly realm day in and day out. I’m almost always singing a made-up song about him and his stinky toes.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

finch greene: Guys, I finally caved and made an Instagram account for my poetry: @finchgreene (PLEASE GOD don’t let me flop)

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Max Gregg from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Max Gregg: A day when I don’t have to go to work. A day when I go to work. A day when I’m depressed. A day when I’m giddy. The birds in my yard. I’m inspired all the time, and I have to write all the time. What makes me write well is a different question.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Max Gregg: Trans people. Oscar Wilde, my stepfather John, and everyone who is in prison, has been in prison, or who has been impacted by the carceral system. My sister Lauren, a brilliant lawyer who is working toward dismantling that system.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

Max Gregg: Tarot, bibliomancy, and dream analysis are all commonplace in my household (I live with poets) and family lore has it that my sister and I are descended from water witches. My partner (the performance and video artist Red Rae) and I have experimented with dowsing as part of a hybrid video piece called Divine Portal, made in collaboration with the ghosts of Gertrude Stein and Divine. Divine Portal is showing at Area 405 in Baltimore, as a part of Red’s show, Paradise Portals (May 9-June 13, 2025).

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

Max Gregg: DREAMS OF TRANSSEXUALS AS WILDLIFE REFUGE was initially generated through a technique I learned from Raisa Tolchinsky’s Glass Jaw (Persea, 2024), in which she takes a sentence of prose and writes in between each word. Tolchinsky’s method of feminist reappropriation seemed like a formal strategy for enacting the kind of writing my MFA thesis advisor Sumita Chakraborty suggested I was edging toward, which was a writing that would get inside of transphobic discourse and make it say something it didn’t want to say. The text I used to generate the first draft of this prose-poem was a sentence from a 1973 study that came out of the University of Virginia (the same school where I completed my MFA) called “Dreams of Transsexuals Awaiting Surgery.” The study sought to undermine trans ways of knowing by using our dreams against us. I wrote inside and against it, and this text, in the end became a container for my rage and grief during the 2025 election cycle. I revised a lot, throughout that season. The multiple revisions felt important; I got to perform not just one, but a series of operations which dramatically altered the original body of text, leaving a smooth and resistant surface for readers to interact with.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Max Gregg: This poem is one in a sequence, all written against the walls of the same 1973 dream study. It is part of the manuscript, CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR THE SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT GENDERS, which contains other poems drawn from the trans medical archives with a special focus on Virginia history.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Max Gregg: I speak in the poem about dissection and the idea of “anatomical truth;” alongside the curiosity cabinet and the asylum (“men in white”), the practice of anatomy here summons the violent systems of thought and practice put into place during the Enlightenment: a system we are still, in many respects, working inside of. Here in Virginia, that has historically looked like the violent subjection and ownership of human beings. UVA”s medical school, much like many other medical schools during Thomas Jefferson’s era, was involved in unethical practices of body-snatching, and performed dissections on these bodies for the purposes of proving false claims of white racial superiority (see: James Breeden, “Body Snatchers and Anatomy Professors: Medical Education in Nineteenth-Century Virginia”; Elizabeth Catte, Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia). I say in the poem that “the subject is an elegy;” this idea comes from Billy Ray Belcourt’s amazing A History of My Brief Body. Subject might, in the context of my work, mean test subject, or it might mean (as Michel Foucault uses it) an individual who is subject to power. I’m interested in histories of subjection, and how we might, through creative practice, shape a collective way of speaking back against that lonely idea that we are discrete individuals who only exist in relation to the systems that bestow and violate our rights.  I have been fascinated to learn about Bacon’s Rebellion and the great lengths to which the ruling classes went in Tsenacommacah or colonial Virginia to shore up power by dividing our communities along racial lines (See: Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford, Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South; Ethan A. Schmidt, The Divided Dominion: Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia). This poem is indebted to the Chartists, Luddites, and other radicals and machine-breakers of the 19th-century; it was in reading about them that I learned the political history of the word “combine.” This got me thinking about what can happen between us in proximity: when we touch, mix, and conspire together (with one another and with nonhuman life). If you want to read any of these books or articles, DM me. I have PDF’s.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Max Gregg: I’m starting an archive of transsexual dreams. You can submit yours at:  https://www.max-gregg.com/about

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Max Gregg: Insta: @mid_evil | Website: max-gregg.com

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Carolyn Ansley from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Carolyn Ansley: For me, creativity is equal parts magic and discipline. Inspiration might arrive through people, events, experiences, and art, but it’s the act of practicing creativity that truly fuels the process. I write even when I’m not feeling particularly poetic. Working the iterations and edits allow space for the work to breathe before it’s submitted—even if that submission is just to myself.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Carolyn Ansley: I admire strong women in any discipline who’ve forged their own paths despite adversity. As a young woman, I was blissfully unaware of gender inequity. I attended university, landed a great first job, and spent a decade at a company that empowered women. It wasn’t until after I had children and moved into entrepreneurial roles that I experienced inequality firsthand. Today, I’m inspired by women like Taylor Swift, AOC, Barbara Kingsolver, Georgia O’Keeffe, and my mother Patricia—who, at 81, is still politically active and successfully advocating for change!

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

Carolyn Ansley: I collect dimes as a sign from my grandfather and often turn to poetry and meditation to spiritually connect with the universe.

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

Carolyn Ansley: My creative process has evolved significantly over the past year. I’ve become much more mindful of the importance of editing. Poems often arrive as if I’m taking dictation from a divine source, but I’ve learned that something always gets lost in translation. Giving the work its space and then returning to it with fresh eyes results in a stronger, more intentional final piece. I’m also a huge fan of prompts—which inspired the creation of Dimes.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Carolyn Ansley: I’m currently working on my first novel, which follows three best friends as they navigate middle age and its social, health, and psychological complexities.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Carolyn Ansley: Leonard Cohen is my favorite poet. I’m drawn to poetic writers across genres and love autobiographies about overcoming adversity—Educated by Tara Westover and From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle are standouts. I also love historical fiction that immerses you fully in time and place, like Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and bold fiction that confronts social issues, like Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. As for art, I’m captivated by contemporary, tactile, and political works. I have an original pop-art painting by Montreal-based street-artist Stikki Peaches hanging in my dining room—language is integrated into the design, which I love as a writer. And if I could afford an Emily Carr, I’d absolutely hang one in my home!

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Carolyn Ansley: I’m a mother of two incredible young women. In addition to parenting, running a business and home, and writing, I love spending time at our cottage in Muskoka.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Carolyn Ansley: Right now, my focus is on my Instagram poetry account @wordtobeautiful. I’d love to hear from you there!

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Jan Elaine Harris from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Jan Elaine Harris: Movement. I love summer and being outside. I love having mornings with my dogs and my monstera plant. The sun, the green, the humidity. It opens me.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Jan Elaine Harris: Borges: always. My teacher: Micheal Martone. Heather Christle and Zachary Schomberg. My students keep me honest and keep me writing.   

Tiny Spoon: Do you have specific superstitions or divinatory practices that you adhere to?

Jan Elaine Harris: I listen to Hagan Fox’s Weekly Astrology Forecast, and I have had my Tarot read, and my life card is Temperance.

Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

Jan Elaine Harris: The Orange Grove poem took years to write, because I avoid writing about childhood— but I kept coming back to the moment with my grandmother and the sandy earth.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Jan Elaine Harris: I am working on a poetry manuscript, and its working title is Exclusion Zone. It’s about what we do after the world ends.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Jan Elaine Harris: I go outside, I go to museums, I stare at my friends’ faces, I think it’s all moving towards us— fill your hands with what brings you joy, fill your heart with the light you can find.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Jan Elaine Harris: There is so much darkness, genocide, plastic, hatred. We can’t look away from it. And there are neighbors, drag queens, immigrants, shining like beacons all around us. In poems, in hearts, two things can be true at once: the horrors are almost insurmountable, and resilience is still possible.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Jan Elaine Harris: I’m on Instagram (#geriatic millennial) I need a website and a trust fund.

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Shelli Rottschafer from our thirteenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Shelli Rottschafer: Nature kindles my creativity. One of my strategies for writing is what I call “braiding.” One trendle of line that I weave is having read or reacted to something that is a current issue. It may have been something I have seen on the news. It may have been an article I read. And I will hold onto that visceral reaction.

The next trendle is after reflection in nature. I will go there to seek calm, to breath in the season we are in. The third trendle is myself, including my five senses and colors that I associate with my experiences. When I gather these things together, I write notes and draft something out. This was my process for my poem, “Moth Clutched Loosely.”

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Shelli Rottschafer: I look up to is US poet laureate Ada Limón. An anthology she has edited is, You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (2024). In this collection. Limón tasks creatives to, “observe and reflect on their place in the natural world”. Some verses contend with the destruction of nature, others consider nature’s abundance and resilience. What is clear is that “the nature of our humanity” is grounded in the natural world. Limón expounds upon her own connection, which I also tried to explain above in what kindles my creativity. She says it better than I do:

[When] I am trying to find myself, trying to ground myself, I stare at trees….
I become aware that I am in a body, yes, but it is a body connected to these trees, and we
are breathing together.
You might not know this, but poems are like trees in this way. They let us breathe
together. In each line break, caesura, and stanza, there’s a place for us to breathe….
[Poems] can be a place to stop and remember that we too are living.

I relate Limón’s words to a nature-based image: a grove of aspens. Each tree is an individual but
its root system is interconnected to others within its reach. Similarly, a poem’s individual words
grow into verse, establish place upon the page, and create community with its reader. I admire
Limón because for her, “poetry and nature have a way of simply reminding us that we are not
alone”.

This Tiny Spoon has done for me as well. They have helped fledge my poem into the literary
world, and together we share in these nature-inspired moments of wonder and awe.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Shelli Rottschafer: A recent publication of one of my poems is, “Manitou Passage” through Tiny Seed Literary Journal’s You Plant the Seed, We Help it Grow Project: “The Beauty of Water’s Depth” https://tinyseedjournal.com/2025/04/20/manitou-passage/ Manitou Passage is a body of water that looks west from Good Harbor Bay near Leland into Lake Michigan. In the distance is South Manitou Island and Lighthouse, slightly north is North Manitou Island. The beach where this poem is situated is in the northern part of the lower peninsula in Michigan. It has taught me the art of learning to “be” in place. Now that I live in Colorado, I am discovering new places that help me learn to simply be such as Kruger Rock Trail just outside of Estes Park.

An eminent project is my MFA thesis. It is a collection of poetry and lyric essays titled, Meanwhile, She Waits for Aperture. I am in the final revisions and I will graduate July 25, 2025 from Western Colorado University’s low residency MFA in Creative Writing. My concentration is Poetry. https://catalog.western.edu/graduate/programs/creative-writing-mfa/

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Shelli Rottschafer: A recent book I really have enjoyed is:
Trespass: Ecotone Essayists Beyond The Boundaries of Place, Identity, and Feminism.
Wilmington: Lookout Books U of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. 270.
Trespass is an amazing place-based anthology written by Women-Nature Writers. In my
opinion, it is a hands down awesome collection. It includes essays from California, Alaska,
Michigan, Vermont, Arkansas. Some are rural others urban, and each shed perspectives from a
variety of multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-identifying lenses. Truly, I have not felt this way
about a book in a very long time. Authors of note in Trespass are Camille T. Dungy, Toni Jensen,
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Lauret E. Savoy, Terry Tempest Williams, Allison Hawthorne Deming,
Aisha Sabatini Sloan, and Lia Purpura.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Shelli Rottschafer: If you would like to learn more about me, here are two links:

The Philly Poetry Chapbook Review
Contributor Highlight: Through this interview I explain my writing origins and inspiration
within nature as well as authors who have influenced my practice.
https://phillychapbookreview.org/meet-our-contributor-shelli-rottschafer/

Bold Journey: An Ars Poetica Interview
Interviewed by Anita Patel at http://www.BoldJourney.com located in Culver City, CA.
The discussion led to my writing process, recent successes, and some of my literary ancestors’
influence such as Robert W. Service, Jim Harrison, and Linda Hogan.
https://boldjourney.com/meet-shelli-rottschafer/

A recent publication of mine is, “Calf Canyon Fire: An Autohistoria”. It was published online through New Mexico Wild http://www.nmwild.org https://www.nmwild.org/2025/03/31/calf-canyon-fire-an-autohistoria/ This is a short creative nonfiction essay about wildfire in the west. I would love it if you gave it a read!!

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Shelli Rottschafer: My partner and I share a Substack. Daniel is a landscape photographer. His website is http://www.danielcombsphotography.com He shares his nature-based photos on our Substack and I include recent pieces I have published such as poems, lyric essays, or short stories. You can find us at: https://rottschafercombs.substack.com/p/pictures-to-ponder-words-to-read