Mondays + Writers = Finally something to look forward to!
Okay, so when I was seventeen I wrote poems (didn’t we all?) and hid them away in notebooks and folded sheets of paper stuffed under my socks in my dresser. Today, in the Writer’s Handful, I want to introduce to you the seventeen-year-old poet Megan Alice, whose first book of poetry, A Bouquet of Daisies has just been released. No hidden notebooks and folded-away poems for this young woman. Just saying.
And while Megan Alice’s poems do not shy away from the darkness inside them, as I put this post together, I find myself thinking of something Franz Kafka said: “Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
Welcome, Megan!
Did you write today?
Yes! I wrote a haiku. I try to write something every day either when I wake up or before bed. This is what I wrote this morning:
Do not mistake me
I am neither lion nor lamb
But sleeping dragon
What’s the first thing (story, poem, song, etc.) you remember writing, and how old were you when you wrote it?
In second grade I wrote a short story about a princess who fights crime with her pet dinosaur. My teacher could tell how much I loved writing, so she let me write a sequel. I wish I still had it!
What are you reading right now?
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman and Becky Shaw [a play] by Gina Gionfriddo.
What’s the most important advice you ever received? (Writerly or otherwise.)
Oh gosh. Well… my acting coach recently told me, “you cannot be noble only when it serves you.” That speaks volumes to me.
If your writing were an animal, what animal would it be? Because…
A tiger cub! I imagine myself as a tiger cub and I feel that energy is passed into my writing. I can be dangerous, fierce, and powerful while also being cute, innocent, and young. I also love being unpredictable, which most young cubs are.
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Megan Alice is a seventeen-year-old poet and performer based in Southern California who has committed to donating a portion of her book proceeds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Megan is currently working on her second book and has several novellas in development.
Patricia Ann McNair 