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The Next Best Thing
The illustrious Rose Auslander has tagged me [Ellaraine Lockie] to join The Next Best Thing,
started by poet Elizabeth Scanlon. It's an ongoing network of interviews in which each writer
with a book coming out tags another set of writers, and the interviews can then be posted on
publishers’ and other writers'/poets' blogs, etc. Here’s mine:

Ellaraine Lockie's Interview Tagged by Rose Auslander for The Next Big Thing.

Q: What is the working title of the book?

COFFEE HOUSE CONFESSIONS

Q: Where did the idea come from for the book?

From coffee houses, and the people who frequent them, all over the world.

Q: What genre does your book fall under?

A: Poetry

Q: What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

A: The lead could be Anjelica Huston, but the supporting cast would be so many that we

couldn't afford big names.

Q: What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A: The confessions in this book are disclosures of a culture in glimpses into both historical

and present-day life, with its contradictions and quirks–all through the lens of coffee shops.

Q: How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

A: The poems were written over the past ten years.

Q: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

A: Coffee shops, both nationally and internationally, when I write each morning wherever I happen
to be. I go to them for the white noise, caffeine infusions, intoxicating smell of grinding coffee
beans and the animation surrounding me. All of this simulates my creative energy.

It was never my intention to write about the coffee houses themselves, though. I go in order to work
on other poems, but there's a corner in my mind that absorbs what is happening around me . . . and that’s
usually a lot. Coffee shops are community hot spots—places where the full gamut of human behavior plays
out daily. Sitting in the middle of it is like living in a small town. And if anything seems poetic, I
jot it down on a list. Sometimes that list turns into poems. And here they are in COFFEE HOUSE CONFESSIONS.

Q: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

A: Possibly some insight about people and events and maybe a few chuckles too.

Q: Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

A: It was released on February 3, 2013 by Silver Birch Press – and is available in Kindle and paperback
formats at Amazon.com. The chapbook can also be ordered from bookstores, using the book’s title and author
or the ISBN number: 0615727670.

 

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