Philip Steverson Interviews JD Scott

JD Scott is the author of the story collection Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day (&NOW Books, 2020) and the poetry collection Mask for Mask (New Rivers Press, 2021). Scott’s writing has appeared in Best Experimental Writing, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere.

Philip Steverson: Work, school, and daily life have shifted immensely; what have you done to adapt to this shift, while also maintaining a healthy mindset?

JD Scott: The practical answer: earlier in the spring I invested in a bigger writing desk and a new mattress. It sometimes feels like there’s this image of the esteemed writer tapping away at a mahogany desk, but often I’m flopped over on my side in bed or texting a sentence to myself at a red light in my car. My desk is made of MDF. There’s no mahogany in 2020. I wish I had a more glamorous answer, but this year has been all about practicality. Survival. What comfort and endurance means besides mental health. Now that I’m home more often than I’m not, a certain amount of redecorating seemed pragmatic—or at least ergonomic.

Shifts, shifts, shifts. I tend to embrace solitariness and adjust well to change (I’ve been told these are Pisces traits), so certain shifts that have affected peers (learning to teach online, experiencing extended isolation, not being able to enter certain social spaces like bars or restaurants) have not impacted me the same way. Which is not to suggest by any means I haven’t been devastated by all this. The slow devastation comes not from isolation—but from the Sisyphean blending of days. Losing my sense of separating moments from the year has been the hardest. I’ve felt deeply disrupted by the sensation of being stuck in a time loop—the Happy Death Day-ification of the mundane. Texting, group chats, and finding ways to insert a little more variety in the days has kept me afloat this year. If your first self is stuck in a loop, the answer might be to find those shifts inside your second self.

PS: Challenges when trying to produce quality work can be centered on how much you are inspired. Before the pandemic, what was your main source of inspiration? Where do you find inspiration now?

JDS: I tend to follow my various obsessions for a long time, and that hasn’t changed. What has changed is what I do with those broodings and muses. Part of getting older—especially as an artist—is living long enough to notice certain cycles you go through. For me, it’s a space of stillness that often follows a period of intense production. In the past few years, I completed a book of poetry, a story collection, and a first draft of a novel. Even before the pandemic, I was in a state of repose, where it was more about thinking of possibilities and letting the well refill with water rather than trying to define my self-worth via the capitalist values placed upon constant production.

Something new I’ve had to feel my way through this year is the release of my first full-length book, which was the aforementioned story collection. I don’t necessarily feel like I have multiple pools of creative energy—they all go back to the same wellspring (which isn’t regularly bountiful). I’ve spent a lot of mental and emotional energy trying to see a book into the world during this unusual year. I don’t think people talk about this enough: the toll of caring for a finished book—of holding its hand. If you don’t have a publicist behind you, or your press is not doing the heavy-lifting of trying to market your book, it falls on you, the author. And let me tell you—it wears you down. I haven’t been writing as much this year because I’ve spent a great deal of energy trying to find Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day a home in the hands of potential readers.

PS: How have isolation and separation from the physical spaces we encounter everyday created a new sense of creativity for you?

JDS: I’m not sure my sense of creativity has changed, but I have a mutated love for the public reading—what once was more exclusive to going into physical spaces and watching writers perform. I’ve felt a profound affection for fellow writers who have adapted reading series and open mics to the world of Zoom. There’s a type of accessibility that many curators are now considering for the first time—not to mention writers tied to cities that not all of us live near, whose performances are now able to be experienced over Zoom. It’s that type of communion inside the isolation that I feel most moved by.

PS: Are you currently involved with any projects, or working on personal pieces? Are there any finished projects, if so, which has been the most successful?

JDS: As I mentioned before, I’m at the tail end of a journey with my debut story collection, which came out in April—although I’d had a dedicated hand in the book’s production since around this time last year. If HFR readers enjoyed “Moon Tempest,” I’d encourage them to check out the collection, because it uses many of the strange sentence constructions, magical tilts from reality, and queer characters and themes.

Next spring, I’ll have my first poetry collection published (Mask for Mask—out of New Rivers Press). So, in terms of projects, I’m getting off the hype train after bolstering one book for an entire year, and I’m about to start boarding my next iron horse. I’m currently wrapping up book proofs for the poetry collection, but I haven’t dared imagine its life yet.

Publications aside, I’ve been slowly working toward a second draft of a novel, playing around with some longer prose works, and toying around with a few short story ideas—but given everything—I’ve taken a lot of pressure off myself to create. Even with the excitement of possibilities that a new year could bring, I’m wary of projecting too many fantasies onto 2021 (especially with the dearth of joy this year, it’s easy to forecast too much).

Overall, it’s less about metrics of success for me and more about appreciating the hard work, dedication, risks, and care that went into the making of a book. Especially when many of us first-time authors have had to adapt and see our works into an unprecedented landscape for publications. I’d like to honor the work that went into Moonflower… and Mask for Mask a little bit longer, but, I certainly hope a new creative epoch will come for me soon.

PS: What have you discovered about yourself in these times that was not apparent to you before, that you wish to capitalize on for the future?

JDS: I’m incredibly skillful at both couponing and color-coordinating my masks with the rest of my quarantine outfits.

Currently a junior attending Arizona State University, double majoring in Fashion Design and Creative Writing with a focus on Poetry, Philip Gabriel seeks an education that will better his chances for a great career that will inspire others through his work. Philip Gabriel is a creative that is driven to providing quality work that will inspire viewers to unlock their individual creativities. His website is http://philipgabriels.com/