“I think I feel the most inspired by the idea of saying a lot in a small space. [...]Some of my favorite pieces to read are the ones where every word is so meaningfully chosen; the piece couldn't be the same piece if it was a different word. And I think I try to have that level of intentionality in the things I write.”
There is something emotional about being in the quarters of a Quarto meetings. If you enter our small, cramped-up meeting room on a Wednesday evening, you’ll see all of us at the edge of our seats, eyes transfixed upon the large projector screen that displays the pieces being reviewed. We are exhilarated, quiet, and enamored all at once during our meetings, spurred on to feel everything by the works of literature and art that we get the privilege of reading every week.
When preparing for our Wednesday Quarto meetings, we read a handful of pieces whose authors we do not know. Our one and only job is to read, to study each piece with care and focus. It’s only after the pieces are up on our site that most of us get to learn about the authors behind the pieces.
Convos with Contributors seeks to bring together the wider Quarto community, reaching beyond the simple bio at the end of a piece. This interview series bridges the gap between the digital and the physical, the anonymous and the known, the editor and the contributor. The gentle joy of speaking to Grace Novarr this past Friday afternoon presented so vividly just how important it is to bridge that gap.
Grace Novarr is a second-year student at Barnard College. She won our 2021 Thunderdome competition with her apocalyptic flash-fiction piece “Dispatched”. On Friday, she and I hopped on Zoom and spoke about all things Columbia lit mags, Russian literature, and vocal jazz music.
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FATIMA ALJARMAN: I'd love to learn a little bit more about you – tell me about yourself.
GRACE NOVARR: Well, I'm from New York. I think that's a big thing that informs a lot of what I do both as a writer and how I live my life, why I'm here at Barnard for college, and what I plan to do after this. I'm a twin. That's also a fun fact.
Fun fact!
Yeah, I'm trying to think of what else to say. I am an English major, classic.
Classic! New York, twin, and an English major.
All you need to know.
Love it. Okay, so then we'll delve right into things. You wrote your piece "Dispatched" in response to one of our 2021 Thunderdome prompts, and it's a piece of flash fiction. What forms of writing do you typically delve into? Do you usually write fiction or flash fiction?
I'm usually a poet. Poetry comes more easily to me. But when I do write prose, it’s that shorter flash type of prose. I think I feel the most inspired by the idea of saying a lot in a small space. I really admire people who are capable of writing long pieces, but it's not something I feel either able to do or necessarily drawn to do. Some of my favorite pieces to read are the ones where every word is so meaningfully chosen; the piece couldn't be the same piece if it was a different word. And I think I try to have that level of intentionality in the things I write.
So, after doing Thunderdome, I was like, maybe I should write more flash, maybe I should try to do this more because I was doing the prompts up until that day [day 3], and I was enjoying it just because it was unlocking a new side of my brain that I don't usually get to use. It's not usually what I tend to indulge in. Usually, when I sit down to write, I will just go for a poem, but I realized that maybe some of my thoughts should be coming out more in this format, of a prose piece. And that's not necessarily about myself so much in the way most of what I write seems to be, but something that may be a little more imaginative in scope.
That's so interesting, and I definitely agree. Lately, I've also been enjoying short pieces; that's the kind of writing that’s sacred [to me] and I can't do it. I'm one of those long-form writers, so kind of the opposite side of things. But I definitely resonate with what you're saying.
So with “Dispatched”, the prompt was set around the idea of an apocalypse and you mentioned that in a lot of what you do, you tend to write the personal or things centered around the personal. Have you ever written something set around an apocalypse? What sort of themes do you delve into as a writer?
Well, I've written about the apocalypse on a personal scale, I guess. A lot of what I did write when I was younger in high school was definitely my life, everything filtered through my feelings. I'd go through things that felt earth-shattering and felt apocalyptic. And I wrote about those. And I would say there was a big shift that came with quarantine. I was a senior in high school when COVID hit, so the shift from going from a child to an adult, from a high school student to a college student, also coincided with this major shift in how everyone lived their lives. And I think it was right along those lines that my writing started to change and I just— it's not that I started to disdain personal writing so much as I felt like I had less to say about my own life and more that I wanted to say about the world. It started to feel maybe a little bit silly to be, you know, writing about my personal feelings when such large-scale tragedies were happening all around me.
I think in the past couple of years, I have been trying to address more in my writing or just trying to let issues outside myself inform my writing. I think that's definitely more of a challenge for me because I think most people are probably more articulate about themselves than they are about anything else, or at least most poets, which is what I typically am. I definitely have been consciously making the effort to try to bring in more themes. I like things like Thunderdome and other prompt-based competitions, or just places where you can find prompts. I can never think of things to write about, but then I'll seize a prompt or like a topic, or I'll read someone else's piece that really inspires me, and then I'll realize, oh, I actually do have something to say about this, but I didn't know it until I saw the prompt or I saw it being phrased that way.
Right! I guess in the vein of that, I wanted to ask what your Thunderdome writing process was. Because it's a 24-hour-submission-type thing. So what was your writing process then, kind of from start to finish?
Um, so I did the first three days—I think I didn't submit on the second day, I didn't like how what I wrote turned out. This is my first year doing it. And I was just like, I want to do it this year, like I was reminding myself because Quarto was posting stuff like “Thunderdome coming up!”. And I was like, I want to do this year. And so, at some point during the day, I would check when the prompt was released when I had free time and watch it, and then I'd be thinking about it, and I'd go through the rest of my day. And then around like 8 pm—I was kind of starting late—maybe around 8 pm or 9 pm, I would just sit down and write something.
And I wish I could better describe the exact process. But really whatever had popped into my head—I was trying to go based on first instincts. I think for the one that I won Thunderdome with—the "Dispatched" piece—it came really fast; I had read the prompt of the day, and it was just in the back of my mind. And then I got to Butler, opened my laptop, opened my Word document, and it came out within like five minutes. I did some editing for the next maybe 30 minutes, I was staring at it, taking a few words out. But I wrote it in about five minutes.
I think the harder part is like figuring out what stuff needs to be changed. Or at least, that's always the harder part especially when it's like such a short piece. There were a couple of lines that I took out that I'm so grateful that I took out because I was looking at it up on the website, and I was like, it would have been so stupid if that was still in. Or not stupid, but just I was proud of myself for actually editing after writing it because usually, I don't love to edit things when I write. I like to just say, Oh, this piece is of the moment that I wrote it; this piece expresses something true about how I was feeling when I wrote it. But I guess the difference between flash fiction and or flash prose and a poem is that a fiction piece doesn't necessarily have to be of the moment that you wrote it, the way I feel like a poem could be. I was kind of working on [Dispatched] with that in mind, I wanted to actually have it be the best that I think it could be. I tried to think over it carefully, which I think you should always do with your writing.
Revision can be really, really tricky. Personal things can be especially tricky because there's a sense of attachment to what you're writing. So it's really interesting to hear kind of the revision process for "Dispatched", and I wonder what the other iterations look like.
They weren't very different. But I had some names; there were names attached to the voices speaking but I took them out. I don't know, it just felt more universal without the names. I think that was a positive change for the piece, and then just some other lines that the speaker was saying that just made— it just felt a little too obvious to me. I was trying to think of some subtlety. I think it can really hit hard when there’s a line that's like directly stating what's happening, but sometimes the challenge is to let the piece escape without needing it in a way, to let the piece say, I think people will be able to tell what this is about without like me having the sentence that says it or says what I'm thinking about. And also, it leaves room for other people's interpretations if you don't force what you're precisely thinking about on the piece. So I think I'm glad that I took—I don't remember exactly how I phrased it, but I remember there's a line that I was staring at, and I was like, I don't think that this piece needs to have this sentence because it's a little too on-the-nose somehow, you know?
Right. Absolutely. It's interesting to hear that you said that doing Thunderdome this year was a very intentional thing; you were like I should do it this year, I have to do it this year. I’m interested to hear what drew you to submit to Quarto – what draws you to submit to competitions like Thunderdome?
A thing like Thunderdome is so fun in a large college community like Columbia and Barnard. Because I mean, one thing I love about it is just the literary magazine community here. I'm an editor on the staff of four x four. And I noticed that when you go through the four x four issues, a lot of the writers are Quarto editors, and I think it's such a great relationship between all the magazines. I don't want to suggest that you have to be a staff editor for one magazine to get your writing into the other, that's absolutely not the case, but I do love how there's this really strong community within the literary magazines.
We have slightly different visions for the work we publish. But I think there's such a respectful relationship between writers in general at the school and also the initiatives that we as writers do. And so I really admire Thunderdome as part of Quarto and just things in general that bring forward writers' voices. That week I remember talking to my friends who I know are also writers and being like, Oh, are you gonna submit to Thunderdome? Did you do the prompt today? Today’s was kind of hard! I don't know what to do. Not everyone, some people were like, What are you talking about? What’s that? It’s people who pay attention to literary magazine stuff, and there are a lot of people at Columbia who do pay attention. And I really like that. I'm starting to feel as if I've really found my place in the literary community at Columbia. You know, that was a big thing for me coming in as someone who did a lot of writing in high school but wasn't sure what my voice was going to be in college. I think I think the different initiatives that the magazines here take like things that four x four does, things that Quarto does, things that Echoes does, it all just contributes. It doesn't feel like these spaces are in a competition, it feels like we're all working together because a lot of the same people are involved with all these things.
I was drawn to Quarto from the beginning, just reading the pieces you guys publish, recognizing some of my friends' names, and finding some new names. I’ll read a piece in freshman year, then the next year, I'll see that same writer published somewhere else. I'm like, oh, I remember their piece from Quarto! You start to feel like you're aware of who's writing at the school. And that's a good feeling.
Absolutely, I agree. And I think that was sort of the thought process behind also doing community outreach work; we wanted to continue forging those connections, so I really, really appreciate hearing that. Okay, and so going back to Quarto, we were talking about kind of the different sort of directions that the different lit mags [on campus] take. Quarto’s mission is embedded in innovation. I wanted to hear what innovation and writing mean to you.
I think that's a complicated question because for some people writing is all about innovation. If you think about it, every time someone writes anything it’s innovative. In creative writing, you just cannot recreate someone else's work, like, one that's plagiarism, but two it’s also kind of impossible. Every time you sit down to write something, if you're telling the truth—whether that's the personal truth or the literary truth—it's always going to be somehow different because it's coming from you as an individual writer. So I do think, in a sense, all writing is innovative.
But I think it means different things in different moments in different contexts. I think innovation in a pandemic might look like reaching towards a normal because the world has been so shifted against our normal, our wills. But when we're in a time that needs change I think writers can achieve that through form. I don't know if I can, personally, but it's something my favorite writers do. And innovation doesn't have to look like writing in a stylistic way that no one's ever seen before. You know, it can look like telling a story that has never been told before or accessing voices that don't get to speak, so I think there's no one definition of it. And the fact that there's no one definition, is part of why it's so important to focus on innovation in writing, because you can't just figure it out and be like, okay, I figured out how to innovate! We’re done! It's a constant process. And every time you write something, you're coming up with something new. And every time you put together a magazine, you're putting together something new, and the juxtaposition is important to that as well.
Absolutely. I'm going to be taking those words and absorbing them as the day proceeds. What things have you have been keeping you inspired lately? If there's any music that's been keeping you inspired, or books, or movies? I'd love to hear all about that.
I feel like I'm constantly inspired by stuff, but I'm also in a little bit of a reading slump. I think as an English major, it's just hard, or not necessarily for everyone, but for me, it's hard to read outside of class when I read so much for class. But I will say I've been listening to a lot of vocal jazz music like Etta James, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone. And that actually inspires me. I think it really inspires my writing too because they just kind of perfected emotion with that style of music. And I obviously like a lot of more modern music as well, but when I need to be reminded that the way I feel is kind of timeless [I listen to vocal jazz] and that will help me say something if I'm stuck in my writing. It's like, well, I can't say it how these people said it, but I can channel how they make me feel and try to write something that reflects that. So I do use music for that purpose. And recently, it's been those singers. But I also have kind of been having a Rolling Stones-Beatles phase. Something about that… that’s just my walking around music, for going to class, staying hyped.
And in terms of books, I've been reading just for class; I've been taking these Russian literature classes, and I really love Russian Literature. It’s not a thing I saw coming, but Russia is my current fixation. But I think I'm trying to kind of make my way around the world. I think for too long I just focused on reading the English language classics. I know Russia is not that far removed and it has been pretty important to the Western canon, but I am trying to bring in voices that have less obviously influenced everything that we've read in our modern-day.
I get to read my first Russian novel for LitHum in the next couple of weeks; I’ll get back to you on that experience but I guess now I have high hopes…
Yeah!
Well, we’ve reached our last question for today. Let's imagine you have a writer's toolbox, aka a box where you keep all of your inspiration or whatever helps you become a writer or in your writing process. If you could only carry three things in that box, what would they be?
Well, I would say, Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara. That is a book that I carry around with me sometimes. I love it so much. I don't think his best poems are necessarily in that collection but I do love what it is and having it around. (After our Zoom call, Grace let me know that her favorite Frank O’Hara poem is Meditations in an Emergency.) If it could fit in there, I'd carry around a boombox. I feel like the boombox image is kind of important to me–of communication through music, and just the image of someone standing outside their crush's house or their ex-girlfriend's house or whatever, holding up this boombox, blaring it, and letting someone else's words speak for you. I feel like as a writer, that's what you try not to do, but it's also somehow really important in the sense of channeling some powerful emotion, and I feel like being a poet is like walking with a boombox sometimes. Yeah, and thirdly… I would carry around those frozen Starbucks Frappuccino drinks that they sell at Liz's Place. Yeah, they're really good and they always get sugar and caffeine just flowing in my brain. So that's just for a practical purpose. But yeah, I would need some of those in there.
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You can read more of Grace’s work in Echoes, Sooth Swarm Journal, and Body Without Organs. Follow her on Twitter (@notvgrace), or on Instagram (@gracenovarr). Grace recommends Etta James’ Stormy Weather and Nina Simone’s To Love Somebody.
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Fatima AlJarman floats between Ajman, New York City, and her secret inner realm. Often, she is thinking about her next cup of coffee or the sea. Fatima is Unootha's editor-in-chief and a freshman at Columbia University. She is Quarto’s community outreach editor.
