Amanda Auchter is the author of two books of poetry: The Wishing Tomb (Perugia Press, 2012), which was awarded the 2013 PEN Center USA Literary Award, and The Glass Crib (Zone 3 Press, 2011), which was awarded the 2010 Zone 3 Press First Book Award.  She teaches English and Creative Writing at Lone Star College in Houston, and is desperately learning to cross-stitch owls in her spare time.

Radar:

We are interested in the memoir you are currently writing. What’s it like to transition from writing poetry to writing memoir? How, if at all, does the genre inform your approach to the material?

Auchter:

This project is so slow going, though I will say I have 100 pages written. The transition was pretty easy for me because I actually began writing prose before serious (whatever that means) poetry. I read a great deal of essay collections, memoirs, etc. Coming from a poetry angle does help in that I have an attention to language and image usage. However, it can also be a hindrance because I do have a tendency to let the language run away with me. It's a tightrope act, but I love it.  

Radar:

Pebble Lake Review was a diverse and dynamic journal. You were at the helm for all of its 11 years. Can you talk about some of the highlights and lowlights of your work as an editor? Don’t be shy; our readers hunger for the truth!

Auchter:

I loved creating and editing PLR and I'm so honored that it lasted for so long, which is no small challenge for an independent magazine. A few major highlights were having poems selected for Best of the Net and for the Pushcart Prize. We also regularly had poems chosen for Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. I'm very proud of those accomplishments. Lowlights? It was hard keeping regular staff because it was a volunteer operation. Staff came and went when they graduated from grad school, had babies, etc.  That was a challenge. I ultimately had to give it up when I began teaching college because it became too overwhelming to be at the helm of so many tasks.

Radar:

Your religious background (raised Catholic) is something you are open about in your work. As you mature, does the way you were raised continue to influence your creative process?

Auchter:

I would say that without a doubt, it does. My faith is important to me, not from a dogmatic standpoint, but a spiritual one. My mother is such a great example of what a faithful person should be: even at nearly 80, she is a volunteer chaplain, takes communion to the sick, is in the Ladies Auxiliary at her church. She and my dad adopted me when they were in their 40s and continued to foster until I was 11. My faith is not merely made up of religious ideals and iconography, but of family memories, as well. This is what feeds my writing.

Radar:

You seem relatively at ease with the truths that make you who you are. Do you feel any special pressure to represent any group of people? If so, who are they and how is your work intended to contribute to the conversation? If not, do you envision yourself ever becoming a voice for those who do not or cannot tell their own stories?

Auchter:

I really don't feel pressure to represent any one group, per se, but I do feel close to groups for personal or familial reasons. I have Russell-Silver Syndrome, which is a rare form of dwarfism, so that community is important to me. I'm also invested in groups and causes for adoption (as I am an adopted person and from a family with a long history of fostering), as well as mental illness. My contributions to these causes aren't deliberate or backed by any set agenda, but I think that all writing is psychological to some degree, so those issues are present in my work as a whole. I wouldn't like to say that I envision becoming a voice for anyone, but I do hope that people who read my work about adoption, faith, family, and even history (as apparent in my second book The Wishing Tomb), can grant a larger healing and understanding to those who seek it. 

Radar:

We know you love to read almost as much as you love to write! Whose books, stories, poems, interviews, reviews have been holding your attention lately?

Auchter:

I'm a voracious reader! I read pretty much anything and everything—from "junk food" novels to history books. I'm currently reading: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (a YA novel that I liken to this year's The Fault in Our Stars), Blood Work (the debut book of poems from Matthew Siegel), Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum, Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon (if you've never read the Outlander series, do it immediately!), and Mary Szybist's book of poems, Incarnadine. I also have a book on Abraham Lincoln on my to-read list. I love biographies!