Small Press Intravues:
Occasional Interviews with writers working and
publishing in the small press ecosystem
Interview #17: Adam Stutz is a neurodivergent poet and the Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of Broken Lens Journal. He is the author of Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017), The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018), The Sham Tapestry (White Stag Publishing, 2024), and Compunctions + Thefts (White Stag Publishing, 2024). His work has appeared in various print and online publications and can be found at https://stutzwrites.com. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
Michael Sikkema: You have not one but two books coming out with White Stag Publishing soon. Can you tell us a bit about each book, and how they happen to be coming out at the same time? Feel free to talk about content, tone, process, whatever works.
Adam Stutz: Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to correspond with you regarding The Sham Tapestry and Compunctions + Thefts. Both books manifested from my struggles with depression, general anxiety disorder, and undiagnosed ADHD during the waning days of the Obama Presidency and the inception of the Trump Administration. Slowly they evolved into maps of the destruction of my identity as I wrestled with the willful ignorance of my unresolved grief surrounding the deaths of my mother and grandmother years before. As the country continued to reckon with the evolution of White supremacy and the Alt-right, the continuing epidemic of police violence against Black and Brown men and women, the sustained destruction wrought by late capitalism, and the start of the pandemic, my own sense of reality warped, and I imploded. As I struggled with trying to salvage my relationships, reckon with my isolation, and process loss while the rest of the country struggled with these monumental events, the books became a challenge to find a way to embrace loss and find a home in grief. As I revisited and wrestled with my writing, I began to accept my grief and started the long journey of learning to live with it, and ultimately with my own impermanence--a journey that I continue on today. Where the books diverge are in their format: The Sham Tapestry is a more traditional book divided into sections and punctuated with individual poems whereas Compunctions + Thefts is a book length poem, minimal in its construction and smaller in size. Both books compliment one another and I think can be read in conversation with one another. The Sham Tapestry has more density and I believe it is better at capturing the messiness of my processing whereas Compunctions + Thefts is the crystallization of that process.
Sikkema: What was the writing process like? Did you know you were working on two separate projects, or were you just writing and figuring it out as you went? Do you have a writing ritual or goal when you start working? Do you compose on a laptop or phone or in a notebook, or something else?
Stutz: All of my projects are the products of failure. Failure not in a negative sense, but failure in terms of starting experiments that yield results I didn't know I was seeking. I like having an intention when I start working on a piece and for that piece to suddenly collapse and give way to something new.
In terms of ritual, I tend to work best at coffee shops. Interestingly, there's something about having a constant buzz of people moving in and out of a space that helps keep me focused. I tend to struggle more with working at home. I try to make a point of writing in a notebook everyday, although I have varied success with keeping up the habit.
I start by writing in a notebook and then I transcribe the work onto my laptop. From there I began identifying threads that emerged from the excerpts. For me, editing is when the process of writing really begins. I'm able to add, replace, shape and shift the language in a way that finally opens up the intentions of the work. From there I start to focus on the dynamic between the language and the layout.
In the case of both The Sham Tapestry and COMPUNCTIONS + THEFTS, they started as separate projects and then I flirted with the idea of combining them, but when I did they didn't mesh well. TST started out as a series of separate pieces and I wasn't sure if they would become chapbooks (the manuscript is separated into three parts), but eventually I realized it was best suited for a longer book, while C + T was always a standalone project because of its minimal layout.
Sikkema: Unless there's another topic you want to talk on, I think we can close this interview by having you give us some links to your recent work online, and maybe some links to people who you consider fellow travelers, or just stuff you want to shine a spotlight on. This makes the interview kind of open out and gives the reader somewhere to go next.
Stutz: Thanks again for the interview! It's been a pleasure to chat with you virtually and I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about my work. Links to my published work can be found at stutzwrites.com and copies of my books can be found at whitestagpublishing.com and cooperdillon.com. I also want to highlight the work that we're doing at Broken Lens, which can be found at brokenlensjournal.com. We're about to release our ninth issue and we've also been producing a podcast for the journal. We've received a lot of incredible work from our contributors, and we're excited to see how our journal will continue to grow into a press. I'd like to shout out my editors Courtney Leigh Jameson and Tucker Jameson for all their diligence and hard work in bringing these books to life. I'd also like to shout out Adam Deutsch from Cooper Dillon books for publishing my first chapbook and giving legs to the start of this publishing journey for me.
Michael Sikkema enjoys making things and walking. He recently had a chapbook of vispo released from Sigilist press, titled Scarecrow I'm a Story and Three Fish. He also has a chapbook forthcoming from Cul-De-Sac of Blood, entitled Watch for Deer.