Gatekeepers be Damned: An Interview with Anesa Miller
by Michael Sova
Excerpt:
This is what Anesa says about her own work: “Two motives drive my writing: self-expression and communication. I find the need for self-expression strongest when negative emotions overwhelm the mind, as in a state of grief. But the person who speaks, or who writes, can use language to reassert selfhood by expressing the inner pain. And since language is a shared medium, the possibility of connecting with others is inherent in most forms of verbal expression. Understanding, concern, and sharing the burden are only words away. I tried to convey those truths in this poem.”
In the past few years, Anesa Miller has had to work through plenty of the “negative emotions” of which she speaks. She’s written a novel called Our Orbit, and has been struggling to break into the literary fiction genre, an uncommonly tough nut to crack. It’s been made even tougher by the simple albeit infuriating fact that no publisher will even look at her book. Why? Well, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. I first connected with Anesa on Twitter @anesam98, and I was honored when she agreed to talk to me about her experiences.