On episode 76 of the WRITER 2.0 Podcast I spoke with Kim Dower. Kim is both an esteemed poet and the founder of Kim from L.A., an author publicity firm that has worked with many top authors and celebrities in fiction and non-fiction, including Paulo Coelho, Robert Bly, Paris Hilton, George Carlin, Peter Fonda, Brad Meltzer, and many others. Kim read two of her poems for us and opened up about her writing process, but first we discussed:
- What authors need to do to connect with audiences and sell more books;
- How authors can prepare for their first interviews;
- Living in LA vs. living in NYC;
- What kind of of authors have the most difficult time talking about their books;
- How to use anxiety to “power up” before an interview or public presentation;
- How she knows when a poem is done.
Plus, on “Today in Writing,” one of John Lennon’s most famous lines, the video of which can be found here.
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About our guest:
Kim (Freilich) Dower was born and raised in New York City and received a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, where she also taught creative writing.
Her first collection, Air Kissing on Mars, published by Red Hen Press in 2010, was on the Poetry Foundation’s Contemporary Best Sellers list, and was described by the Los Angeles Times as, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache.” Slice of Moon, her second collection, (Red Hen Press, 2013), nominated for a Pushcart, was called, “unexpected and sublime,” by “O” magazine.
Kim’s work has been featured in Garrison Keillor’s, “The Writer’s Almanac,” and Ted Kooser’s, “American Life in Poetry,” as well as in Barrow Street, Eclipse, Los Angeles Review, Ploughshares, and Rattle. Her poems are included in the anthology, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, published by The Pacific Coast Poetry Series, an imprint of Beyond Baroque Books. She’s the founder of the Literary Publicity Company, Kim-from-L.A., and teaches a workshop called, Poetry and Memory in the B.A. Program of Antioch University.
Her third collection, Last Train to the Missing Planet, will be published by Red Hen Press in the Spring of 2016.
