The Writer’s Desk features the desks and writing practices of Gemini Ink faculty, visiting authors, teaching artists, volunteers, students, interns, staff, partners and more. Receive new posts in your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter at bit.ly/geminiinknewsletter.
Join Melissa Studdard on Mondays, April 7, 14, 21 & 28, 2025, 6:30-8:30pm CST, via Zoom, for her workshop: The Poetics of You: An Intro to Poetry Workshop. This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+ and will study basic techniques, read sample poems, compose drafts, and share writings.
Don’t miss Melissa Studdard’s Big Texas Author Talk on Wednesday, March 19th, 2025, at 7pm.
Describe your first writing desk. How is it different (or not) from your current writing desk?
My parents bought me my first writing desk. It was a large, oak beauty with ornate flourishes carved into the drawers and panels, and it had long, curved legs and a surprisingly comfortable chair. I haven’t thought about that desk in years, and it reminds me of my parents and their talent for finding durable, elegant things—so thank you for this question. Currently, I live in a beach house that has more windows than walls, as well as both sunrise and sunset views, so I have a little desk on wheels that I roll to different parts of the house, depending on the view and lighting I want in the moment. I have a little fold up chair that I drag around with it.
Has your preferred place to write changed over the years?
I’ve moved many times, and I also travel frequently, which has taught me what I can live without (a lot more than one would think). The former me used to have a dining room converted into an office library. It had a huge L-shaped desk with a hutch full of carefully organized office supplies. I thought of my writing space as my workspace. It was where I graded papers, paid bills, wrapped presents, filled out paperwork, etc. Over time, though, I’ve begun to re-conceptualize the ideal writing environment as one that is less cluttered and invites me to imagine and/or play rather than work. Now, I’m more likely to have a mini trampoline and a hammock in my writing space than a stapler and hole puncher. So, I’ve moved my office supplies into a closet, where they can’t be visible reminders of all the things I should be doing. I’ve instead surrounded myself with beautiful views and playthings that are easy to grab and take from room to room. I have little baskets of prompts, colorful paper, gel pens, surreal questions, favorite quotes, inspiring images, and writing games. I don’t need to have it all with me all the time. If I’m going on a trip, I grab a few pens, a few books, and a couple of handfuls of paper and prompts, and I’m ready to go.
How important is it to you to have stability in your writing routine?
I believe in flexibility within structure. To me, the structure part is showing up regularly. I write most days, but the process itself varies wildly. Sometimes I dictate and sometimes I type. Sometimes I write on my phone while I’m dancing or walking. Other times I write on my computer or in a notebook or on loose leaf paper. I write at all different times and in all different states of mind, sometimes even while I’m half-napping. I never consider a writing session a waste of time, even if it produces nothing worth keeping. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that writing regularly is training in the same way that running every day before a marathon is training. Sometimes I write a bunch of junk for several days, and then, suddenly, something that delights me will just spill out in a short sitting. Then, I know it was the days of tedious labor on subpar writing that led me to the easy-to-write poem that arrived quickly.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve heard or read recently?
I recently read a few articles about a pair of mollusk fossils named Punk and Emo (their scientific names are Punk ferox and Emo vorticaudum). They’re 430-million-years old, and they have purple spikes that look like punk rock hair. Paleontologists and journalists have been having a lot of fun describing them and calling them rock stars, and that sort of thing. Of course, after coming across these articles, I wrote a poem about Punk and Emo. How could I not?
Does good writing result from best practices, magic, or a bit of both?
Both, for sure. And the good news is that inspiration (magic!) can be trained into a life through attention. We can notice the things that inspire us, seek them out, and invite them into our days. Dreams inspire me, so I write them down in the morning. Describing dreams trains me to observe them more closely, then my subconscious mind rewards me with more vivid dreams. I’m also inspired by art, so I look at it online, and I go to museums when I can. The more I see, the more I understand about what kind of art inspires me, and that makes it easier to find the pieces that will move me the most.
What is your next project?
I’m working on two musical pieces: an opera/oratorio that that will premiere in 2025, and another project that will premiere in 2026. I’m always writing poetry too. The collection I’m hoping to finish this year is told mostly from the perspective of the severed tongue of the mythological character Philomela. I know I’ve said a lot about playfulness in this interview, but this collection is actually built around a very heavy topic. By making Philomela a supporting character in the story of her tongue, I want to emphasize the fragmentation of self and psyche that lingers after trauma, as well as the strange and surreal nature of PTSD. I’ve been thinking about how victims have often had to house the ghosts of their traumas in their own mouths, how they have had to live with the words and truths that lie stillborn there. In a way, I guess the story of Philomela’s tongue is also a soul retrieval, with the tongue as a stand-in for the small, wounded parts of the self—splinters of heart, spirit, and mind—that seem lost but are really struggling to survive. I want to invite them home.
If people want to learn more about your work, where should they go?
I’d love for them to visit my website at www.melissastuddard.com
Melissa Studdard writes poetry, fiction, song cycles, and libretti. Her most recent book is the poetry collection Dear Selection Committee (Jackleg Press). Her work has been featured by PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, the Best American Poetry blog, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series and has appeared in periodicals such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, and New England Review. Her Awards include the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the Tom Howard Prize, the REELpoetry International Film Festival Audience Choice Award, and more. As a librettist/lyricist, she has had works commissioned by Aspen Music Festival, Wolf Trap, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the University of Michigan School of Music. With Kelli Russell Agodon, she co-hosts the Youtube poetry series Poems You Need. You can find her at www.melissastuddard.com and
www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed.
