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 Abby E. Murray on Saturday, May 17, 2025, 10am-1:30pm CST (including a 30 minute lunch), via Zoom, for her workshop: The Art of Bad Poetry. In this class, writers of all levels will strive to expand their understanding of the art of poetry, first by weeding out our judgments of “good” and “bad” poetry, then shaping poetry’s elusive boundaries by playing with work that challenges our notions of value and weakness. Expect laughter. Anticipate letting go of fears that limit us. Plan to write.
Has your preferred place to write changed over the years?
My writing spaces have changed shape as often as my circumstances have shifted and I’ve moved around the country. I married my husband while I was an undergraduate at Seattle University, and we moved to Alaska as soon as I graduated (then Washington, then back to Alaska, then Georgia, Colorado, New York, back to Washington, then DC, then Washington again). I haven’t always had a home office, and even when I do, sometimes writing in one place is hard.
I write where I need to, where I can. As a teenager, I wrote poems on the backs of menus at the pizza shop I worked in. As a parent, I’ve written with my laptop propped on the steering wheel of my car, waiting to pick my daughter up from school. I do have a little desk now in a home office I painted bright orange, with a window and some books nearby. Still, I find it easier to work on the “admin” part of writing (sending out submissions, reading journals, correspondence) at a desk, while I write more easily on friends’ couches or in the green chair by my front door, or sometimes in bed, or while I’m on Zoom calls. I like to write where I feel I’ll need to move soon; maybe it helps keep the fire lit. Like I have to write now because pretty soon I won’t have the chance.
Do you have any habits or routines that you follow before writing?
Reading. When I can’t write, I read. When I’m pissed off or excited or curious or sad, I read. Reading is a type of creating, a way of practicing, and no one will never run out of material to enable that habit. Read to keep your muscles warm, read to remind yourself that you’re not alone, read to surprise yourself, read to find out what you have yet to try.
How important is it to you to have stability in your writing routine?
Stability is tough to come by in a lot of ways, but having a laptop is a steady privilege I’ve gotten used to. I’ve tried to write longhand—it’s romantic and, in some ways, easier to keep track of—but I’m just too impatient, and I have a habit of breaking bones in my hands and wrists at least once a year.
I lack stability in that, most of the time, I live as a single parent. I manage all the housework, medical care, appointments, crises and errands for my family, especially while my husband is deployed; I also run a literary journal, and I teach. It’s hard to find time to steal for writing, and even harder to find time to go to readings (getting out of the house after 6pm requires a kind of astrological alignment). But I’m always on the lookout for that time, and when I feel it, I take it.
What is the one piece of writing advice that you value most?
One of my early mentors, Marvin Bell, cautioned me not to apply for PhDs in creative writing when I showed interest. He told me academia will suck the energy right out of a poet, dry them up, spit them out depressed and empty. I wanted to try a program anyway, and he told me to at least protect my creativity, to shield my urge to play—above all else—because academic ambitions and expectations would try to destroy them. He said to be ferocious in that protection. I took that to heart, and I’ve passed the advice on to my students as well, reminding them to guard their instinctual talents—that need to play, to have fun, to enjoy writing. That good feeling doesn’t give a f*ck about promotion or tenure or sales or marketing or stability, but such things are capable of wringing goodness out of us.
What is your motto? Does it also apply to your writing?
Don’t be a dick. My sister actually cross-stitched a sampler of this and it’s hanging next to my front door. In all things, don’t be a dick. Think about it: being a dick is so much easier, so often, than being kind. Being a dick is tempting, especially when you’re surrounded by dicks. Peter Sears, a wonderful poet who taught where I earned my MFA told me, Abby, it will never pay to be unkind. And I believed him. Still do. I miss him. Don’t be a dick. Be a radical anti-dick.
What habit do you have now that you wish you had started much earlier?
When I feel like I can’t write, I write about why I feel that way, which is always a layered exploration of history, relationships, shame, silence, uncertainty, weirdness, you name it. It leads to writing, always. As long as I’m alive, I’ll never be without words and experience to share.
What are some misconceptions about being a writer that you can discredit?
That we don’t work hard, that our work is just “feeling” (as if feeling anything in the age of capitalism was easy), that we’re not good at anything else, that we can’t change a car battery or be good at veterinary science or put down new flooring, that we’re snobs and know-it-alls, that we’re all desperate to be published or have an agent, that we all write toward the same goal that isn’t simply staying alive long enough to feel a little bit more love, that we’re anything other than human beings capable of the same vulnerabilities, flaws, and strengths as any other creative professional. There are individuals and circumstances in which these things are true, then false, then true, then false. Writers are hard-working and lazy, snobbish and humble, arrogant and curious, mistaken and accurate. I write shit and gold. I don’t believe publication makes a writer or their work “good”. I don’t actually think about being a writer that much. Being a human who cares what happens to us has, at least lately, been much more demanding of my time and focus.
If people want to learn more about your work, where should they go?
Abby E. Murray (they/them) is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. Their first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, while their second book, Recovery Commands, recently won the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Ex Ophidia Press. Abby served as the 2019-2021 poet laureate for the city of Tacoma, Washington, and currently teaches rhetoric in military strategy to Army War College fellows at the University of Washington.
