Welcome to Literary Ashland

Founded by David D. Horowitz in November 1995, Rose Alley Press publishes rhymed and metered poetry, cultural commentary, and an annually updated booklet about writing and publication.

Ed Battistella: How did Rose Alley Press get started? The name Rose Alley has a special connection to John Dryden. Can you tell us a bit about that?

David D. Horowitz: I founded Rose Alley Press on November 17, 1995. Dissident Nigerian playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa had just been executed, and Israeli politician Yitzhak Rabin had just been assassinated. I was also upset after four years of less-than-favorable involvement with some religious groups. By 1995, I had articulated and wanted to publicize a form of freethinking deism based on the twin ideals of consideration and vitality—as opposed to faith in a messiah, absolute allegiance to a holy book, surreptitious curtailment of basic individual rights by tribalistic authority, and presumed divine sanction for appropriating land and political power. I had founded and managed two small presses before: Urban Hiker Press, 1979 through 1981; and Lyceum Press, 1988 through 1990. Those two enterprises never amounted to more than self-publishing operations. This time, I wanted to publish not only my own work but that of other writers. I had a long-standing commitment to rhymed metrical poetry, so I wanted that to be a twin pillar of my new publishing company.

I had felt harassed and hounded in the late eighties and early nineties. This is a long story, the details of which I’d rather not discuss at this time. I sympathetically identified with John Dryden because of the December 18th, 1679, attack in Rose Alley, London, that nearly cost him his life but didn’t stifle his poetic voice. As my landlord’s surname was Rose, and I lived in an alley, I thought the name “Rose Alley Press” appropriate. I also loved the way “Rose” and “Alley” suggested poetry could be about both the esoteric and mundane, the beautiful and the plain. Therefore, I called my new company “Rose Alley Press.”

The first two books I published were my own eclectic collection of essays and epigrams, Strength and Sympathy, and a fine chapbook of poems, Rain Psalm, by my friend and fellow poet, Victoria Ford. This was the spring of 1996. The books sold credibly, and I enjoyed promoting them, so I decided to publish a third book. I asked my primary literary mentor, William Dunlop, a University of Washington English professor, if he would consider submitting his poems to me for possible publication. He had turned me down in 1990, but this time he agreed. A native of Britain, William wrote primarily in rhymed metrics and with Philip Larkin-esque descriptive precision. I loved William’s under-appreciated work! Nine months later, on June 17th, 1997, and after much scrupulous editing, William Dunlop’s collection, Caruso for the Children, & Other Poems, was published. Measured by poetry book standards, it was a “hit.” In my free time, away from my day job, I was running around town fulfilling bookstore orders, planning and promoting readings featuring William. To date, the book has sold 750 copies, which is quite good for poetry. It was the first book I’d published that genuinely sold well–400 copies in its first six months–and which was fairly widely reviewed and publicized. I was hooked!

A succession of poetry collections followed: Michael Spence’s Adam Chooses; my own Streetlamp, Treetop, Star; Douglas Schuder’s To Enter the Stillness; Joannie Stangeland’s Weathered Steps; Donald Kentop’s On Paper Wings; and several more of my own collections. My own work was written almost exclusively in rhymed metrics, and at least half of the poems in the other collections were in rhymed metrics. Sales were solid, well into the hundreds for each title. Readings were increasingly well-attended and often at fine venues like Elliott Bay Book Company, University Bookstore, Powell’s on Hawthorne, the Frye Art Museum, and Bumbershoot Arts Festival, among other venues. Still more poetry collections followed, focused on rhymed metrics. These included two Pacific Northwest anthologies I’d edited: Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Range (2007) and Many Trails to the Summit (2010). Rose Alley Press was becoming a respected, fairly reputable name in the Seattle-area literary scene–and so it remains to this day. I claim no fantastic fame or financial success–but an earned respect, yes, and I’m glad for that.

EB: Tell us a little about your background. How did you become a publisher?

DH: I was born in New York City in 1955. My father was a sociology professor who frequently moved from job to job. Indeed, when I was two, we moved from New York City to Waltham, Massachusetts; and then to Barrytown, New York; Annandale, New York; Geneva, New York; and University City, Missouri–just outside of St. Louis. That was only by the time I was seven. I lived in University City from 1963 to 1971. My parents divorced in 1964, and my father eventually returned to New Jersey to teach at Rutgers. I got along far better with my mother than with my father, so when she earned her Ph.D. in political science from Washington University in St. Louis and got a job teaching political philosophy for the political science department at the University of Washington, I moved with her to Seattle.

My mother helped create a home environment devoted to free, honest inquiry, which was perfect for me. In 1973 I graduated from Seattle’s Lincoln High School and attended the University of Washington, majoring in philosophy. Early during my UW years, I began keeping a poetry journal. I’d scribble all manner of banality during and after long walks and bike rides to Ballard, Magnolia, Carkeek Park, or downtown. But one warm summer evening in 1974 I felt entranced and haunted by the beauty of the sunset. I couldn’t quite describe the color, but I felt impelled to try. For three consecutive weeks that August I gazed at the Olympic Mountains at twilight, backed by a fabulous mix of peachy reddish colors. I struggled to describe the colors, but finally one evening it struck me: salmon! That was the color! Not red-orange-purple-pink, but salmon! And the word was so rich in Northwest connotation, too! Well, that was it. I derived such intense pleasure from finding that right word, that essential bit of description, that I cultivated my poetry journal habit.

My emerging love of poetry prompted me to seriously pursue writing as my primary avocation. My last quarter as a philosophy major undergraduate at the UW, I decided to take an introductory poetry composition class. My teacher was British: William Dunlop. He was brilliant. And he loved rhyme as much as I did. He introduced me to the work of several influential contemporary poets, including Richard Hugo, Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Bishop, and probably his favorite (then) contemporary poet: Philip Larkin. I loved that Larkin wrote rhymed metrical poetry. I read Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings virtually every day in 1978, my first year out of school. I would also occasionally visit Dunlop in his office. We chatted. I got to know him a bit better. I read some of the verse he’d published in various journals over the years: journals such as TLS, Poetry Northwest, Encounter, The New Statesman, and some much lesser known. Some of his poems were brilliant. And yet he was a virtual unknown seemingly without a published collection who confided to me that he did not write much verse anymore. He once said to me in his dusk-darkened office, after a long pause: “There are worse things to be than an honest failure.” This moved me. I felt some instinctive anger that the literary world often rewarded writers for reasons of fame and fashionable political commitments, not genuine artistry.

My sense that Dunlop had been slighted is the seed that yielded Rose Alley Press. I founded a small press in 1979 called Urban Hiker Press and through it published my own chapbook, Something New and Daily. I worked at Seattle Public Library but re-enrolled at the UW to complete the course work necessary to obtain a B.A. in English. I earned my B.A. in English in 1981 and in 1983 went to graduate school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. There I studied under Donald Davie, who I came to learn had been Dunlop’s teacher at Cambridge and was largely responsible for his getting a job at the UW. Academic life and I had our disagreements, so, despite having grown greatly during my four years there, I left Vanderbilt in 1987 and returned to Seattle. I soon founded another small press, Lyceum Press, and published my second collection of verse and a few bookmarks. I was about to begin publishing an anthology of eighteenth-century verse when, for various reasons, my life collapsed. I ended Lyceum Press and never wanted to publish another syllable again.

Through all manner of fateful convolutions I wound up in 1991 teaching and tutoring English at Seattle Central Community College and, to a lesser extent, Shoreline Community College. I began studying math and science at Seattle Central, but my commitment wasn’t deep, and I kept writing poetry. Well, as I indicated earlier I founded Rose Alley Press in November 1995, published William Dunlop’s collection in 1997, and, primarily funded by my job as a conference room attendant at a Seattle law firm, I’ve kept Rose Alley Press going. It’s just about twenty-two years old now, and I’m working on the seventeenth Rose Alley Press book, our third Northwest poetry anthology. I recently retired from my job, so I have some more time now to devote to publishing. There’s so much more to tell, but this is enough. I’ll trust you get some sense of what my motivations and history are.

EB: Rose Alley specializes in poetry and is very selective. What do you look for in a book and in an author? Does Seattle have a particularly thriving poetry community?

DH: I primarily publish books featuring contemporary Pacific Northwest rhymed metrical poetry. Poetry for me is the intersection of language and music, and skillfully employed rhymed metrics deepen resonant engagement with the language. A good formal poem is a community of words, a snowflake in words–but only if its formal elements are realized skillfully, and often with just the right mix of the earthy and esoteric, the conversational and courtly, the humorous and respectful. I like formal verse that shows facility and familiarity with an occasional complex rhyme scheme; diverse forms and tones; enjambment; felicitous melding of subject and form; less-than-obvious but convincing rhymes consistent with a poem’s level of diction; and no gratuitous syllables or cloying rhymes just to fill out a pattern. I also look for the ability to set a scene through distinctively worded images and line breaks hinting at double and triple meanings. I like radical concision: poems without one wasted word. And I like to see familiarity with the great world tradition of poetry. And there we begin to touch on issues of character, beginning with the humble awareness the poet’s own (lack of) fame is not the only issue currently on the planet. I like to deal with a poet well-read in the tradition; with strong aesthetic opinions AND the patience to respectfully consider diverse perspectives. I certainly also prefer poets who can consider editorial suggestions without construing every suggestion as a personal slight. In short, I like someone who can understand and work with me to bring his or her poems to perfection prior to publication. And after publication, I like a poet who will help publicize his or her book through numerous readings, signings, launch parties, and conference teaching gigs. A good set of journal publications is always nice, but more important is the desire and social skill necessary to sell the book directly to people. And, yes, there are many such poets in the Seattle area. I’ve been lucky enough to meet, hear, and publish the work of many of them.

Indeed, I’d happily claim Seattle DOES have a particularly thriving poetry community. We’ve got fine writing programs and instructors at the UW, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific, and numerous other colleges in the area. Excellent bookstores and reading venues remain plentiful, and the talent level is high. And I think, as well, many of the poets are friends in the best sense: there for each other, thoughtfully honest, and committed to excelling the craft. Are improvements possible? Yes. One too rarely sees students from the university writing programs and English classes attend and participate in the smaller venue readings and open mics. And Seattle generally suffers from excessive political correctness, and this can lead to some prematurely dismissive attitudes towards anything perceived as culturally conservative (e.g., rhyme and meter). But… I’d rather emphasize the good. Our fine city boasts numerous excellent poets and performance venues, and I’m glad to be here, right in the thick of it.

EB: How does poetry change people? Or does it?

DH: “or the sun’s/ Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely/ Rain-ceased midsummer evening.” — Philip Larkin

“We slowed again,/ And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled/ A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower/ Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.” — Philip Larkin

“In friendship false, implacable in hate;/ Resolv’d to ruin or to rule the State.” — John Dryden

“The grave’s a fine and private place,/ But none, I think, do there embrace.” — Andrew Marvell

“The ides of March are come.” “Ay, Caesar, but not gone.” — William Shakespeare

These and many other eloquent, thematically rich poetic offerings inspired me to study poetry, to stay up until 4 a.m. to refine a poem, to refresh my spirit in another’s talent to develop my own. Yes, poetry can change a person! It inspires, captivates, maddens, titillates, deepens, challenges, educates, enriches, emboldens, and refines. I cite some of my early favorite lines from the great tradition, but I read widely, and poets of both genders and from diverse international regions have changed my world view and improved my craft. And, of course, millions of people can attest to poetry’s power! Their choice of favorite poets and lines would undoubtedly differ from mine, but we share the common experience of being moved by words: indeed, the right words in the right order in the right rhythm. And sometimes you never forget ’em.

EB: What advice have you got for poets?

DH: I’m guessing you would prefer I practice the concision I so eagerly preach. I will try, then, to restrain my pedagogic tendencies. There is too much to say, but… here are a dozen suggestions:

1) Read widely in diverse traditions.

2) Don’t stray too far from sincerity, but don’t preach.

3) Poetry is the intersection of language and music. Consider, then, the relationship between rhythm and resonance.

4) Master punctuation, so if you break a rule you understand why and can do so to intelligent effect. Do not dismiss knowledge of punctuation, grammar, and syntax as pedantry.

5) Distinguish urbanity from snobbery and earthiness from crudity.

6) Write many dramatic monologues–or “persona poems,” if you prefer that term. Cultivate empathy; enrich your voice.

7) Refine your skill to render a scene through imagery–precisely phrased physical imagery that evokes a scene. An old-fashioned skill and none the worse for it.

8) Browse through a dictionary for at least fifteen minutes weekly. And study the etymologies of words… Soak in their poetry.

9) Try hard to avoid blaming others for your not being internationally famous by the time you are twenty-five. Organize readings, volunteer at book fairs, host open mics, and post links to others’ websites on your own. Link with kindred spirits, and make your own fate! Blame is toxic. It’s not always wrong to blame, but it poisons the soul and work of many a poet. Try hard not to go there, although I understand you might have good reason to be angry with the literati. But… try to stay positive.

10) Try to get your work published by focusing on journals other than The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Atlantic. Look for editors and journals that share your perspectives and publish at least one poem per hundred submitted. Fame will come eventually if you are talented and persistent. Build up your confidence and literary resume with real publications and performances, not fantasies of prestige readings before thousands. Focus on the gritty, unglamorous details of real career-building, if you are indeed ambitious.

11) Memorize at least six of your favorite poems of fourteen or fewer lines.

12) Distinguish absolutism from principle, skepticism from nihilism, and enlightened self-interest from narcissism. And don’t forget to have fun!

EB: Do you have some favorite poets?

DH: Yes. Let me list some of them:

Philip Larkin
W. H. Auden
W. B. Yeats
Geoffrey Chaucer
William Shakespeare
Ben Jonson
Andrew Marvell
John Dryden
Matthew Prior
Alexander Pope
Jonathan Swift
Oliver Goldsmith
A. E. Stallings
Gail White
Alison Joseph
Marilyn Nelson
Belle Randall
Rafael Campo
David Mason
William Dunlop
Michael Spence
Tu Fu
Heinrich Heine
Homer
Martial
Ovid
Catullus
Richard Wakefield

and dozens and dozens more (Please forgive me, my friends, if any of you feel slighted by not mentioning you! I’m lucky to know so many fine poets, and I can list only so many here!)

EB: Where can readers get Rose Alley Press books?

DH: I’m working to make books available for sale directly through my website: www.rosealleypress.com. That’s not ready yet, so contact me directly via email: rosealleypress@juno.com. Also, the following Seattle-area bookstores should either stock requested Rose Alley Press titles or be able to order them: University Book Store, Open Books, Elliott Bay Book Company, BookTree Kirkland, or Edmonds Bookshop. Island Books and Queen Anne Avenue Books likely could also special order them, and I do fulfill orders from my wholesaler, Baker & Taylor. I’ll have a booth, too, at the Ashland Literary Arts Festival at Hannon Library on October 28th. Come by and introduce yourself. I’ll be reading my poetry at the festival, too, so I hope to see you there–and, yes, I’ll have Rose Alley Press books for sale at my table.

EB: Thanks for talking with us.

DH: Thank you, Ed, for relating such a thoughtful, challenging set of questions. I hope my answers are of use to you.

Vyvyan Evans received his PhD in Linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington DC., and has taught at the University of Sussex, Brighton University and Bangor University. He has published 14 books on language, meaning, mind, and digital communication, including The Crucible of Language: How Language and Mind Create Meaning (2015); and The Language Myth: Why Language is Not an Instinct (2014). His writing has been featured in CNN Style, The New York Post, The Guardian, The Conversation, Nautilus Magazine, Newsweek, New Scientist, and Psychology Today.

His latest book is The Emoji Code: The Linguistics Behind Smiley Faces and Scaredy Cats.

Ed Battistella: How did you get interested in the emoji?

Vyvyan Evans:It was January 2015, and an editor from The Guardian newspaper, in London, contacted me. She was looking for a language expert to write an article about the world’s first alleged emoji terror threat: a teenager from Brooklyn, NY, had just been arrested under anti-terrorism 9/11 statues, for threatening the NYPD using emojis. The case made headlines, but the problem was, back in 2015, there was no one with expertise in how Emoji works as a system of communication; Emoji was still such a new global phenomenon. I took on the writing assignment, somewhat sceptically. But as I conducted the research for the piece, I began to see how Emoji as a communicative system, parallels aspects of the way in which language achieves its communicative functions. A couple of months later, a London-based telecoms company, TalkTalk, commissioned me to undertake research into Emoji usage in the UK. And from there I was hooked. I set aside the book I was working on, and began work on what became The Emoji Code, instead.

EB: What exactly are emojis?

VE: Emojis are the single character pictographic glyphs, the yellow smileys, winks, and so on, that populate the electronic keyboards of our smartphones and mobile computing devices. They were originally developed in Japan in the late 1990s for the world’s first commercially available mobile internet system on early smartphones. And since their incorporation as standard, on iPhones in 2011, they have become a global phenomenon. Since 2010, emojis have been regulated by Unicode, a California-based consortium of primarily multinational tech companies, that sets the international standard for computer fonts and displays. Unicode carefully vets proposals for new emojis, with rules as to what can and can’t be an emoji: branding is forbidden, as are emojis for persons living or dead and deities. While anyone can propose an emoji, the whole emoji vetting process takes around 18 months, before a new emoji is likely to pass muster, and make it from the drawing board to a smartphone near you or me. In 1999, when they were first introduced in Japan there were 176 emojis. As of June 2017, with the latest Unicode update, there are 2,666 officially-sanctioned emojis.

EB: I was fascinated to learn some of the intricacies of emojis, such as the fact that the images show up differently on different platforms. What other interesting facts did you uncover?

VE: Around 3.2 billion people, well over 40% of the world’s population, has regular internet access, and around 92% of those internet users regularly send emojis. On Messenger alone, Facebook’s messaging app, over 5 billion emojis are sent on a daily basis. Emoji is now a central feature of social media. Indeed, today the average person, during their lifetime, will spend over three years updating social media, compared to 12 months in a pub, and 235 days waiting in a queue. In the industrialised world, communicating virtually is increasingly replacing aspects of face-to-face and phone interaction. For instance, in the UK, under 25s now spend an average of 27 hours a week on-line, while even over 45s spend an average of 20 hours per week on the internet, which represents about double, in both cases, from a decade earlier. The world’s first arrest for an emoji-related terroristic threat took place in 2015, and in 2016 a French man was sentenced to three months in prison for using an emoji to issue a death threat. The world’s first political interview, conducted via emojis, involved the Australian minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, and in 2015 Finland became the world’s first country to brand itself using bespoke emojis, the same year that Oxford Dictionaries, the world’s leading arbiter of English language usage, dubbed the ‘face with tears of joy’ emoji its word of the year.

EB: What surprised you most doing the research for The Emoji Code?

VE: The prejudice against emoji usage. Many otherwise educated and liberal commentators often seem to view Emoji as a joke, the communicative equivalent to an adolescent grunt. But this amounts to prejudiced cultural elitism, and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of communication. Emoji is more than a mere splash of juvenile colour. The fact that Emoji can and will be used in a court of law against you is testament to that.

EB: In The Emoji Code, you mention that emojis are like paralanguage? What does that mean?

VE: In our everyday face-to-face spoken interactions, much of communication is effected not via language, but through nonverbal cues. For instance, according to one estimate, as much as 70% of our emotional expression may come from non-verbal cues. Paralanguage relates to the non-linguistic signals arising from the medium that conveys language. In spoken language, these include the rise and fall of our pitch contours, such as intonation. Paralanguage also includes involuntary aspects of the spoken modality, such as laughter, or a voice cracked from emotion. These non-verbal cues provide important information that complement, nuance and even change the meaning of our words. For instance, when you or I say “I love you” with falling pitch, as when making a statement, this is a declaration of undying love. But now try saying it with rising pitch, as if asking a question. It now becomes an ironic counterblast that lays someone low, and is probably best not said to your nearest if you wish to keep them your dearest. In similar fashion, Emoji serves a paralinguistic function in digital textspeak. Emojis helps nuance and complement the meaning of our otherwise, seemingly emotionally arid abbreviated digital messages. They help add tone of voice, and better enable us to nuance what our texted words actually mean. For instance, a text message that reads “Hey, so I tripped and banged my head on the kitchen cupboard”, becomes a plea for sympathy if followed by a crying face emoji. But with a laughing face, we are inviting our addressee to acknowledge our clumsy buffoonery. Either way, the emoji helps clarify what we mean by the words, much as tone of voice does in face-to-face interaction.

EB: You also point out that we “see” emotions. How so?

VE: Humans are primarily visual creatures; vision is our dominant sense. With the eyes open, two thirds of the brain’s neural activity relates to vision, while 40% of the brain’s nerve fibres are connected to the retina. And it takes just 100 milliseconds for a human to recognise an object. Moreover, we are extremely adept at using our visual smarts to read how someone is feeling, their emotional state, from their facial expressions. Indeed, humans use 43 facial muscles to make over 10,000 distinct expressions: these are reflexes of our undulating emotional selves. And many of these we use to interpret what others mean by their words, or how they are responding to and feel about ours. In digital textspeak, the large array of yellow emoji faces help us convey, and figure out the meaning behind our words. Around 70% of the world’s daily emoji usage relates to emotion, emphasising, or nuancing the meaning of our words. They provide powerful visual cues that convey emotional states, and can help highlight the meaning behind the words, from an eye-roll emoji, to signal that I’m being ironic, to the ubiquitous wink emoji, to tone down an otherwise face-threatening remark.

EB: It seemed to me that your book was about more than just emojis. It was an introduction to linguistics concepts using emojis. Was that part of your goal in writing The Emoji Code? What are some of the key linguistic ideas you explore?

VE: The rapid adoption of Emoji, in just a few years, makes it a rich (and well-recorded) case through which to explore the nature of human communication, including the nature and functions of language, and other nonverbal aspects of communication. Accordingly, my exploration of Emoji, as a system of communication, represents an opportunity to delve into a wide range of related issues. These include grammar prescriptivism, the evolutionary origins of language, the social and cultural factors that govern language use, language change and its development, as well as the nature and organisation of language, and what it reveals about the nature of the human mind, and how meaning arises when we communicate. My central thesis is that far from being some passing fad, Emoji reflects, and thereby reveals, fundamental elements of communication; and in turn, this all shines a light on what it means to be human.

EB: How do you think emojis will evolve?

VE: The future is notoriously difficult to predict. For instance, in one scene from the cult classic sci-fi movie Blade Runner, the main character, Deckard, played by Harrison Ford is in a bar. He makes a phone call to Rachel, with whom he’s falling in love, and invites her to join him for a drink. But while the future Los Angeles involves off-world colonies, cyborgs, or ‘replicants’ as they are termed, and hover cars, Deckard, in the film, places the call from a hard-wired phone, on the wall. Apparently, foreseeing the invention of mobile phones was a step too far for the 1982 movie.

This issue is even thornier when considering human communication. From the perspective of technological innovation, we are living in a digital age: technology is transforming the ways we communicate with one another, and interact with the world around us. But while the creative directors of Blade Runner inhabited an era before cell phones, texting, and now mobile internet-based computing have changed the way we communicate. Moreover, other technological pipe dreams that were once only the preserve of science fiction are now becoming reality. For instance, John Anderton, the character played by Tom Cruise in the 2002 movie Minority Report – originally a book by Philip K. Dick, as was Blade Runner – wears a data glove, providing a sophisticated gesture-based interface system. But touch-based computing is now de rigeur, with the pinch, pull and swipe features of Apple iPads and iPhones having led the way in the 2000s. In terms of computer gaming the Wii, in 2006, and later, Microsoft Kinect consoles developed similar ways of interacting and controlling virtual characters and actions. Devices such as these are surely but a prelude of what is to come.

We might speculate on how Emoji will develop—in the short term, animated, avatar-like emojis might be one way in which textspeak can be further enhanced by multimodal cues. Facial expressions and gestures are what make us who we are: let’s see it, and not be afraid of seeing it, in Emoji! But whatever the next stage in the evolution of Emoji, the driver is, ultimately, the cooperative intelligence that makes us the embodied communicators we are. And in this regard, Emoji makes us more effective communication in our 21st century world of communication.

EB: Thanks for talking with us.

VE: My pleasure.

Get to know the SOU Softball Head Coach Jessica Pistole, her coaching journey, her thoughts on this past season, and what to expect this upcoming season.

Before coming to SOU, head softball coach, Coach Jessica Pistole knew what it took to not only be a part of, but to create a successful softball program. In her collegiate career she played volleyball and softball for Biola University. At Biola, she was a three time All-American and received a Bachelor of Arts in health psychology. After finishing school, she became Biola’s head softball coach and was extremely successful in her first year of coaching, leading the Eagles to a 51-46 record in two seasons, and a 26-19 record in her last season there.

She then took over the head coaching position for William Jessup’s volleyball team and shortly after, Pistole decided to build a softball team there from the ground up. In her second season, she led the Warriors to the 2011 California Pacific Conference championship and earned the Cal Pac Coach of the Year award. Pistole left the warriors with a 56-38 record. After briefly coaching at Utah State as an assistant coach, she moved on to coach a high school team in Twin Falls. In both seasons her team won the District 4 title and Pistole was named Great Basin Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.

She then set her sights on our Southern Oregon University softball team and the team has been making a lot of noise since she arrived. The Raiders had their most successful season yet. They broke SOU softball history and were ranked No. 6 in the postseason by the NAIA Top 25 poll. The Raiders were No. 20 after winning the Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament and made it to Florida before losing to Oklahoma City. They ended their season with a 46-15 record. There are high expectations for the SOU softball team this year, and Head Coach Jessica Pistole is ready to lead her new team into another successful season.

Nicole Cardoza has a BA degree in English from Southern Oregon University. She was the co-caption of the 2016-2017 Raider softball team that participated for the first time in the NAIA World Series.

Nicole Cardoza: What were some of the difficulties you had to overcome in creating William Jessup’s first ever softball program?

Jessica Pistole: There were several challenging aspects of starting the program at William Jessup that included raising all of the money to operate for the year, recruiting a team of 20 student-athletes to come play just 4 months before school started, and finding a coaching staff of good people who were on board to volunteer their time as well. But all of those things came together and it was a very rewarding experience.

Nicole Cardoza:Why did you choose to come to SOU?

Jessica Pistole: Prior to coaching here at SOU, I was coaching a high school team in Twin Falls, Idaho. As a family, we knew we were leaving Idaho after the season for various reasons to head back towards the West Coast but it wasn’t until after coming to SOU for an interview, that our energy completely shifted to Ashland and joining the SOU community. I was already familiar with the Cascade Conference and knew I could run a good softball program here, but it was definitely the people in the Athletic Department and all that SOU had to offer that solidified the decision for us.

Nicole Cardoza: What were some things you knew that had to change right off that bat?

Jessica Pistole: I didn’t come in here thinking I had to change anything specific. I only knew one way to run a program and I knew the culture I wanted to create and be a part of. So, I started from the bottom and began to implement the little things that I believed would get us there.

Nicole Cardoza: Coming into this softball program, were you intimidated or nervous by all that was going to have to be done in order to turn SOU softball into a successful program?

Jessica Pistole: It wasn’t intimidating to me because my experiences as a coach up to this point had prepared me. I have been a part of starting a program or taking over programs in several places so I felt like I knew what I needed to do in order to be successful. I had the motivation to return to coaching at the college level and now had the experience of coaching at the high school level as well so I felt well equipped.

Nicole Cardoza: When did you feel like there was some serious progress happening?

Jessica Pistole: I felt like we began to make progress from the very beginning with my first group in 2014. Everyone was eager to work hard and wanted to be a part of a championship program. After the difficulty of the fit tests and the first couple weeks of challenges, those that remained were on board and jumped in with both feet. Since then, each year, we have a new group that is ready to commit to the little things we do on and off the field on a daily basis and if we are getting just 1% better each day, we are continuing to make progress.

Nicole Cardoza: What were some challenges or bumps in the road?

Jessica Pistole: Every season has its challenges and every year has brought different types of adversity that we’ve navigated as it’s come. One thing I’ve realized is how important it is to have a group that is committed to the big picture and willing to do the little things (and make the sacrifices) it will take to get there. It’s a long year and it’s challenging to start and kindle the fire so that it can become strong enough to take us through those difficult patches along the way and hopefully be at our best to get us all the way through May.

Nicole Cardoza: How do you keep players motivated and excited?

Jessica Pistole: Ultimately, the motivation has to come from within each person but I try to do my best to help each person find that. It’s also very important for me to model that motivation in my own life. Being a wife and mother of 4, balance is very important for me to be able to be the best coach I can be. I try to mix things up and we do creative team activities often, but those are only tools to help guide them. I am a firm believer in our preparation being tough so that when we hit our season of competition, we can trust that we are ready.

Nicole Cardoza: This year was the first time ever in SOU softball history that we have made it to the World Series. How does that feel and what did it take to get your team in that position?

Jessica Pistole: I think our trip to Mississippi was something really special for our team. Our journey to the World Series was exciting and very rewarding to see the fruit of all the hard work we put in over the course of the year. Making it to the World Series was a great accomplishment for our program, but I believe we are capable of not merely making it, but winning it.

Nicole Cardoza: We didn’t win the whole thing, but we are all very proud of the success and eager to see how far SOU softball will make it this upcoming season. How are you getting your new team ready for this upcoming season?

Jessica Pistole: The hunger for our returners started when we got back from Florida. We got a little taste of playing for the championship and we came back knowing that we have the ability to do it. As for our incoming group, they are a talented, eager group that are ready to come in and help take our program even further.

Nicole Cardoza: Is there anything you’d do differently this year?

Jessica Pistole: Each year, our group is different and we need to be ready to adapt in some areas to what works best for that team. That will definitely be the case this year. However, there are values and expectations that don’t change from year to year. This upcoming season, we have a big group of incoming players but we also have a group of returners who have been around and bought into the process. I will rely heavily on our returning leadership to guide and show the new players what it means to be a part of SOU Softball.

Nicole Cardoza: Who can we expect to be big game changers on the field this year?

Jessica Pistole: Shortstop Kelsey Randall is a four-time All-Conference/All-American that has been a big contributor for us every year. Harlee Donovan, a JC transfer from last season will continue to be an impact player in our offensive line-up and behind the plate. Also, we have two returning sophomore pitchers, Karlee Coughlin and Gabby Sandoval, who both had a great first year here as freshmen and we have a strong core of players that were contributors all year for us last year both offensively and defensively.

Nicole Cardoza: Any incoming freshmen to watch out for?

Jessica Pistole: We have 4 hard working pitchers and a good combination of speed and power in both the infield and outfield in our incoming group of players. I am really looking forward to getting started and watching them bring their gifts and eagerness to SOU Softball this fall.

Nicole Cardoza: If you only had a couple sentences, how would describe SOU softball?

Jessica Pistole: I think a good way to describe SOU Softball is that we want to be better. Regardless of the successes we have accomplished in the past or the mistakes we have made, I want to be a group of people that is in constant pursuit of a better “us”. We want to become better in all areas of our lives and hold each other to that standard on a daily basis. Softball is definitely something we spend our time doing, but it’s really about trying to become better students, better friends, better teammates, and better human beings.

Nicole Cardoza: What are you most proud of in your coaching career?

Jessica Pistole: I am proud of the relationships that I have built in my journey as a coach. I have coached several different teams and have many former players and coaches that I still keep in contact with and now get the joy of watching thrive in their lives after softball. I have learned the importance of staying true to the values that I believe in and knowing what I won’t change in my program. Yet at the same time, I have also learned how important change can be and when it is time to adapt to something new.

Nicole Cardoza: Well I wish you and your team the best of luck and I hope you guys take it all the way this year!

Jessica Pistole: Thank you!

Sarah E. Stevens is fan of all fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction. She lives and works in Evansville, Indiana. Waxing Moon is her second book, a sequel to Dark Moon Wolf (profiled here).

You can learn more at her website sarahestevens.com and Twitter feed @sessiesarah.

Ed Battistella: Congratulations on Waxing Moon, part two of the Calling the Moon series. Your protagonist is back in southern Oregon. What happens?

Sarah E. Stevens: Thanks! Yes, the entirety of Waxing Moon takes place in southern Oregon. The book opens with Julie’s house burning down in the middle of the night. She and Carson are trapped in the fire. After they manage to escape, a huge, black wolf appears in the darkness and Julie realizes she has an unknown enemy—or perhaps, many enemies. The whole crew assembles to help: Julie, Sheila, Eliza, and Tim, along with some interesting new allies.

EB: I was intrigued by the relationships in the book, but also by the salamanders. Who are they? What’s their role in the story?

SS: Salamanders are a new paranormal race created in this series. Just as Werewolves draw on the moon for their abilities, ’Manders are linked to the sun and its powers. Werewolves and Salamanders exist in an uneasy yin-yang relationship, vying for position in the paranormal world. As you might remember from Dark Moon Wolf, the first book in this series, my Werewolves are quite different than the traditional mythos. Salamanders serve as their complement.

EB: As a writer, how do you manage the task of a second book in a series? How much backstory is necessary and how much is too much?

SS: It’s hard to hit the sweet spot where you reveal enough to catch up new readers, but you don’t indulge in an obvious info dump. I tried to bring up the relevant background as it became necessary to the new plot and the characters, so that readers get the information bit by bit. If I remember correctly, I edited quite a bit of the backstory out during revisions. Hopefully, I’ve left just enough to fill in the gaps and not so much that it’s boring or redundant.

EB: Have you noticed any changes in your writing from book 1 to book 2—from Dark Moon Rising to Waxing Moon?

SS: I think my pacing is tighter in Waxing Moon. The book really drives to a finish and many of my readers talked about how well the suspense and plotting work, that they couldn’t put the book down. I also think the book has some great moments of character development. My writing is very character-centered, with a focus on relationships, choices, and their consequences.

EB: There is a book 3 coming—what can we expect in Rising Wolf?

SS: I anticipate Rising Wolf will be the final book of this series. Waxing Moon leaves several large questions hanging over Julie’s head, even as the plot resolves. You’ll see how her relationships with the Weres and the Salamanders develop. You’ll also meet a new paranormal threat, of course.

EB: What’s your author experience been like? What some of reader feedback have you gotten?

SS: I’ve had fantastic feedback and reviews. One of my favorite reviews of Dark Moon Wolf was on the blog “Fangs for the Fantasy,” because they really understood the issues of gender, diversity, and social justice that I’ve wrapped into my books. They’ll be reviewing Waxing Moon soon and I look forward to hearing their thoughts. I’ve been very conscious to include a diverse group of characters—in terms of race, ethnicity, and sexuality—and the themes of equity and inclusion are even stronger in this second novel. I really wanted to dispel the Werewolf mythos that involves brutal alpha males and center my stories on strong women.

Over the last six months, I’ve sold my books at several local conventions and signings. I’ve had a lot of fun meeting readers, signing books, and getting to know other authors. Since these books are published with a small press (The Wild Rose Press), I think the most difficult thing for me has been figuring out promotion and publicity. Without the power of a large press and distributor, I’ve done a lot of self-promotion on social media, my blog, other blogs, etc. I’d love to reach a wider audience, because I believe in my books.

EB: How do you learn about werewolves and other paranormal phenomena? Are there standard texts?

SS: I’d love to believe in paranormal creatures, but since they aren’t actually real, we don’t have textbooks. I’m a voracious reader of all things fantasy and I’ve read a lot of more traditional Werewolf fiction, as well as newer urban fantasy about Weres. When I reinvented Weres for my books, I did some research on cross-cultural associations of the moon.

EB: Thanks for talking with us.

SS: Thanks so much for having me!