RS: You do so much to showcase the work of other writers, do you find that running Mellow Pages ever gets in the way of focusing on your own writing?
MN: Short answer: Yes. It has to. Anything that is not writing interferes with writing. The good thing is that those any-things can interfere in nurturing ways. Ways you hopefully bring back to your writing later. Reading is great, great source of interference. So is washing an elephant behind a mountain if you ever get the chance. Mellow in a way is the perfect interference because I'm literally subject to so many voices, ideas, stories all the time all the time all the time. Yes, I do not write as much, but yes, I still write.
As co-founder of The Mellow Pages Library, you've established what is arguably the most important literary institution in Brooklyn. What's it been like for you dealing with the attention that's come to the library?
Do you ever feel like an alien? Like you've got weird lights shining out of you? It's kind of like that. Except then you realize everyone else is an alien too, with their own light, doing crazy cool alien things that should be looked at intently. We are not famous and we are not what makes Mellow Pages special. So if there's an opportunity to moves the idea of Mellow Pages further into the collective consciousness, and we've got the time/energy left, we'll do it. The Chapbook Fest, Popsicle Festival, AWP, NY Poetry Fest. And there are many more that we can't/don't know about.
What can people expect from your reading?
Chapters in a poem.
