Liz Bradfield grew up on the shores of Puget Sound and spent a fruitful childhood turning over rocks. She finished her undergraduate degrees in English literature and women's studies at the University of Washington in 1994, then, poetry notebook in hand, went to work as a deckhand on boats in Southeast Alaska. That's when she realized her life would be split between biology and books, between outdoor and indoor life. She spent a few years working as an editor for an internet startup publication, fled that for a kayak guide job, worked as a whale watch naturalist, and then realized it was time to get back to school. She earned her MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2005.
In 2005, Liz also began Broadsided, a virtual, on-the-streets modern incarnation of the traditional broadside. Her first book of poems, Interpretive Work, will be available from Arktoi Books in January of 2008. She currently splits her time between a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and her family on Cape Cod. She's not a blogger, but you can read more about her various projects at her website.
Publication Questions:
1) What projects are you currently on? (Include issue #s, books, chapbooks, broadsides, special projects, print and web).
I am gearing myself up to begin a collection of poems about the far north--which terrifies me a bit because I want so much for it. I also have an anthology in mind that I need to start putting together and I'm trying to open the door to a more mysterious "what next". I know that much of the winter will be taken up by tasks around my book coming out.
2) What has been your biggest challenge as a poetry publisher/editor?
Finding work that speaks, without being condescending in content or form, to a wide audience. I want to publish work that my mother --a sophisticated reader of prose who sometimes finds poetry daunting--can "get" and that also sparks readers already won over to poetry.
3) Do you regret any paths you have followed as a publisher/editor?
I'm relatively new to the publishing/editing game--at least on my own projects. Broadsided just began a couple of years ago. The idea took a long time to germinate, and I think that was a good thing. I'm glad of the direction the project is taking.
4) Name one poet who has not appeared in your publication which you would love to have included and why.
Oh, there are so many amazing poets! I'd love to publish a poem by Adrienne Rich. Her work, which is so layered and gorgeous and also full of truth-speaking, is in many ways much like the spirit of Broadsided. She writes out into the world.
5) Who is the designer of your web site and how much input do you have in the design of the web site and the other design elements including covers for books, etc.?
I am the designer of my website. Much of the design is dictated by a desire for simplicity. I want the broadsides to shine out as the interesting element. As for books, my first book is coming out this fall, and I was lucky enough to design the cover image with my partner, a biologist and photographer. She woke up with the core of the idea, and the next morning we got to work trying to create it.
6) What recognitions have you received as a publisher/editor?
We've had some great fan mail for Broadsided, mostly from poets who have been excited to see how visual artists respond to words. I think my favorite story was from a Vector (a volunteer who posts Broadsided publications) who said that a secretary in the university building where she worked came up to her, very concerned, because the Vector was taking a job at another university and would thus no longer be posting broadsides. I loved knowing that the Broadsides reached who they were supposed to reach -- someone who might not seek out a literary journal but loved poetry and art in her daily life.
7) Where do you see your publication/editing in 5 years?
I hope that Broadsided has spread into every nook and cranny of the US and into plenty of nooks and crannies abroad. I hope it becomes a tool for libraries and maybe even schools to snag visitors' and students' attention and perhaps interest them in reading more.
8) What are some of your other interests?
I work as a naturalist, and I'm very interested in birds and marine life in particular. This leads to an interest in conservation and education--how can we do a better job of living on this planet? I love taking long kayaking and backpacking trips.
9) What is your favorite poem as of today and why?
There's a Frost poem, "The Most of It," that I've been meaning to memorize. I have a little email group called Pelagic Poetry -- members send out poems that knock their socks off, and the most recent one that I sent out was "Canned Food Drive" by Kathleen Lynch. It's an amazing poem.
10) Recommend a poetry book, blog or web site to our audience (not from one of your press) and why.
I recently finished reading Nick Flynn's Blind Huber, and I loved how it managed to be at once incredibly lyric and yet firmly rooted in history. That straddling of modes is amazing to me.
11) What is the most exciting aspect of being a poetry publisher/editor?
Finding work that blows my mind -- either by poets you've heard of or by writers who I've never seen. I also love to see what artist from our project is drawn to the work we've decided we'd like to publish--and then what in that work triggers them visually. Almost equally exciting for me is the idea of getting poems and art out into the street life of our communities.
12) Leave us with a recipe for poetry.
I guess I'd say that it has to be some kind of dish that includes an element of risk: maybe like the pufferfish or fugu that is a delicacy in Japan but, prepared wrong, can kill you. I want to feel like a poem risks something important and essential. So... take anything dangerous and make it delicious, without allowing your reader to forget its danger.
