Meet the Authors: Bat-Ami Gordin

Today's featured contributing author is...

Bat-Ami Gordin

Brief Bio:

Bat-Ami Gordin is a mother of two, animal lover and activist, dramatic soprano, and poet/writer photographer. She loves ballet, swimming, hiking and emergency preparedness. She is also an Amateur Ham and aerospace engineer. Bat-Ami was raised in Manhattan, currently live in the Mojave Desert, via Seattle, Missoula, MT, Bloomington, IN, and Boston. Her short story, the Last Geisha, will be published in the Stories for Sendai anthology. You can find her blogging at http://zongrik.wordpress.com, Tweeting @zongrik, and on Facebook.  

What genres do you write?

ALL: poetry, short story, novel, epic poetry, play, screenplay, radio play, business, legal and technical are the ones that come to mind.

What are you currently writing? Sum it up in 10 words or less.

Screenplays, science sonnets, poems, short stories and legal documents.

What do you do when you're not writing?

Work out, walk my dogs, practice singing, see movies, photography, volunteer at the hospital, rescue dogs, hang out with good friends and/or relatives.

What is your ultimate goal as a writer?

To win the Nobel Prize for Literature for my epic poem. Win an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

How close are you to achieving this goal?

I have no idea. My epic is finished. I need a publisher, an editor and publicity.

What is the single most important piece of advice you can give a fellow writer?

Don't take anything you write personally: on two levels. 1) Take ALL editing advice. Anything anyone tells you is an important point of view to take into consideration. If someone doesn't understand or makes a comment, it must be considered .Writing is above all about communicating, and not about your inner self. It comes from your inner self no matter how hard you try for it not to come from there. I can never understand why writers try so hard to express themselves, when that is what you are doing in the first place. 2) If you care at all about improving, don't make everything about yourself. You can't help it be about yourself, that is inherent in all you do. You must try to take all your writing outside of yourself, develop characters unlike yourself, write about relationships unlike the ones you are stuck in, etc. Putting it simply, the people you love do not want to read about you having an argument with them.