Em Dial is a queer, Black, Taiwanese, Japanese, and white writer born and raised in the Bay Area of California, currently living in Toronto. They are the author of In the Key of Decay (Palimpsest Press, 2024) and an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph. Her work can be found in the Literary Review of Canada, Muzzle Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, the forthcoming Permanent Record Anthology from Nightboat Books, and elsewhere.
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
As my first book came out last month, I think I am still in the midst of that change. I have been trying to soak in this moment, but I also feel so distant from some of the poems in this collection, that part of me is glad to have it out in the world so that I can focus on what is next. I'm sure that in a few months I will have had the time to process what it means to have this debut living out in the world, apart from me. I imagine the process is going to teach me a lot about trust and letting go.
I'm currently working on a couple of projects that centre nostalgia and chronic illness. I'm finding that through those topics, I'm allowing myself to zero in on the minutiae of day-to-day life, rather than the sweeping glances that are more prevalent in In the Key of Decay. I'm also playing around with form in new ways, especially longer-form works and prose poems.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
In the summer between my Freshman and Sophom*ore years of university, I was listless and depressed and confused, in a very 19-year-old kind of way. Through a series of aimless clicks on YouTube, I ended up watching dozens of spoken word videos, and was captivated for weeks. I wrote two poems of my own, and used them to audition for my university's spoken word collective that fall. I still do not fully understand how I ended up there, as I was not reading much besides my science textbooks at that age, but I think I just needed a way to get to know myself and contextualize my queerness and multiracialness in a world that was increasingly feeling very scary and overwhelming.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I'm learning that research and notes are kind of my way-finding tools towards creation. I'll do a deep dive and once I hit upon an idea that tickles something in me, I'll write a quick skeleton of a piece, then get back to reading. Every once in a while, I'll find something that really sparks a complete concept, and a poem looking almost fully fledged will come out. That is quite a rare experience, though.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
My first collection was an amalgamation of years of writing individual poems, that were then arranged into a shape that made sense, and from there I filled in the gaps. Now that I am working on more intentionally shaped projects, I am finding that I set out with a vague understanding of what the book might consist of, and then let the research process guide the process from there.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
For the many years when, for me, poetry was synonymous with poetry slams, writing and public readings were inseparable. Now that I have had some time away from the world of spoken word, I think I've grown distant from my desire to entertain an audience and do not enjoy reading my work as much as I used to. That separation has been helpful for my work, as I used to write poems with the goal of getting a 10 from a judge, but now that I've had time to develop a craft and practice that feel authentic to me, I'd love to build that entertainment muscle back up again.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Always! A mentor I worked with, Aisha Sasha John, once described my work as phenomenological. I think I am always trying to construct an understanding of something, most often that something being myself and my place in the world. Currently, more specifically, I've been trying to understand where my ideas of masculinity were formed, what kind of character my illness has when separated from myself, and why I feel such a stomach-churning obligation to American imaginings of suburbia.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
This might be a controversial opinion, but I think writers, poets especially, are too often given a mystic or sage or benevolent slant. I see writing as a tool, one that can move us towards revolution and liberation, but one that can just as easily be used to placate the masses or to justify and reinforce violent ideas. Personally, I feel the role of a writer like myself is to draw lines between different forces that influence our world and imagine new ways that we can exist with more safety and abundance. However, I don't think that is the role of all writers, and I think it feels even more like a mantle that I want to take on, because I know that there are writers in the world who may feel the opposite way that I do, penning odes to the war machine as we speak.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I mostly love working with editors! It is absolutely critical for me to have the eyes of others on my work. I've been very lucky to have almost exclusively positive experiences with editors who I built trusting, mutually respectful relationships with. My debut couldn't have been what it is without the eyes of Summer Farah and Jim Johnstone.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
You hear it a lot being from California, but it originally comes from a Hawaiian saying: Never turn your back on the ocean.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I haven't been able to sustain any sort of writing routine over the past couple of years while trying to work in the field of urban agriculture. Luckily, in the fall, I am headed to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph, where I will be forced into a more regular practice of writing. I'm hoping to get into a more regular practice of morning pages in the next couple of months. Currently, my days begin with rushing to walk my dog before needing to leave for the office.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I have a list of 15 or so favorite poems that I return to when I'm stuck, and try to understand what it is that I like so much about them. If returning to the familiar doesn't help, I'll usually try to read a chapter of a novel or an essay in a collection to shake me out of my poetry brain for a moment while still stirring up images that could potentially be repurposed into something.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Salty sludgy wetlands, Tide laundry detergent, brownies in the oven, the plastic smell of a VHS box, Meyer lemons, and my partner's face moisturizer.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I think I draw inspiration from a lot of corners of my life, but a lot of my work to date has drawn from music and film. Having studied biology and ecology, scientific language and theories often find their way into my poems as well. In the Key of Decay, for example, situates the speaker as constructed by the false sciences of eugenics and race and then acts to dismantle them.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
With much effort, I've limited myself to 10: Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay, I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & what I Had On by Khadijah Queen, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Soft Science by Franny Choi, Homie by Danez Smith, The Essential June Jordan, Bestiary by K-Ming Chang, Zigzagger by Manuel Muñoz, A Cruelty Special to Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon, and Yellow Rain by Mai Der Vang
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Visit Taiwan, where my dad was born.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I think if it weren't for writing, I may have stayed in the environmental/food non-profit world for some time. If I were to pick anything besides writing, though, I think it would be something having to do with the ocean. Maybe being a scientific diver.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I think that I'm someone whose mind jumps from topic to topic, trying to make meaning out of 1,000 things at once. Writing has offered me a way to construct a sudoku out of the world around me, a frame in which to place the unknowable, confusing parts of the world. It feels like working at cracking a part of the code. I don't know if anything else could have offered that to me.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Pig by sam sax blew me away. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I haven't stopped thinking about Love Lies Bleeding.
19 - What are you currently working on?
The nostalgia and chronic pain collections I mentioned earlier, as well as becoming a student again! For anything else, you'll have to stay tuned!
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
