“Alpha Bet,” a finalist for the 2018 Newfound Prose Prize and chapbook contest, is a memoir told in vignettes and peppered with cross-references like an index of pain in the narrator’s life. It is an intimate work, offering a reader much to process as they piece together a story.
Author Jacqueline Kirkpatrick took the time to share a bit more with us about her process in creating “Alpha Bet”.
Delaney Kochan: One thing I love about how you wrote this piece is how clearly it teaches the power of sharing emotion by showing scene. When it appears easy, you know you’re reading a talented writer who’s crafted each sentence to be unencumbered with internal narration. What was your editing process like?
Jacqueline Kirkpatrick: It’s probably a terrible thing to admit, however, the most honest response I can offer is that I don’t edit much. One of the first writers I fell for was Jack Kerouac and not long after I started reading him I found the “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.” I’ve been writing based on that method since. Most of my work is stream of conscious. I pop on headphones, queue up the tunes that bring back certain memories and I close my eyes. I’ve been lucky that it makes sense most of the time but I run the risk that it sounds absolutely bonkers. Those pieces stay safe and in the dark in the filing cabinet.
I almost never edit content.