“It’s just that when we’re conceptualizing art, we always think of it as something that has happened, but not something you can do in your own life, like in the current moment.”
Evelyn Berry, poet and educator from Columbia, SC, uses her voice to champion authenticity and queer Southern storytelling. Through workshops, editing, and her acclaimed poetry, she inspires writers to embrace vulnerability and speak truth to power.
Interview
Transcript
Lexi Raines 00:00
Alli, okay. So, first just give us a little introduction to yourself. What do you do for work and where are you currently working from? Yeah.
Evelyn Berry 00:08
My name is Evelyn Barry. I was born and raised here in South Carolina. I am an author of a book called grief slut, which was published last year by sundress publications, as well as some chat books called buggery and glitter husk. I have another book coming out next year called Tea for tea, from a small harbor press. In addition to writing and publishing, I teach workshops at organizations, whether that’s a nonprofit that’s looking to bring me in for a workshop series, a literary festival that wants to bring me on for a panel, a conference where I’m going to do kind of like a masterclass seminar with students, either online or in person, as well As universities. Where I might come speak to the classes, lead a couple of classes, and then usually do like a masterclass in reading at that university. In addition to that, I am an editor. Yeah, I would say, big role, besides writer and educator, is as a freelance editor, so I work one on one with writers all across the country on their manuscripts. This might look like helping build better writing practices where we talk about how they can deepen their craft, or it might look like helping them navigate the like the world of professional publishing. How one seeks agents, how one seeks publishing opportunities, how you write cover letters and things like that, or even find out about these kind of publishing and funding opportunities. And then my day job, which probably comprises of, like, probably two thirds of all of the money I made last year, is as a library communications strategist. So, I work with staff at a pretty large library system here in South Carolina and help with employee communications that might include anything from drafting all staff emails to share operational updates, creating talking points to help staff talk to and discuss kind of interesting, relevant topics with our communities. This might be a new initiative, an art gallery. Maybe it’s something that’s happened in the news that we want to make sure staff are equipped to talk about, and also staff newsletters, so this includes a lot of blogs that feature staff stories’ this could be anything about a staff who really likes speaking, and it’s about their love of baking, or it might be about staff who run programs using tabletop role playing games, or sometimes like a Storytelling Festival that we’ve had at the library, things like that. So, anything kind of communications wise that might be shared with staff. I usually have a hand in, and I’m sitting on different committees for different projects.
Lexi Raines 03:23
Awesome. You sound very busy, but that all seems very exciting.
Evelyn Berry 03:27
It is very busy. It’s a full schedule. Yes!
Lexi Raines 03:32
I’m sure. So how long have you been writing?
Evelyn Berry 03:38
So, I’ve been writing since I was a kid, which I think is pretty common, though, I’d say probably started writing seriously around the age of 16, when I was that’s also when I started to publish in literary journals. I was around the age of 16, you know, both obviously in my like high school literary journal, but also in some community literary journals, and then a little farther afield by the time I got to college. I kind of started in high school publishing short stories and poems. I also used to write some articles and a semi regular column for like, a local arts alt weekly newspaper in Augusta.
Speaker 2 04:19
Georgia. Oh, that’s so cool. That’s all, that’s actually awesome. One of my first paid.
Evelyn Berry 04:24
Writing gigs, and I think I was just a precocious teenager. Very much precocious.
Lexi Raines 04:32
What’s one thing that you love about working as a creative in South Carolina?
Evelyn Berry 04:38
In South Carolina, there’s a fairly close-knit community of writers. I think that one of our one of our strengths, is the small size of the state, both in numbers as well as geographically, which means that it’s really easy. Get to one another. I live in Columbia, so within two and a half hours I can pretty much get to any other city which offers a lot of really cool opportunities. When I started to write, I probably had no real business like teaching or writing book reviews, or, like, writing articles in magazines. But a lot of older writers took me under their wing and kind of believed in my work, and, you know, helped me navigate those processes, helped introduce me to new opportunities, and that was tremendously helpful. I don’t have, like, an educational background in writing. I did study English, and I don’t have an MFA, don’t have a PhD, but what I do have is, like a massive village of writing mentors throughout South Carolina and beyond. Who care really deeply about community, and so that’s, that’s a big thing I really love about South Carolina. It’s gotten to the point now where, you know, anytime I go to pretty much anywhere, no matter how small. I know someone there, you know, and I know someone I can grab coffee with, or who would be glad to have me over at their house and, you know, eat dinner their family. Just because, like, that’s kind of what the writing and the arts community at large is here, which is, is really beautiful.
Lexi Raines 06:26
It is super beautiful. I’ve heard a lot about that in my interview. So it is, I think it’s super awesome to hear that. It really is just a huge community. So, what does South Carolina bring to your work compared to anywhere else.
Evelyn Berry 06:43
I mean, I grew up in Aiken, South Carolina. I went to school in Charleston, South Carolina. I live in Columbia, South Carolina. Now I’ve you know, spent the majority of my life here in South Carolina. So. it’s kind of impossible for the landscape, the culture, the language, the stories of South Carolina not to seep into my work. I write confessional poetry which is often very biographical. So, the experience of living in the South, especially as a queer person, has kind of informed most of my creative work. Also, in the past, I’ve had the opportunity to work in different capacities in archives, as well as write in response to materials from archives, and it’s gotten me really interested in South Carolina history. I specifically am really interested in South Carolina’s queer history and the ways in which queer people have kind of fought for our rights here in South Carolina, whether that’s the like 1989 ACT UP die in at the state house, or the first Pride festival, which was only like 35 years ago, or, you know, even some of the more, like illicit parts of history, like the history of cruising down in Charleston, South Carolina, from like the sailors and things like that. So there’s all of these, like interesting stories, whether it’s like stories of resistance, or kind of sordid stories, or really fun stories. And I think people don’t think about that when they think of South Carolina, other parts of history. And I’m really always interested in what different spaces and places offer up in terms of their history.
Lexi Raines 08:39
I completely agree. I think South Carolina has, like, a very diverse history that, like, not too many people know about, like outside of those specific communities. So, I feel like just bringing out that research is super cool. That’s awesome.
Evelyn Berry 08:55
Yeah, it’s been super fun, especially, you know, I’m not an academic, I’m not a historian, so I get to have the freedom of doing things creatively, which gives you a lot of leeway with these things, which is, which is a lot of fun. How
Lexi Raines 09:10
Would you define professional or personal success in your creative endeavors?
Evelyn Berry 09:15
Um, I think that personal success, I think usually comes when you’ve written something that people respond to, that speaks to them. That might change how they think or how they feel, or just move them in some way. I would say the best kind of response that I’ve gotten from like books, is people I’m talking about what it meant to them, whether that it’s, you know, helped vocalize something about their own life that they had never seen on the page before, or that it helped them write something about their own life. Think, which I think is always super cool to see. So I think that’s kind of personal success, professional success, I think is a little bit trickier, because, you know, we do live in a society where you got to pay rent, got to have health insurance. So, I think that if you can consistently get projects and you know, say for poetry or novels, it’s consistently getting published, consistently getting invited to festivals and conferences to teach, so that you can kind of maintain a steady income, which is extremely hard to do because, you know, funding in the arts is very unpredictable. Some years you might, for example, get a fellowship, which I’ve done in the past. Like, last year, I got the South Carolina Arts Commission fellowship. And, like, you know, that’s, that’s like, $10,000 you know, on top of what I usually make. And it’s a big, you know, that that’s, that’s a huge thing for me. And then, you know, having to think of, okay, next year you’re not going to have that. Well, how are you going to make sure to maintain what you’re doing? Like, what will you have to do differently? So I think finding sustainability is really the key for professional artistic success.
Lexi Raines 11:27
Yes, I would completely, completely agree with that. So, um, this kind of goes along the same lines of that, what was your biggest fear when you first decided to pursue the arts professionally?
Evelyn Berry 11:41
Well, you know, I mentioned that I didn’t really study English. I really wanted to, I really, you know, when I was applying to colleges and high school, all I wanted to do was write. I wanted to write stories. I wanted to write novels. I wanted to write poems, plays, whatever I could get my hands on. And everyone kind of tells you that it’s a dead end, that it’s impossible. But I think that’s also because they don’t really know anyone who’s ever done it. It’s a weird thing, because, you know, we have, culturally, an idea of artists as something from the past, right? You know, when we think about if you ask someone their favorite artist or their favorite writer, they’re more than likely going to name someone who’s dead, which is not a problem. It’s just that when we’re conceptualizing art, we always think of it as something that has happened, but not something you can do in your own life like in the current moment. So, I think that was the big thing. Is just kind of like falling on my face. I’ll say I remember feeling so like defeated at one point. So, I had a I had my first novel come out when I was very young. So, I like signed a contract when I was 19, and then all came out when I was 22 which is like, maybe irresponsibly young to publish it, to be honest. And, you know, of course, like I was in college, I had this very romantic idea of what a right being a writer was like, I, you know, got to go to, like, one or two conferences and festivals and be like, here’s my novel. And then like, reality set in really fast, which was like, you know, there’s hundreds and hundreds and, you know, there’s 10s of 1000s of novels out there. And so now, just because you’ve, you know, published one, how do you make people actually care about that? How do you sustain that kind of momentum as well? I didn’t have anything else ready to go, you know, at that point, because I’d been college through that entire editing process, and it was a couple of days after, you know, it was months after the novel had come out, interest had already dried up. Like six months in, I’d stopped doing events, and I finally graduated college, which was a crazy kind of thing. And then I remember the very next day, I was like, working at this restaurant, and I was like, a busboy and a like, I like, came up on this table, and it was like a mother with her daughter, and they were touring the college from which I had just graduated, right? It just graduated from the Honors College or top honors, and I dropped the plates in front of them, like I, like, tripped and, like, dropped plates. And the mom looked down at me and pointed at me and went, see, that’s why you need to go to college. And I remember just being like, Oh no, crazy that I’ve, like, you know, thought that I have, like, reached this height, and you think that you’re going to, like, have a single success, or you’re going to graduate from college and then launch yourself into some sort of, like, career of miracle after miracle after just like, coincidence. Yeah, but it’s much harder work than that. So, I think that’s the biggest fear, was realizing that it would not be as easy as I thought, or that, you know, luck and coincidence can only take you so far.
Lexi Raines 15:18
An English major, actually going back to your first point, like, I was terrified to be an English major. I didn’t come into college as an English major. I was originally a computer science major, and I just hated it, like it was so miserable. And like, I’ve always really enjoyed writing and like reading, and so when I made that switch, I was so much happier. And so I feel like people saying that they don’t have there’s no jobs in English is very, very untrue, obviously. So I feel like just being able to keep your options open and look for those opportunities is something that’s really important.
Evelyn Berry 16:03
Awesome! Well, I mean, I’ll just say, in response to that, like, something that I would say to anyone who’s graduating with, like, an English degree, or say, like sociology, or any kind of degree that people are generally saying that doesn’t make money, there’s, there’s a lot of jobs out in the world that you’ve never heard of that actually need the skill set that you have, and the skill set that you have, whether it’s like writing and communicating clearly, is becoming more and more rare. I mean, I’m sure you see it in your own peers. Like the ability to write a like cogent and coherent essay about a literary piece without using AI is like a huge deal these days. I see it in, you know, my communications work all the time where, like, you know, being able to quickly and correctly write, or even knowing, like, the basics of grammar or the basics of sentence construction, that’s something I take for granted. I’m like, everyone, everyone knows that. Like, duh, everyone can but that’s not true. And the more that you kind of like work in the world, you realize, oh, actually, I do have a set of skills that might be really useful to some people, and my I might be able to leverage it in real ways. Yes,
Lexi Raines 17:24
I’ve, really noticed that. And I think coastal does a good job with preparing English majors to, like, really market their skills. So it’s awesome. Can you describe, like, a defining moment in your creative journey?
Evelyn Berry 17:38
You know, what’s kind of interesting is, you know, when you’re doing creative work, every Turning Point feels like the big break. You know, in some ways, I would say the biggest thing for me a big turning point. A couple of years ago, a mentor of mine encouraged me to apply for a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in creative writing. So these are governmental fellowships that are given to 25 writers per year. It’s a tremendous amount of funding. And beyond that, it’s quite like an honor to get it is, you know, one of those awards that people recognize on a resume and will bring you in. And at the time, I didn’t have a full length poetry collection out. The novel had been kind of a flop. I was starting to publish in different places, but I still didn’t feel like a quote, unquote, real writer. You know, I still felt like I had failed to live up to that kind of potential, and there was a massive amount of insecurity around the fact that I never went to graduate school and never studied writing. The older I got, the further I felt behind my peers, despite the fact that, you know, I was reading the same books that they were in graduate school. I was, you know, having the same conversations, going to the same events, doing this in kind of community volunteering and getting involved in the literary community. So, you know, this sort of fellowship wasn’t a sort of thing that I thought someone like me was one supposed to apply to, because it would be a waste of time, right? That it would be something no one without proper training, no one without that kind of pedigree already would be able to get a fellowship like that. But I decided to apply. I applied twice, and on the second time I got it, it was, it was really life changing. I actually didn’t believe them when they pulled me on the phone that I had gotten the fellowship, yeah. And it was just really cool to, like, have that moment of like, okay, like, this is real. Like this is, you know, it kind of was funny because it eclipsed a lot of other failures, because it didn’t really matter anymore. It’s like, well, you have, like, this seal of approval, which sounds silly, like, you know, a lot of especially universities, they look for those. Seals of approval, right? And or before they like invite you to come teach, or invite you to come read. And sometimes when you’re able to get a fellowship or an award like that, it’s just the one thing that can help you kind of stand out in the crowd. And that was really a turning point for me. I think that I was able to take myself a little bit more seriously as a writer, I was able to demand a little bit more in terms of, like, what I charge from, you know, people who were hiring me and mostly it kind of gave me, like, the confidence to continue to actually say to myself, like, okay, like, this isn’t just something I do for fun. It is actually, like, my vocation. It is the thing I’m doing with my life is to write and share stories and share poems. Congratulations!
Lexi Raines 20:53
On that. That’s actually, so that’s awesome. So it was really great.
Evelyn Berry 20:58
Cool. Yeah, I think, um, it was kind of interesting. Last year, a like, some academic did, like, a qualitative study on, like, who got these kinds of fellowships, and I was the first one to receive that fellowship, I think, in like 30 years. Like, the last person who did it was James Dickey, and so it’s kind of like, yeah, like even that, like Southern writers, rural writers are, like, massively underrepresented for these fellowships. You know, the majority of writers who get them are people who are already well-established. They’re already teaching at major universities and things like that. So it felt really good to like represent for my state as well. And I didn’t realize that until someone pointed it out, and I was like, wow. Like, it’s kind of wild, because I know so many amazing artists and writers here who deserve support, sometimes ignored by like, the national art scene.
Lexi Raines 22:01
Yeah, that makes it even more meaningful. Congratulations again. Like, what is the best and worst advice you’ve ever received?
Evelyn Berry 22:10
Unfortunately, the best advice, and I think this goes for any creative path, is just do the thing that you want to do. What I mean by that is, I know a lot of writers who think, Well, I would love to write a novel, but before I can write a novel, I need to go take a creative writing class. Before I write a novel, I need to read 10 books about writing a novel. Before I write a novel, I need to like prove myself in some way, same with being an artist. You know, I will become an artist. I will start making art once I get to the certain point that it’s proved myself. But the only way that you can actually develop craft and develop as an artist, as a photographer, as an actor, is to practice that craft. And, you know, often practice looks like failure because you’re not going to be good at it at first, right? No one is no one is like perfect or no one is skilled at what you do first, and you still might feel inadequate years later, too. But once you start comparing you know how you’ve developed, you’ll see growth. So I think that’s really important as to whatever you’re doing to begin now, you know to not kind of wait for any kind of permission, to wait for any kind of degree or certification or seal of approval from anyone else, but just to start making and also start sharing that work, even if you don’t think it’s very good, you know, upload that photography to Instagram if you’re writing stuff and you know, you know, go ahead and send it out to literary journals. If it’s not getting published in literary journals, like print it in a zine. Share it with friends. Once you start to get into that cycle of creating and sharing art, you’ll kind of you’ll do some more often, the worst advice I’ve ever gotten, I think that the worst advice I’ve gotten is that one should separate, not write about politics. I think a very common thing, what used to be a very common thing in the arts, and especially in writing, was that, you know, people didn’t want to read, you know, quote, unquote, political stories or political art, because it was very heavy handed, which it definitely can be for sure. You know, we’ve all read work that is very heavy handed in that way. But I think it’s really important to think about why that advice is given and Who Gives it often. You know, the lack of politics is not. A lack it is just like a defense of the status quo. And so art that does not engage with values that might be seen as quote, unquote, political are still political. You know, they are. They’re maintaining a kind of status quo, a patriarchy of white supremacy, you know, kind of this, this, this kind of paradigm, right? That is seen as the quote, unquote norm or seen as apolitical when, in fact, it’s very political. All of our lives are very political. And as a poet you know, writing about like being queer in the south, it’s impossible for pretty much anything I write not to be viewed by others as political, even if I don’t mean it that way. And so I remember getting some advice, like definitely, from like, fiction writing mentors and teachers to kind of avoid, you know, talking to explicitly about politics, despite the fact that it kind of informs our every day, I feel like it
Lexi Raines 26:04
Would be hard to ever completely avoid that topic, because it makes up who you are. It makes up the community around you. It really makes up everything a lot, influencing you.
Evelyn Berry 26:14
Yeah? So that’s what? Yeah, exactly. It’s an impossible piece of advice unless you are, like, the single most privileged person in the world and are able to insulate yourself completely.
Lexi Raines 26:25
So, can you please walk us through a typical work day for you, like, what does your process look like, and what’s kind of expected of you on a daily basis? Yeah,
Evelyn Berry 26:33
Let me take you through kind of a general day that includes all of my different jobs. So I usually wake up at five in the morning, which I know is not fun to hear. If I have real energy, I’ll work out. Otherwise, I’ll go shower. I will say I this is so I mean, maybe it won’t sound weird, but like, you know, I’m not the biggest physical fitness person, but I do think that exercise and just moving your body, whether that’s walking or going to the gym or like playing a game with friends, actually can, like, help boost your creativity. It puts you in a better mood, and it helps bring you energy that doesn’t necessarily fade throughout the day. So I think it’s a really good way to get one’s mind ready to write after that. I usually end up coming home showering, putting on makeup, etc., and I will go right. So sometimes I write at home at my desk. More often, I will go to like a local coffee shop, and write for anywhere from one to two hours before work. And the reason I do this is just that I’m a morning person. It is like when I do my best work is when I wake up by the time like one o’clock rolls around, I’m a little less sharp, so I want to give the best version of myself to my creative work. Then I usually go to work at the at the library. So this usually looks like spending the morning, usually dealing with more immediate needs. So that might be helping write an email, helping finish up some projects, maybe being in meetings so often I will find, like, we have meeting rooms at the library, so I like to find, like, a quiet place have my like, noise canceling headphones, and just really dig into the deep work. So anywhere from one o’clock to five o’clock is when I do that kind of deep work for communications, that’s strategy building, or just something that’s going to take a long time to write. I will say I’m very lucky in that sense, like I have a job in which people generally leave me alone unless they need something or they’ll send me an email, so I get a lot of uninterrupted time to, like, think and sit, and I think that’s really important to kind of have, like, you know, I’m also totally allowed if I wished to, like, leave the library and just like, wander around, because that might help, like, write something that I need to write, and get me in the right mindset to do it. So, yeah, that’s generally what that workday looks like after work. I might do different things. So I help. I helped start a local collective here called queer writers of Columbia. We hold like write ins and workshops and open mics. So often, if that is happening, I will leave work and go grab something to eat, maybe with some of the friends from that group, and we will go and write together even more. Sure, generally in that setting, I’m actually not writing my own work. I’m usually helping other people navigate stuff, just a lot of moving parts. So it might be, you know, just mentoring people basically to get published or to seek opportunities. It might be going to support people at open mics. I’m at the point in my career now where, like, I don’t necessarily have to do those things, you know, like, I can get paid to go read poetry, so I don’t need to go to an open mic and, like, have that kind of exposure. But I think it’s still important to engage with like, everyone in your community, no matter like, level of development they’re at, because, you know, that’s kind of how I had any opportunity at all as a writer, is that someone took a chance on me and gave me an opportunity before I was ever ready for it. So that’s, that’s a big thing that I believe in, is, you know, encouraging people to say, hey, you know, you should really host this. And they’re like, I or teach a workshop, you know? And usually people say, like, I don’t have anything that I could possibly teach others. And I think that when you start doing it, you’ll be surprised by what you can teach others. Something else I really believe in is like, to not get, keep, like, publishing secrets. There’s a lot of norms around literary magazine publishing, wearing agents reaching out to bookstores that are not like written down in many places. You might learn them in an MFA program, but even then, probably not. So the only way to learn them is through trial and error or from just another writer telling you. So I’m a big believer in, you know, mentoring writers to make sure that their talent is not being unnoticed, that they’re able to develop and both within their community and beyond. Yeah,
Lexi Raines 32:00
So,it sounds like you again, you’re very, very busy person. How do you, like, create a good work life balance where you’re able to maintain both, like, your professional creativity and your personal creativity. That
Evelyn Berry 32:15
Can be hard sometimes. You know, I think one of the challenges that you run into, like I write for work, and so when I’m done sitting at a computer for eight hours, I don’t want to go sit at a computer anymore. So one of the things I do is prioritize my personal creativity. I think of that as you know, despite the fact that it doesn’t make me as much money, it is the thing that I want to give, like the best part of myself to, which is why I tried to do it before work, right? You know, I say that’s a typical day, but, you know, maybe going and spending time with other writers happens maybe once a week. You know, I’m also very conscious, and even more so these days of like self care, make sure to have time to myself. One of the huge benefits of working at the library where I work is that it has a big emphasis on work life balance. So we have open PTO, which means we can basically take as much PTO as we need. I’m able to work from home one day a week, which is where I am now. I’m not at work right now or not at the workplace. So, you know, it allows the flexibility, which is really great because, you know, I work with people, with families who, you know, need to like to pick up their kids from school in the middle of the day or drop their kids off at daycare. And it’s really nice to work for both a organization as well as for a manager who cares about your personal well being like, beyond anything else, like the actual parts of my job, sometimes they’re fine, like, I like writing articles, but a lot of it’s very boring. It’s very boring writing. It’s very technical, it’s very straightforward, but that doesn’t really matter to me, because what’s more important is that I’ve chosen a career that can sustain me enough that I have the energy and the time and the ability to pursue my creative passions. So for example, like last year, I went on book tour for grief slut. And, you know, I was able to take, you know, several days off, sometimes weeks, or like, a week at a time, to go travel around the country and tour this book. And it was really important to have support from the organization. Person I was working for. And not everyone has that. So like, you know, if, again, you know, if I’m would give advice to someone, I’d say, like, you know, think about the values of the people for whom you’re working, because they will also, you know, sometimes help shape you will they see, like, your art career as something that supplements them, like it’s like something that they’re very happy about, or do they see it as a rival for their time? And so if you can find someone who supports your art as well as your livelihood, it’s a really beautiful thing. I agree.
Lexi Raines 35:39
That is, I want to find would be an amazing opportunity for a lot of people.
