From rejections to comparisons to distractions, writers enter a minefield of challenges when we sit down to create. Living in a world of ideas, writers can easily become disconnected and often need concrete reminders to practice self-care and embrace to the world around us. Writers are warmly encouraged to connect with ourselves, nature, and community in the essay collection A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self Care for Writers (University of Akron Press, 2024). Edited by Mary Biddinger and Julie Brooks Barbour, the collection offers tidbits of wisdom through narrative reflections and concrete practice suggestions. Charles Jensen defines rituals for writers beyond the pat advice of writing daily. Kelli Russell Agodon considers the siren call of social media and other modern-day distractions. Abayomi Animashaun recalls an incident with a famous writer that led him to dig deep for his heartfelt reasons for writing. Jenny Sadre-Orafai finds connection while walking and listening to writing podcasts. Other contributors share stories and insights about boundary setting, physical exercise, nature, and more.
Mary Biddinger, a poet and flash fiction writer in Akron, Ohio, teaches at the University of Akron. Her email signature reads: please do not feel obligated to reply to this email outside of working hours. This is a window into her ethos of boundaries and compassion for others. I connected with Biddinger over a series of delightful email exchanges to discuss compiling this collection, the many definitions of self-care, and the specific challenges of the writing life.
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The Rumpus: The essays in A Mollusk Without a Shell offer such richness and variability in ways writers can take care of themselves. I’m a mental health therapist and a newer writer, and I am often grateful for my years of practice and learning about self-care, because writing can be challenging. How has working on this book enriched your understanding and experiences of self-care?
Biddinger: The University of Akron Press peer review process involved us presenting the manuscript to a group of faculty from different disciplines, including art history and French, and I was grateful for their thoughts on how A Mollusk Without a Shell contains useful insights for readers from many disciplines and backgrounds. I do not believe that I have received input from a mental health therapist until now, and I am thrilled to hear that the book was useful.
Julie and I went into the project with our own ideas of self-care, which involve plenty of quiet time with cats and perhaps a bit of chocolate, too, but the ten essayists helped us expand the possibilities of what self-care can look like. For example, Charlie Jensen’s essay about the ritual of keeping track of words written was a revelation for me, as was Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s essay on how going for walks and listening to podcasts can be part of self-care practice. Once I started working with this topic, I found myself looking for self-care opportunities everywhere. I’m actually watching birds outside my window as I type these responses—a favorite way to detach from stress.
Rumpus: I love that idea of looking for self-care opportunities everywhere. It is true that at any given moment, we can check in with ourselves and the world around us. Tell me about the process of collaborating with Julie Brooks Barbour to put this collection together.
Biddinger: Julie and I are friends who became like family during the pandemic. Do we live nearby to each other? Not at all—I’m in Akron, Ohio, and she’s in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. But Zoom and phone calls allowed us to frequently be in touch. Every week, we spent equal time chatting about everything from pandemic teaching to our teen children to the goth music we both love and also sharing new poems with each other. This project grew out of our regular conversations and started as an idea, but once we began moving forward, we could not stop working on it. The world needed this book, and it was our duty to make it happen.
Rumpus: While many writers are accustomed to isolation, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is always healthy. This difficult balance between the need for solitude and community seems to be a theme in the book.
Biddinger: I agree that the balance between the need for solitude and desire for some sort of community is a theme that arose from the essays in Mollusk. I have grappled with this myself. For example, I recall a lonesome afternoon when I was sitting in my university’s student union reading—it was probably November of 2020—and there were no other people in sight. Previously I had joked about how nice the quiet buildings were. So few questions and problems, an introvert’s dream! I taught dual delivery that semester and scurried from one building to the next with a tumbleweed of cables and my laptop, as one of few faculty teaching on campus. But in that solitary reading moment, I felt the sadness of vacancy around me. The experience made me ponder my relationship with public spaces and access to others. I used this experience, as mundane as it seems, as a springboard into a flash fiction piece about how isolation can send us directly into memories, both fond and painful.
Following this epiphany, I had a renewed enthusiasm for connecting with others, whether by attending a Zoom reading or catching up with writers and friends at events. Strangely, speaking into a webcam helped diminish some of my social anxiety, and the rest was offset by no longer caring how nerdy I seemed. When Julie and I recently launched Mollusk at the AWP conference, we were so happy to connect with friends and readers, as well as some of the contributors to the volume. We are still dazzled by how these ten essays came together to create a guide for writers from many different backgrounds.
Rumpus: How did you find the different contributors?
Biddinger: Julie and I reached out to people we knew and who we thought might be willing to write something on this subject. There were many people we queried who wanted to write an essay but weren’t able to complete one, and that was totally understandable, especially given the time. I leaned on many of my friends who were fellow poetry bloggers back when blogging was big, as I’ve been listening to their advice for so long already.
Rumpus: The essays are written by writers who create across genres but are, first and foremost, poets. Did you consider expanding the collection to writers from other genres?
Biddinger: We had poetry in mind as a starting point but made sure to include writers who work in additional genres as well as poetry. When we thought about existing books of writerly advice, many fiction and nonfiction books came to mind, so we felt that poetry deserved its due.
Rumpus: Poets often bring such rich and thoughtful language to prose, and there is such vivid language and specificity throughout the collection. The book’s title comes from the essay: “Unshelled” by Lee Ann Roripaugh. I continue to think of the vulnerability of a mollusk without a shell, and how the author describes it as an open wound surrounded by salt. How did this idea of an unshelled mollusk align with your vision for the collection?
Biddinger: Titling a book of essays is such a challenge. We decided to wait until all the essays were submitted and then decide what to name this. As previously mentioned, Julie and I are both cat people, and I was hoping that—like cats—this book would tell us what its name was after we spent some time admiring it. Lee’s mollusk image struck us as perfect for the collection’s name, and we were grateful to get permission to use it.
Rumpus: It’s a wonderful title and the cover art is gorgeous. That fox is practicing self-care by taking a little nap, right?
Biddinger: So true! We were incredibly lucky to work with Rhye Pirie, who was a senior graphic design student in the Myers School of Art at the University of Akron when he created this custom piece for the cover. In our conversations about the book and its vibes, we mentioned the satisfying design complexity of an adult coloring book page, and the vividness of classic national parks posters. I am grateful that Rhye was able to work with these ideas and create something truly original. I would love to crawl inside that image and relax.
Rumpus: The vibe of adult coloring books and National Park posters seems perfect. The book is short, just over one hundred pages, yet so packed with beautiful, insightful writing and practical suggestions. How do you recommend someone read this book?
Biddinger: Many people have told me that they did not set out to read Mollusk all in one setting, but once they started, they couldn’t put it down. Our initial intention, however, was for this to be an essay collection that readers can pop into and out of with ease, since the essays are brief. We thought this would be a good book to teach while also acknowledging that it is a book for everyone. It’s a great fit for a variety of course adoptions, but you do not have to be a student or teacher to enjoy it. I also hope that readers return to Mollusk when they need a pep talk. There’s an essay or two for every mood.
Rumpus: It is an ideal book to pull off the shelf for some inspiration and ideas. There are so many books out there about self-care but not specifically for writers. What are some of the needs particular to writers?
Biddinger: Before this project, I didn’t realize so many other writers are fellow introverts! Maybe we need a separate sub-category of essays on self-care for introverted writers. Regardless of where we are in our development as writers, or what sort of community we have, we are subject to feeling isolated at times, even if being alone is our best place for writing. The book also made me aware of how writers need to navigate the intrusion of things like the Internet. I admire how the essayists do not bring a false sense of glamour to the practice of writing. This book is honest about the mess and struggle involved in the creative process.
Rumpus: The end of each essay includes a writing prompt from the author with a specific practice suggestion for writers to bring to their practice toolboxes. The prompts enrich the essays and leave the reader with practical advice and suggestions they can bring to their creative practice immediately. This is such a wonderful and useful addition to each essay. Tell me about this idea to use prompts, and have you practiced any of the prompts?
Biddinger: I always advise my students to hang on to the prompts from our classes, since once the deadlines are gone it will be harder to write, and any kind of start can help. I frequently receive queries from former students saying hello, catching me up on their lives, and then bashfully requesting some writing prompts. We hoped that the prompts in Mollusk would be there to help get readers started, wherever they are in their writing. I have tested some of these prompts on my very willing students, and I am planning to hang out with them more this summer.
Rumpus: The book’s dedication, “To our students,” is a poignant reminder that the editors and many of the contributors are not just writers but also teachers. What do you see as some of the challenges for students learning about self-expression and craft?
Biddinger: I’m often reminded that students have previous experience with poetry—sometimes overwhelmingly positive experience—but feel distant from it when they first start a college poetry writing class. Maybe they selected the wrong answer on a test in high school, and their interpretation of a poem was deemed incorrect. Or perhaps they never read the work of writers like themselves. I try to reconnect poets with the fun of language. I encourage them to be weird and spontaneous. I also share my writerly struggles with them rather than suggesting that I have all the answers.
Rumpus: The essays certainly have that playful, experimental vibe too. Some of them also have a time capsule feel since they were written during the first few years of the pandemic, like Kelli Russell Agodon’s essay, “This Distractible Life: Trying to be Engaged in a World Longing for Your Attention.” Although her advice for the time was specific to those early pandemic days, it is still relevant today. What do you think is similar and different about life right after the pandemic began versus the needs of today?
Biddinger: I adore the way that Kelli’s authentic voice comes through in that essay. Reading it is like spending time with a good friend. I recall the initial surprise and then delight of seeing my friends at various Zoom events during the early pandemic days. We felt so isolated but also close at the same time. The other day, I participated in the Zoom release reading for the journal Cherry Tree, and that same awe and glee was present tenfold. We may have a different relationship with videoconferencing now, but those friendly, accessible events are still vital.
Rumpus: Many essays mention stressful events like the pandemic lockdown or reeling after the 2016 election. As we continue to experience more and more unrest in the world, what do you anticipate writers will need?
Biddinger: We are going to need nature more than ever before. We also need to continue being kind to each other and to uplift other writers whenever we can.
Rumpus: We must keep watching those birds outside! Yes, we need one another. We will certainly need to continue taking care of ourselves. I appreciate how this collection expands on self-care in many ways, including Jeannine Hall Gailey’s piece about disability and chronic illness and Mixby Dickon’s essay about punk rock and self-care. Tell me a bit about compiling these different perspectives.
Biddinger: Something I love about this group of essays is that each writer defines self-care in their own way. The essayists’ willingness to share what has worked for them and what hasn’t worked, is a gift in itself. Our guidelines for writing the essay were very open, and we had no idea what sort of essays we would receive. Once Julie and I compiled the essays into one document, we were stunned by the harmony found from varied perspectives.
Rumpus: We can show up for ourselves and our creative practices in so many ways. What are you hoping writers will take away from this collection?
Biddinger: Writers, you are among friends! We’re all pretty weird, and we are all struggling, but we are not alone.
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Author photograph courtesy of Mary Biddinger
