Henry Hoke
(2000-2001)
How would you characterize the influence of your YWW experience in your life?
Boundless. Full of lifelong friendships. Constantly motivating me to create community.
What’s the best advice you can give a Young Writer (in general or in your specific genre)?
Let your genres bleed into others. Turn your poetry into plays. Turn your novel into a 30-second song. Turn your journal into fiction. Turn your pages into a fire and invite your friends over to warm themselves. Place canned goods, still in their cans, into the fire and talk about what’s next. At some unexpected moment the canned goods will explode and scatter burning work everywhere. Scare yourselves.
What do you find yourself most often reading or listening to lately and why?
Street signs, Calvin and Hobbes, non-fiction about unexplained mysteries. I drive around blaring The-Dream, The Shangri-Las and Prince. Old Scott Walker in the morning and new Scott Walker at night. When I write I listen to Eccojams and Body God because it helps me to be haunted.