Ben Westlie, author of Run From Your Now
Poetry Category, sponsored by Wellington Management, Inc.
Each week leading up to the 37th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What inspired you to write this book – or inspired you while writing it?
I have such a respect for those who show their vulnerability. I have always admired just how human it makes us all on a daily basis. The courageousness to risk showing to loved ones, strangers, partners what you may fear the most about yourself or what you feel makes you feel less relevant only creates more connectedness. I wanted to write a book that on every page there was space for that revelation and companionship and togetherness.
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
I have bilateral vision. This means my eyes can never work together and because of this it can cause lazy eyes and at time I see double or in a conversation my eyes can still wander. This physical abnormality is uncommon, but common enough to shine a light on. It can alter how people view you and how seriously people take you both socially and professionally. My femininity. I want to always celebrate being a queer man. I know sexuality has been and is celebrated with many outlets, but being a feminine male and their acceptance from their communities can always have more space.
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
Carly Swenson. Her incredible inspirations through her own Art and for her twenty years of love, kindness, and support of my poetry even when I had that villain of self-doubt haunting me was instrumental. Carly’s candidness of her own mental health experiences and the importance of never shaming or blaming has been a beacon in my own life and my book and the subject matter I risked to write about to ensure stability and self-worth and love. A true goddess. I’m forever grateful.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known. (It doesn’t have to be about the book in question – or even about your writing at all!)
I hope someday I won’t be frightened to attempt being a comedian because laughter and making someone laugh is the sweetness and most moving sound of all.
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
A library to me is a sanctuary. A place where everyone is invited, and treated with excitement to learn or to be inspired or to dream. I can wholeheartedly convey my love for books and the passion the passion, and determination to trust education and the importance of writers is because of my hometown library in Bemidji, Minnesota. Libraries save lives.
Ben Westlie holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in the anthology Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 selected and edited by Naomi Shihab Nye and many journals. He has been a guest editor for Split Rock Review.