Check Out Christina Chady’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Chady.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

Writing has always been a part of who I am. When I was younger, I was an avid reader, and above everything else, I always admired writers–how I could become absorbed in their words, their worlds, and go far beyond the confines of my reality. I craved that expanse and that exhilaration, and I wanted to be able to do the same.

I surrounded myself with the arts and writing. Ever since high school, I’ve worked with various literary magazines. After undergrad, that passion led me to River Styx, a literary magazine based in St. Louis, where after interning for a year I became their Managing Editor. During this same time, I was applying to MFA Creative Writing programs to take my writing practice more seriously and was soon accepted into the Jack Kerouac School.

My experience there was transformative. I loved studying more experimental literature and writing at the base of the Flat Irons in Boulder. My community was supportive as I explored and tuned into myself and my values as a writer. Their contemplative approach to writing helped me to embrace the beautiful, sometimes chaotic process of creation.

My time at Naropa University gave me multiple creative outlets and communities that are still my lifeblood. I founded Tiny Spoon, an experimental literary magazine, with my creative partner Stephanie Hempel. Our organization is now about to release our eleventh issue, and we’ve expanded our reach to include a residency and workshop. I am always amazed and grateful for the inclusive, compassionate community we’ve fostered. I am also a part of Wisdom Body Collective, an artist collective that embraces the feminine spirit of creativity. In addition to writing together, we’ve published multiple collections, including More Revolutionary Letters: a Tribute to Diane di Prima. These are just a couple of the numerous creative circles I’ve found myself in the past few years.

In addition to being a part of these communities, I am working on multiple writing projects. One major project that I’ve worked on since 2020 is an anthology based on audio recordings from the Jack Kerouac School archive. This collection Embodied Unconscious: the feminine space of sexuality, surrealism, and experimentation in literature is being printed in late Fall 2023 with Spuyten Duyvil Press.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

My writing journey has been a winding road. To extend the metaphor, I think that once I started taking myself more seriously as a writer, that I was going to write and edit and be a part of a community, the journey started to unfold. Once you have that vision and conviction to follow a creative passion, you have some sense of direction, but you also don’t necessarily know what’s around the next bend––if you’re still driving up the mountain along the side of a cliff if the next rest area is closed and there won’t be another for 45 miles, or if you’re looking over a waving field of wildflowers.

One of the most difficult things I initially had to overcome was taking myself seriously as a writer. It took me a long time to feel like I could call myself a writer. I was always waiting for some kind of proof that would make it official. Because I respected writers so much, I initially had massive imposter syndrome to give myself that label. But the wonderful thing about writers is it’s quite simple–writers write. Once I gave myself that permission to explore and delve deeper into the discipline and engage with a broader community, everything opened. I applied and attended my MFA which forever inspired and altered my mindset and found numerous communities to foster my creativity.

One thing I’ve learned and am still learning is how to embrace different parts of the creative process. In today’s society, we are made to feel like we always need to be producing, always need to be busy, but this doesn’t reflect the creative process. There are moments in time when we are highly energized and in a frenzy to finish a project, but there are other times when we need stillness and rest. I’m finding the balance within my practice. We have to follow the ebb and flow of the creative energy and have trust in the process. Sometimes we have to be a receptacle for other people’s art and observe the world around us. We have to winter our interior to blossom new works.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

Writing, editing, and community are all entwined for me. In addition to my writing practice, I love to uphold other’s voices and give them platforms to share their work. Feeling a sense of belonging in a writing community fills me with the greatest joy, and especially as an editor I’ve cultivated these spaces.

I’m immensely proud of how my literary magazine Tiny Spoon has expanded over the past five years. We had humble beginnings, printing covertly on our school’s printers and hand-binding each issue with thread, and immense passion that I think attracted people to our orbit. We have always been welcoming, inclusive, and energetic, and it resonates with a lot of people who have found their way to us. It’s exciting that going to different writing events people will sometimes know Stephanie and me as Tiny Spoon, and even more exciting to hear how much they appreciate the work we do to bring together people and writing. My dedication not only to writing but to my community drives all that I do.

This value of bringing together voices and community also influenced my recent anthology Embodied Unconscious. My goal with this project was to bring together a lineage of women poets to showcase how we continue to engage with writers of the past and how similar themes continue to arrive and evolve in the present. It shows the continuum of creation. The anthology constellations discourse across three generations. I invited other women writers of my MFA program to join in transcribing lectures by prominent figures like Bernadette Mayer, Joanne Kyger, and Jane Augustine from the Jack Kerouac School archive. Each lecture takes place somewhere from the 1970s-2000s and delves into women writers and poets of the twentieth century.

Many of the poets discussed, including Gertrude Stein, H.D., Mina Loy, Lorine Neidecker, and Clarice Lispector, have been influential to modern poetics, however, are not always discussed as readily as some of their male counterparts. Even so, they are often defined by the men around them, be it their editors, friends, husbands, or colleagues. Through their intricate and intersecting attention to linguistics, history, myth, and experience, they cultivate expressive feminine language with innovative practices.

With the anthology, I wanted to evoke these phenomenal figures from the past and show how we can take inspiration from their approaches to expand the boundaries of language. In “interludes” for each section, the other women who transcribed the anthology and I reflect on how these ideas are transferred into the contemporary moment, how through engaging with our predecessors and experimenting in our practices we continue to carve out a feminine language and space.

We discuss feminist criticism, the necessity to forge a language of, by, and through a woman’s body to more fully and truly represent our lived experiences. The anthology carries the spirit of the Jack Kerouac School, in that alongside discussions of important themes, it is rooted in how to take inspiration as writers and experiment with our craft. It includes generative writing invitations inspired by the lectures so that as people read, they can also be engaging and experimenting with their practice.

As the anthology moves into the next phases of its life after print, I hope to host workshops to bring its teachings and inspirations to more people in a different format. All this I have yet to plan, but I’m looking forward to what events I might be able to lead in the next year.

How do you think about luck?
Luck is an interesting concept. There might be a bit of kismet to some things coming together as well as they do, but I think that the majority of my successes come from my motivation and commitment to seeing work through.

Being creative is interesting. Aside from yourself, there is no one else who is truly as invested in you are in seeing your art come to fruition. At the end of the day, it’s you and your practice and how much you are able and willing to give it. That isn’t to say that other people and the community aren’t important; a lot of my inspiration and drive comes from my ties to others, but no one else is holding my hand, guiding me to write. No one else will know if I’m keeping track of my word count or project timelines.

I would say that I am lucky because my day job is rather flexible, allowing me time to spend on my writing and editing. I am also lucky that I’ve found a wonderful corner of the writing community, with my time in St. Louis and at my MFA at the Jack Kerouac School. I am surrounded by so many people who are caring and generous.

They are deeply invested in their work, and equally as passionate to help others, including myself, on our journeys. Being surrounded by so many people who are also doing amazing things and who are so supportive makes a big difference, especially when something like writing can oftentimes be more solitary work. I have this strong center and foundation that is the wellspring of my motivation. I’m truly grateful for it.

Pricing:

• Embodied Unconscious anthology – $30 – https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/embodied-unconscious.html
• Tiny Spoon literary magazine – $10 – https://tinyspoon.org/

Contact Info:

• Website: CMChady.com
• Instagram: @C.M.Chady @EmbodiedUnconscious
• Other: https://tinyspoon.org/, https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/embodied-unconscious.html

Image Credits
Cover art of Embodied Unconscious: “Surreal Scene” by Mina Loy