A chat between Lucy K Shaw & Sarah Jean Alexander on self-publishing their upcoming books, the 10 year anniversary of their literary magazine Shabby Doll House, and how we all keep growing older, together.

Why?

Sarah Jean Alexander: It started with one poem. I hadn’t written anything substantial for maybe 2 years, and when I wrote the poem When at Home, it felt like I could keep going. So I did. Jake and I moved for the first time in four years just a few months after the pandemic began, and everything around me was suddenly very new and vibrant. I was obsessed with how different I felt surrounded by all of our old things in a new building and started writing all these extremely domestic-feeling poems - about furniture shopping on Craigslist, researching natural bathroom cleaners,  making kimchi, fondly remembering traveling.

I shared my google doc with you and a couple other friends, and then I was being held accountable for all these poems! But the idea of publishing a book via any type of existing press made me feel nauseous. When you and I realized we had both individually written complete books, I think we simultaneously thought... why can’t we just do it ourselves? Then if the whole thing blows up in our faces, at least it’s only us!

Lucy K Shaw: Haha. Yeah, true. I just..... well, I suppose we’re talking about two different things here. My motivation for writing my book was simply that I wanted to communicate a phase of my life to a few specific people... The book started out as an email... But then the motivation for publishing it... I don’t know, I think, honestly, I just wanted to work on something with you. Like, this part of the process, where we’re editing and proofreading and formatting and designing covers and making plans for events and walking around Paris discussing acknowledgments pages, that almost feels like the objective of the exercise, sometimes. Which I suppose will shift once they’re out in the world and other people have opinions or feelings or experiences. But I’m enjoying being in this bubble at the moment, when we’re the only ones who know about this. 

SJA: It’s funny because we didn’t plan to keep this huge secret, that we were writing and publishing new books. But because it happened so fast - realizing each of our books was finished and wanting to share it with our friends - we simply didn’t have time to tell anyone! I do feel that we were extremely ambitious with the rollout timeline… it’s just impossible to know about every step and obstacle you’ll encounter when you’ve never done something before. Now I know that the pricing of a single ISBN vs a bundle is criminal. That adding page numbers to the correct pages in a Word doc is needlessly frustrating. That ‘doing something yourself’ actually requires a lot of help from friends who make the time to proofread and edit and design. Friends who purposefully and earnestly believe in the importance of art! I feel so lucky to be right here.

It’s been an exhausting couple of months though, and to be honest... it’s scary not knowing if we’re forgetting something crucial along the way! Do you feel worried that we’re being delusional?

Lucy:  I have, recently, had concerns about this, but as I’m writing this now on the train, I feel pretty good. I’m excited. I think it’s going to be fun. I like making things because it makes other people want to make things, makes them believe that they can. Like, I remember when we had our book launch for our first books (in London in 2015), and there were these students who came, and it was their first reading that wasn’t like... at a university, or something, and they were like How do you do this??? And I was telling them, You already have a group of friends, just do it together. You can do whatever you want. And I don’t know if they ever did anything, or if we were all just drunk and excited, but yeah, that’s what I’m looking forward to really, in releasing these books. As Matt Nelson told me once, Action creates a reaction. But I guess that wasn’t the question at all... You probably have to be a little delusional to write any book, which is fine.

February will be the ten year anniversary of Shabby Doll House. How do you feel about expanding into print after a decade... about our own books being published under the Shabby Doll House name?

Lucy: I feel really happy about this, because I am the biggest fan of Shabby Doll House, and because working on these books and learning how to do everything for ourselves, it feels like when Shabby Doll started. I really didn’t know anything or anybody, but just figured things out as I went along. And then also, doing it with you... I mean, what else are we going to call it? That’s just simply what it is.

SJA: It simply is Shabby Doll House!

Lucy: Do you remember when I asked you if you wanted to be the poetry editor of Shabby Doll House? I think about it all the time. New Year’s Eve 2012 and we were in a subway station somewhere in Brooklyn and I was really nervous to bring it up but then you said yes immediately. 

SJA: Yes, changed my life, honestly! Damn, we used to get nervous around each other a decade ago? Seems impossible.

Besides writing books, we’ve lived entire lives this past year, like everyone else who made it to today. In what ways do you think we’re different now?

Lucy: I don’t know but I recently met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a few years, and I was struck by how young it seemed we had once been... What about you?

SJA: We do keep getting older, it’s incredible. As you know, because I talk about it all the time, when the pandemic first hit last March I started smoking weed every day. Just something interesting to do! I’m still smoking weed every day. It’s made me a better person, lmao. 

Then my bike tire got caught in a sewer grate, I broke my jaw, and had it wired shut all winter. That changed me too… I bleached my hair because I felt like I truly understood and embraced YOLO after breaking 9 of my teeth. I walk around the city for hours, looking up at the tops of buildings like a tourist. I lie in the Ramble in my bikini and listen to birds. In general, I go outside now. I’m tan, I’m blonde, I feel like my body and mind are stronger than ever. My grandma passed away last summer at 100. Imagine the tenacity! Am I bragging? I’m eagerly removing bits of my life that don’t serve me well - not going off the grid exactly, but just, reading so many more books. I used to lose my fucking mind when I remembered I spent hours of my one precious life watching the first season of 13 Reasons Why, lol. I’m cutting myself slack, like I’m ready... to live. Without ambition! Yikes I’m a weird zen stoner and I can’t stop writing poems. Pain can make you peaceful, if you’re lucky. 

Lucy: ‘Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you’ (Frank O’Hara) was in the epigraph to my first book. But that’s the opposite of what you said, which is why your attitude towards your recovery from the accident was so impressive. I don’t think I’ve had a grand transformation... I’m the same, I think? Or I don’t know yet. I appreciate having had the opportunity to live at a slower pace for a while so that I could write the book. And I also feel like my body is stronger than ever, seeing as you brought it up, lol. I was in a 10k race yesterday and got a personal best. What was that Nietzche quote you told me about this, again?

SJA: Oh god I can’t talk abt Nietzche here lol. (amor fati !!!)

OK, we're  33. What influences you now?

Lucy: For this book, I’d say Proust, Annie Ernaux, Dennis Cooper, you. Living in a random town in Burgundy. Speaking a lot with children who are learning English. Whatever time of day it gets dark. Amy Winehouse. The -Profound Experience of Poetry Book Club. 

SJA: Forcing my vibes by getting stoned and lighting candles. Staying home by choice. Watermelon, blueberries, cucumbers. Chocolate meringues, vanilla pudding.  Everything that holds power in my life sounds like a smoothie bowl ingredient list! Swallowing is so powerful.

Troisième Vague and We Die in Italy are forthcoming from Shabby Doll House this fall. You can find more information and see the book trailer at www.shabbydollhouse.com

Lucy K Shaw wrote The Motion, WAVES and How To Be A Perfect Bride. She edits Shabby Doll House and -Profound Experience and runs the -Profound Experience of Poetry Book Club, which you’re welcome to join if you want to.

Sarah Jean Alexander is the author of the poetry collection Wildlives (2015, 2nd ed. 2018) and the chapbook Loud Idiots (2016). She has been the poetry editor of Shabby Doll House since 2013.