Contributor Spotlight: Nance Van Winckel
Nance Van Winckel’s hybrid work is part of Issue 76 of Bellingham Review. Subscribe or purchase a single issue through our Submittable page here.
What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?
These pages are excerpts from a book in progress called Sister Zero: A Memoir of the End Times. It concerns the suicide of my younger sister at age 34 and 18 years later the suicide of her son, my nephew. The 1964 New York World’s Fair was a place my sister and I visited with our parents when we were kids and thought the future was going to be as grand as the guide book and fair promised.
Tell us about your writing life.
I like moving between writing projects. I generally have at least a couple, often three, book projects I’m working on simultaneously. I’ll stick with one book for several days or maybe a few weeks, then set it aside and work on something else. I like how “refreshed” I feel when I reconnect to the project I set aside. Also, often these projects are in very different draft states: early to very late stage tinkering and editing.
Which non-writing aspect(s) of your life most influences your writing?
I do appreciate artwork, especially graffiti. I’m an urban walker, and I love to see murals and graffiti as I walk through towns.
What project(s) are you working on now, or next?
I’m working on a new “altered book,” in this case a public domain children’s book from the early 1900’s. I’m rewriting the text to go with the beautiful old illustrations.
Where can our readers connect with you online?
http://www.nancevanwinckel.com is my literary website, and http://photoemsbynancevanwinckel.zenfolio.com is my text-based visual art website.
NANCE VAN WINCKEL is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Our Foreigner, winner of the Pacific Coast Poetry Prize (Beyond Baroque Press, 2017) and Book of No Ledge (Pleiades Press Visual Poetry Series, 2016). Of her five books of fiction, Ever Yrs, a scrapbook novel (Twisted Road Publications, 2014), is her most recent. The recipient of two NEA poetry fellowships, the Paterson Fiction Prize, a Christopher Isherwood Fiction Fellowship, and three Pushcart Prizes, Nance teaches in the MFA Programs at Eastern Washington University and Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Featured Image: “Ghost of ’64” by scott braun