Introduction

In this first episode,  I describe the Too Lit To Quit mission statement and introduce you to a little bit about myself.

Transcript

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Hi, and welcome to Tula to Quit, the podcast for literary writers. Tula to Quit is an educational podcast documenting and commiserating on all things literary and writerly. I am your host, Terry Lynn Davis. In our first episode, I'm going to describe the Tulip To Quit mission statement and introduce you to a little bit about myself. All right. And here we go. All right. So I started this podcast because first off, I love podcasts and I love writing, especially in the literary world. The literary world is such a distinct culture that not many people understand. And I've looked for podcasts like this for years, and I've never come across one that had everything that I really wanted in it. So I decided to make it myself. In this podcast and kind of our mission statement, I'm going to share information on lit world culture. They may include submitting, publishing, working for litmax often volunteering is the better word. The MFA programs. Low residency is a high residency. I don't know, but full residency. I think that's the term workshops, workshopping, workshops that you may pay for asking for blurbs. I haven't done that yet or had the privilege of asking for one yet. But we can find people that have. And hopefully one day I will also be asking for blurbs. We'll talk about craft. We could talk about writing novels, writing poetry, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, book reviews. A lot of people in the literary world teach. We'll talk about teaching writing proposals for grants, and we will share personal anecdotes of tragedy and triumph. I always kind of feel weird about the term emerging writer, but I guess I am one, as are many writers that may be listening to this podcast. And I'm going to document my own journey in lit world. Like I have said, it's a strange culture that not a lot of people understand. And when I first started thinking about publishing in the literary world, I really didn't know what I was doing. And I don't know anybody in my personal life that does this kind of thing. So I was really craving or desiring someone to kind of tell me what I needed to know. How do I even go about doing this, being a literary writer? Like how? But I've learned a lot just being immersed in the culture, and we can talk a lot about how I've done that. What I've learned, what I still would like to know. I have had a few publications in literary journals. I've gotten accepted into some workshops, and I've created a chat box that I've sent out. So I'm very much new. But I know that when I was first starting out, I would have wanted information from someone like me that has had things published. I had no idea how you even created a chat book a full length. I didn't know the difference. So that's why I think this podcast is good, because I'm not necessarily so far in my career, I say career with quotation marks that I have forgotten what it feels like to want to know all of these answers. And so that's why I'm doing this. So someone like me, someone first starting out, someone that's going through this strange process with me and trying to be a literary writer and get some recognition, some respect, some sort of reputation in the literary world. They may find this podcast helpful for that, and hopefully they will. So in this podcast, of course, I'll document my own journey, my own process. But also I'm planning on inviting guest cohosts to get their perspective, because something you'll understand in the lit world is that there are polar opposite experiences and thoughts about a lot of things, and that can be pretty overwhelming. So I'd love to get other co Ops on just to give different perspectives, et cetera. And then interviewing writers and publishers, getting them to talk about their work, getting them to talk about anything, really anything is helpful. So that's kind of my mission statement. We're going to share information on the lit world that you may not know yet or that you can commiserate with and kind of laugh about and also be like, yeah, that is so true. We'll talk about that. I'll document my own journey. I'm so new with publishing, and as a literary writer, I'm completely unknown. I assume I'm pretty unknown right now. So then I'll get to talk to people, to other writers and publishers about this passion really that it just consumes my life. And I want to talk about that on that podcast. And I want to meet people and just kind of like articulate why we do the things we do, how we get to where we want to be, you know, everything that goes into being a literary writer. So I chose the name Too Lit to quit. After looking at podcast names, I originally thought that it was kind of funny. It would be kind of funny to have a podcast named Write, Weep, Repeat, but I cannot pronounce that with any sort of regularity. So I said, no, I can't do that. So to let to quit. I think it's perfect for how I feel about writing in general. So writing in general is kind of just this thankless act in obscurity. And I am too much of a writer to let that stop me. I care too much about writing and being a part of the literary world for rejection, for obscurity, for all of that to stop me from doing this and letting this consume my life because it does literary world writing just I am surrounded by it completely online. And then that is the only way I get any sort of anything from the lit world, which is why it's so isolating. And this is another way for me to kind of build community. I love podcasting for it kind of for just the intimacy sometimes that you can have when listening to someone use voice. So it's just another medium for me to kind of play. And we can talk more about podcasting, too, and how I've started this. And a lot of it is I'm very much learning as I go. So too, let's quit. It means I am too much of a literary person to ever quit this. I am too obsessed, far too obsessed to let rejection, to let obscurity, to let. I don't know. Why do we do this? I don't know. I just do. I can't help it. I'm too lit to quit this. I cannot quit you literary world. I can't do it, and I don't want to. I hope to never end this. So another thing I wanted to use this episode for this first episode is to kind of explain, like, who I am. Yes. I'm Terry Lynn Davis. That's my name. But also why I'm doing this, like, some of my background. Because I think background matters. I think it's I think it just matters on how much, like, what you do for a living, your support. So I'm an adjunct English teacher. I teach writing composition to freshmen. I teach at a local state University here in Connecticut. And I've been doing that since 2020, pretty much about 2020, right when Covet hit, actually. And I'm also an associate editor and advisory poetry editor for Five South, which is an online literary magazine. So that's kind of what I do at this point. And I'll, of course, talk more about that in the future. So as far as background goes, I would say I'm from a blue collar family. My dad's a Carpenter. My mom worked in offices and jobs like that. She works in the food industry right now. It's like a Baker. My dad still works as a Carpenter. I'm a first generation student. I didn't go back to school. I did graduate high school, barely. I graduated in high school, barely. I tell the story a lot that I did not know if I was going to graduate or not actually in my senior year. And I was too afraid to ask if I was going to graduate because I knew it was going to be close. So when they let me buy a cap and gown, I was like, okay, I guess I made it. And that is legitimate. I did. I was able to graduate, but I did not go back to school until I was 28 for an undergrad. Before that, I was a massage therapist, which was a great trade job. I'm still licensed. I haven't since COVID, because that's probably self explanatory. It's just harder to work in that kind of environment. Covid. I went back to school and I decided I'm going to be an English teacher. I like books, things like that. I've always liked to read. I'd skip school and I'd go to, like, Borders or Barnes and Noble, and I would just sit there and read. I would sit and read a novel in class instead of doing like, schoolwork. My undergrad was in English and I was always told with my father, he dropped out of high school. So I was always told, if you go to College, you better find you have a degree that you get a job with immediately. So I thought, okay, teaching. I think I could do that. And so I got a Bachelor of Science in English with the concentration and teaching secondary education, and I was certified in that. I have not worked as one. So I decided I actually got pregnant with my second child pretty much right after graduation again. I was 30 at this time or something. And I was like, no, I don't really want to work as a teacher in the public school system just yet. So I went back to I went back to the same school I was just at, and I decided to get MFA. And I thought that it would make more sense to get an MFA. I didn't really plan on adjuncting. I just thought, okay, I have to get a master's degree for teaching anyway. I'll just do it now and get paid more. So yeah, I went back to get an MFA in creative writing. My concentration was in poetry. Was not able to move or anything like that because I have kids here and just couldn't move to a fully funded MFA program. So it was completely like a full residency. They gave me as much funding as they could, but it was definitely not completely funded. I have student loans from it, even though they were able to give me a little bit of something. So we will definitely talk more about fully funded versus unfunded MFA programs and how I felt about it, how other people feel about it. Because of the MFA, I was able to teach at the College I went to school at. So now I adjunct there and teach English to freshmen. I use Monster theory and monsters and pop culture and fear and pop culture to teach writing composition. I do it because it entertains me. And the freshmen are often not English majors and just don't really care about English, but I find that they really like the topic of monsters and fear. So we have a lot of fun. So I do teach and I do kind of have a teaching background. Another thing about my lifestyle is I have three kids. I have an eleven year old, a three year old and a six month old. And I have a boyfriend who I live with. We live together. We've lived together for like eight or nine years now. I call him my cohabi, aka Cohabitant. So if you hear me say cohabi, that's my boyfriend. I teach part time and he has a full time job. That's fairly good, which is why I'm able to do things like volunteer at like a lit Mag for free, for instance, and teach part time and do this podcast. So I want to make that clear that I do not have a full time job Besides my part time work as an adjunct and staying home with children, which is another thing we can talk about. And my cohabi also has no idea anything about writing. He doesn't really care. He supports me, of course, but he doesn't like get the obsession. He doesn't really understand. And I know a lot of writers do. I think have maybe writer partners. I'm not sure if that's true. That's just maybe an assumption I have. So he doesn't really get it. And that's another reason why I want to do this podcast because can I talk to somebody that understands my obsessions? And Twitter is great for this because I would not know anything if it were not for Twitter. A tweet is what actually started this podcast and gave me the courage to pursue this project which I've been hoping to pursue for really years now. So I mainly write poetry, but I'm interested in everything. I'm interested in creative nonfiction and flash fiction. I want to have guests on here that write mainly like short stories and novels. I'm interested in book reviews, criticism. I'm interested in it all. So no matter what genre you writing, if you're a literary writer, if you're interested in writing that big novel, if you're interested in nonfiction poetry, we will have something for everybody on here. If you're not a poet, that is totally fine because I am a poet, but I sometimes don't feel like one. I forget what writing a poem even is pretty much every single time. And that's I think something I've learned from Twitter is that it's actually pretty common and it's something I would not have known if I was not somewhat involved in the literary community. So I hope that you'll find this useful and I am talking to myself right now, but I imagine that I'm talking to other interested people and I'm excited, I'm excited to get this going. So hang in there with me and we'll have content for you every week and this is the first episode and many more to come. Thank you. That concludes this week of two. Let's quit. If you like what you heard and you want to hear more, be sure to subscribe rate the podcast and share with your friends. As always, I'm your host, Terry Lynn Davis, and we'll see you next time.