Writers Who Read: Abby Chew

This is the first interview in the new Writers Who Read series. Click here if you’d like to read more about this series.

Who are you?
I’m Abby Chew. I grew up in beautiful Putnam County, Indiana along Big Walnut Creek. I studied English at DePauw Univeristy and earned my MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I worked at Olney Friends School in Barnesville, Ohio for many years. It was there, teaching and working and farming raising goats with Quakers, that I re-learned to listen and re-wrote the poems that would be published as my first book of poems, Discontinued Township Roads. In 2012, I left the Midwest for a new job in California. I teach and live here in Los Angeles now, and I’m trying to figure out how to write poems in this new ecosystem. I don’t know much about deserts, but I am finding they are just as beautiful as my Midwestern creeks. The hawks I loved to see swooping up out of the poplar trees in Ohio are some of the same ones I see circling over the mountains here.

What are three beloved books you first read before the age of 12?
The first book that ever made me cry: Where the Red Fern Grows. I read it the summer between second and third grade, outside in the field beside our house. I just wept. Now, when I reread it, I have to stop before the dogs die. I read almost to the end and I stop. I also loved Madeleine L’Engle’s books, The Arm of the Starfish and The Young Unicorns and A Ring of Endless light, which quotes Sir Thomas Browne’s poem that begins “If thou could’st empty all thyself of self,/ like to a shell dishabited”– I’ve never forgotten that poem. And then there was everything by Jack London. I read them all. I still do. I read White Fang and The Call of the Wild every year.

What is one book you are always recommending to friends and family (and maybe the local barista) as an adult?
I tell everyone to read The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall, because I could’ve kept reading those adventures forever. I also recommend my friend Colin Cheney’s book Here Be Monsters—because I believe in that book and its complexity and beauty.

What is your book kryptonite–those unique elements in a book, beyond just great writing and three-dimensional characters, that make you unable to resist reading? 
When I was young, I wanted to read about the sea. I still do. But now that I live in California, now that I am far from home and unable to visit often, I hunger for books about the Midwest. Wendell Berry and Kent Haruf. I want to read about the place I lived and love.

What is your ideal time and place to read?
I love reading in the morning. As a kid, I climbed the silver maple in our backyard and read there. Now, I take Alice, my big white dog, to the park and read there, under a tree. Reading outside has always been my first choice. Reading in shaded light.

Which books have had the biggest influence on your writing?
For me, it’s more poets and authors than specific books. Jack London, as I said. But also Chris Offut, Emily Dickinson, James Wright, James Galvin, H.D., Dean Young, Wendell Berry, Willa Cather, Edward Abbey. The authors who write about land because they can’t stop. Writers who have a sense of humor but know how to strike you down with the real heart of the matter at the end.

How do you balance reading and writing in your life?
Because I teach high school, I read for my classes. As I plan my classes, I try to choose books I want to read again or books I want to read with someone else, books I am excited to open.

Choose your penned poison: ebook, physical book, or audio book?
I love audio books! For two years, I was driving forty miles or so between my house and my boyfriend’s house (we live together now, finally!). And audio books saved me. A gal can deal with only so much NPR. And I listen to whatever is free at the library. The Twilight series? I listened to it. But also The Tie That Binds and Prodigal Summer and The Golden Compass and some terrible mystery novels. Loved them all, though, because they were taking me off this damn California freeway.

Do you consciously plan your future reading–i.e., set book goals, keep a TBR list, participate in book challenges or book clubs? Why or why not?
I don’t. Or perhaps I don’t in that way. Perhaps I set a list a bit in the way I plan my classes. But often, I find a book at a library or a book store or on a friend’s shelf, and I say, “This is the one,” and I read it. It feels more like a happy treasure that way. That’s how I first read All the Pretty Horses when I was in high school. I picked it up off a remainder table at a local book store. And I felt like I had discovered a great secret. Of course, it had already won the National Book Award. But I had found it! On my own!

What are you reading now?
Ron Silliman just recommended Lorine Niedecker to me after reading a few of my poems. How did I never know about Lorine Niedecker? She is amazing! So I am reading all of her poems.

I’m also reading The Wild Braid, a beautiful book by Stanley Kunitz very late in his life—all about his garden and poems and the earth. Oh, I’m in love with it. Everyone should read this book! Give it as a gift to every gardener and poet you know. It is beautiful.

Find out more about Abby or Discontinued Township Roads at her website or on Facebook.