The Writers Who Read series continues this week with poet Leah Umansky. Welcome, Leah!
Who are you?
I’m a poet, a collage-artist, a writer, a writing mentor, a reader, a pop-culture junkie and a middle and high school English teacher. Straight Away the Emptied World, is my third book, and second chapbook. It’s dystopian-themed and will be out with Kattywompus Press this month. This book was highly influenced by being a single woman in the 21st century, teaching three dystopian books at the same time to middle and high school students, and obsessing over, Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven.
I am also the author of the full-length Domestic Uncertainties (Blazevox 2012), and the Mad Men-inspired Don Dreams and I Dream (Kattywompus Press 2014). I am the host and curator of the COUPLET reading series in NYC, which just turned five years old. I studied poetry in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College and as an undergrad at SUNY Binghamton.
Which book or series was your gateway into the world of reading?
My 10th grade English teacher introduced me to the world of reading. The three books that truly opened that gate were books he gave me: Wuthering Heights, The Once and Future King, and Jane Eyre. It also turned me into the anglophile I now am, but clearly, I threw myself into the realm of british literature and fantasy and never looked back.
Nowadays, what makes you crack open a book instead of pressing play on your favorite Netflix show?
This is a great question. What makes me crack open a book instead of turning to Netflix, though there’s nothing wrong with Netflix, it brought me to AMC’s Mad Men, which I’ll always be grateful for, but what makes me read is language and story. I need to be sucked into a world. I’m drawn to lyrical, experimental novels that make me feel something and make me believe in something. It’s also what I’m drawn to in poetry.
Which authors are auto-buys for you? Why?
Easy! Jeanette Winterson, Andrew Sean Greer, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Nelson, Rachel Zucker, Sharon Olds, Marie Howe, Carole Maso, Sarah Gerard, and Dena Rash Guzman.
What is your book kryptonite–those unique settings, tropes, or character types that make you unable to resist reading?
book kryptonite: love. I am all about love and the lyric. It’s what draws me. Repetition and image. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with dystopian literature, but even in there, it’s the notion of love lost or love that never dies…
What is your ideal time and place to read?
Before bed, or when traveling.
Are you a re-reader? Why or why not?
I re-read books all the time as a teacher. I’m actually dying to re-read The Once and Future King. It might be time. It’s been 20 years.
Which books have had the biggest influence on your writing? 
On my writing of this book? Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, the title of the book is phrase of one of her sentences, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. Go out and read both of them!
What makes a book a satisfying read for you?
A satisfying read I one that I dog-ear nearly every page, I annotate all over and just want to hold close to my body and never let it go. I felt that way about the H is for Hawk and Station Eleven.
What are you reading right now?
Charlie Jane Anders’ All the Birds in the Sky, Donna Vorreyer’s Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story, and I’m still trying to get into Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.
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Leah Umansky is the author of the forthcoming dystopian themed chapbook, Straight Away the Emptied World (Kattywompus Press 2016)¸ the Mad-Men inspired, Don Dreams and I Dream (Kattywompus Press 2014) and the full-length collection Domestic Uncertainties (Blazevox Books 2012). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as Poetry Magazine, The Poetry Review, Magma, Faerie Magazine, Thrush Poetry Journal, The Golden Shovel Anthology, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. Visit her website and buy her books at http://www.LeahUmansky.com.
Follow her on Twitter: @Lady_Bronte