Heather Bartel is a writer and founder of the women-owned and operated literary journal The Champagne Room. She reveals her unique style and obsessions as a writer and editor, and how these contribute to the entire conversation of her work.
[IHS] Your nonfiction pieces The Knife Speaks and Murmurations(I): First Memory of Birds are two completely different, yet brilliant pieces of writing. I noticed that you have a rhythm in your writing that is reflected in the craft elements. You make it seem so effortless! What is the process of editing for you and going back to make the piece “flow” better?
[HB] In the writing of both of these pieces, a lot of the initial crafting was intuitive. I often writea draft without punctuation to get into the flow of my writing. I temporarily forgetstructure and get everything out and then once I’m done, I revisit it and begin editing.After I revisit, I discovered the need for commas, punctuation, breaks in the pages, change thepacing, etc. Letting the writing take off and getting into that “flow” intuitively is important firstand foremost; figuring out how to construct it comes secondary for me.
[IHS] Do you ever get inspired by work submitted to The Champagne Room? How do the submissions you read influence what you look for in future submitted works?
[HB] I am inspired by so many of our submissions. Obviously, we can't accept all of them..but Ithink about those words all of the time. We read pieces that make me want to keep writing, because I want my writing to be in conversation with these voices. I am constantly inspired. We like to have an unspoken theme for every issue related to the cover art, which we tend to decide on before we begin accepting submissions. We don’t solicit work based on a theme. However, when we read, we start to think about what we are looking for. For example, for issue two our cover art was a mouth. The mouth was an interpretation of a room, as a place where stories were being told. We started reading pieces and realized that this links to our cover image, and this links to the notion of storytelling and conversation, secrets kept, swallowing things, and blurting things out. The more pieces we read, the more we see the ways in which certain submissions are in conversation with one another. They complement each other well. It’s really just a process of reading through all the submissions and starting to get a feel of what works.
[IHS] Does being an author and someone who also submits to other presses andjournals influence the way you look at a piece that wants publication in yourjournal? If so, how?
[HB] Being both an editor and a writer who submits to journals, I feel that I have a betterunderstanding of the whole process now. For example, sometimes Emma and I read apiece we really like, but decide it's not a fit for the journal for whatever reason. Suddenly, Irealize the same reason why I get rejected in some journals. They do actually like it- It justdoesn't fit in their journal at that moment in time for a specific reason. It's nice to have thatrealization about my own writing, and to look at other authors' writing and think, “they aredoing a great job, this just isn’t the right space or the right time for this piece.”
[IHS] From observing the pieces you have previously published, they both are unique and different in their own way but still have moments where the texts seem they could be related. As a writer, do you believe it is more important to stick to a particular type of writing that makes a writer’s work more identifiable or is it important to create balance and publish pieces that show your talents and creativity as a writer?
[HB] I think both of those happen regardless of which one you're focusing on. For example, for thetwo pieces that you read, they were written two years apart. I was thinking about differentthings, I was reading different things, I was experiencing different things, but I've remaininterested in and a little bit obsessed with this notion of disappearing women, the types of wayswomen can disappear, and sometimes that means dying and sometimes it doesn’t. That isdefinitely a thread I am always revisiting, whether I’m conscious of that or not. I think the same istrue for a lot of writers. I think that your obsessions come out in everything you write and that
tends to become a conservation within your work. People will recognize oh, this lady is alwayswriting about women disappearing, or always writing about mirrors; mirrors come up a lot too.
"You can try to fight your obsessions and showcase a bunch of different styles, but I think they’re going to come up no matter what or how you write." - Heather Bartel
I definitely notice it in the authors I like to read. You tend to pick up on their common themes or obsessions so I think it's pretty natural and I think it makes it more interesting to want to stick with the writer because you’re ultimately writing the same thing over and over, at least that’s what I’m always doing. I often feel like I’m repeating myself but I guess what I’m actually doing is looking at the same thing from everypossible angle.
[IHS] What inspired you to create the “Contributor Conversations” in your women-ownedliterary journal The Champagne Room? How do you think this benefits other writers?
I have my co-editor Emma, who goes by E.A. Midnight, to thank for the contributorconversations. That was her idea and she runs that portion of our website. We both want tocreate a community and we both want our writers to feel like they’re part of something biggerthan the journal. The journal is extremely important, but by asking these writers more questionsabout their processes and what they are reading and what advice they have to give, we hope that itmakes them feel like we care about them beyond the publication. We want to keep talking, wewant to promote you, and we want to continue to support our contributors beyond publication.That was the ultimate goal, to keep a conversation going. We get a lot of good feedback and Ihave always loved to read what the writers have to say.
Writers tend to be excited about it. We say this is all for you, we just want to talk to you more.You can answer all of the questions or none of the questions and typically, people are thrilledand they respond quickly, and are happy to answer more questions. Being a writer can be veryisolating and everyone says you spend all of that time in your head and it is nice to get to talkabout the process with other people who are interested in that process.
[IHS] I noticed you are holding your first writing workshop meant to influence and guide you to “get their hands in motion.” As more established writers, what has influenced you to writeespecially during times where you feel emotionally uncreative? What advice do you wish you had received as an aspiring writer?
What I am learning is that community is so essential to writing your way through the uncreativeperiods. Working with Emma is extremely important for me. We try to write together sometimes
but don’t live in the same place. Emma lives in Colorado and I live in Georgia so we are on Zoomevery week. We still accomplish a lot in that way and we try to schedule times to write together.We are going to sit here with our computers on for ten minutes and then we are going to readeach other whatever line, just very basic things to try to remind ourselves that no matter howbusy we get or not matter how uncreative we are feeling, we still have something in us and
it’s good to just get started. That community is essential for me. I also recently have liked the idea ofmaintaining a routine, but I am not good at it. I think actually getting into a routine is helpful. Ireally admire writers who say “I write for thirty minutes every morning” or “I write for two hoursevery afternoon.” I’m like “Wow, I don’t.” But I think a little more structure can be helpfulbecause it’s like any other habit you just get into it and suddenly you are there every day. I alsoget stuck in an editor's brain a lot of the time, and these days, I am writing but I am writing veryslowly because I have more work to do as an editor. I am working right now on just being kind tomyself because of the fact that I am spending more hours editing than writing, and that’s goodand that’s okay. The writing will get done.
Heather Bartel is founder and co-editor of the literary journal and community,The Champagne Room. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Qu,MAYDAY, Grimoire, Miracle Monocle, Fence, Heavy Feather Review, Leavings,and Birdcoat Quarterly.
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