What have you been up to these last couple of months?

I’ve been writing and reading voraciously. Anything to minimize the clanging alarm bells brought on by this election and current Administration. I have a piece forthcoming in Okay Donkey this Spring. I’m also an upcoming guest on the Poems and Whiskeypodcast by Michael C. The rest is waiting, waiting, waiting for submissions that are in progress.

What are your long-term creative plans? Are you working on something big and secret or taking it day by day?

I have a few large projects I’m working on! I have a flash/short story collection in the works and I am just wrapping up my full poetry collection. I’ll likely spend the next few months oscillating between doubt and hysterics on both of those endeavors.

What’s the status of your mental health these days? It’s in all ways prosaic to say that we live in trying times. How is the zeitgeist responsible? What are some actionable ways in which you’re taking steps to quiet the void, if any? (If it’s a glass of wine and an episode of Mad Men at the day’s end, that counts, please know that).

My mental health is middling. I’m working on slipping in daily doses of joy, as cheesy as that sounds. Every day is a new opportunity to steal pleasure. It could be writing a bonkers micro, eating a damn cookie, daydreaming, playing The Sims, or spying on the chipmunks and birds. Sometimes I sing to my cat. Whatever works.

What is something you’d like readers to take away from your work in regards to mental health advocacy, discussion, or criticism?

I think a takeaway might be that there are no heroes or villains—only people moving through pain, survival, and the messy in-between of being human. Mental health is not a battle with a clear winner, nor is it a morality play with defined roles. It is a landscape, shifting and unpredictable, where people make choices with the tools they have, often in the absence of a map. If we strip away the narratives of heroism and villainy, we might begin to see each other more clearly—not as archetypes, but as individuals carrying histories, wounds, and hopes that deserve understanding rather than judgment.

Why do you create, still, despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made slaves to?

Because to stop would be to concede that the world is only what it appears to be—cruel, transactional, indifferent. But creation is an act of defiance, a refusal to accept that the narrative is already written. I write because the world is unfinished, because language can carve out space where none existed, because even in collapse, there is the possibility of reimagining. Doubt may be the currency of the age, but so is connection. So is witness. To create is to insist that something else is possible, even if only for the length of a sentence, a poem, a breath.

When was the last time you told your psychiatrist or therapist something you were afraid to disclose? In your own words, how do you feel about going up against the stigma?

This is a difficult question. My therapist of 10 years passed away two years ago from Covid, so it’s been hard. Losing that connection—her knowing my history, my patterns, the shorthand we built over a decade—feels like being dropped halfway up Everest with no map, no oxygen, and some guy named Chad insisting I just “think positive.” A good therapist is part sherpa, part shaman, guiding you through the blizzards of your own mind, but also just a human who occasionally forgot where she put her glasses while they were on her head. It feels impossible to start over, to hand someone else the tangled ball of yarn and chewing gum that is my psyche and say, “Here, have fun.” But I know that’s false. Stigma will always be there, but so will the need to be known, to be understood. Therapy isn’t just about the person listening; it’s about the courage to keep speaking, even when the audience changes.

Anything else you’d like to share?

A deep thank you to Mary and Libre for these interviews, which carve out space for the kind of conversations that remind us we’re not just yelling into the abyss. The abyss, on occasion, yells back, and sometimes, with something useful. These dialogues matter because they challenge the silence, the stigma, and the strange, persistent idea that we have to figure it all out alone.

As for anything else to share? Just this: Keep going. Keep creating, even when it feels absurd. Keep speaking. The world is already full of noise; what it needs is more meaning, more honesty, more people willing to say, This is what it feels like to be human. Does anyone else feel this way too? Someone does. And that’s enough reason to keep trying.

What have you been up to these last couple of months?

Well, you published one of my stories, “Mothers and Daughters”! I also had a guest post in Wild Roof Journal:

https://wildroofjournal.substack.com/p/a-day-in-the-life.

My first two novels are out for consideration with small press editors, so I took some time to finalize edits on my third novel, which I’m pitching to agents as Single White Female meets Mulholland Drive with a side of Otessa Moshfegh. It’s about two next-door neighbor women in a small mountain town in southern Colorado who are obsessed with true crime and begin spying on each other. I wanted to explore female envy, obsession, and disability as it relates to body image. I just got my first full manuscript request, so I’m (cautiously) pumped.

What are your long-term creative plans? Are you working on something big and secret or taking it day by day?

Ha, see above. My first two novels are quite firmly in the literary category in that they are voice-driven character studies with less emphasis on plot. I decided to try my hand at more “marketable” fiction in my third novel, a psychological suspense. For now, I’m focusing on revising my longform fiction until it’s as sharp as it can be. I’m taking a hiatus from short fiction, even though I have a running tab of story ideas clinking about in my skull. Occasionally, I do post short essays on my Substack.

What’s the status of your mental health these days? It’s in all ways prosaic to say that we live in trying times. How is the zeitgeist responsible? What are some actionable ways in which you’re taking steps to quiet the void, if any? (If it’s a glass of wine and an episode of Mad Men at the day’s end, that counts, please know that).

My life is in flux. I’m a career civil servant with the FDA and I’m anxious every day that I’ll lose my job. To say times are stressful sounds so inadequate; I have former colleagues from another government office telling me their hair is falling out from stress and they can’t sleep more than 3 hours a night. As an autistic (plus OCD) person with a history of trauma, uncertainty scares me. New things scare me. In some ways, though, I feel more clear-eyed than I’ve ever felt, as if my long dance with trauma has primed me for this moment.

My husband reminds me to stick to what calms me, so I’ll pass that on. I go to bed early each night, I get up early to write/read/do yoga, I eat whole foods, and drink lots of water. I reach out to friends when I need to get out of my own head. I control what I can and let go of what I can’t. I write a lot, even if it’s just for me and not for publication. I reread the books I read years ago and loved. And I spend a lot of time at my local public library because I’ve always found libraries soothing.

What is something you’d like readers to take away from your work in regards to mental health advocacy, discussion, or criticism?

Mental illness is less a reflection of individual pathology and more a reflection of how a society treats its most sensitive residents. By sensitive, I mean the ones who bear witness, the ones who can’t look away. Sensitivity isn’t a weakness, it’s a necessary component of society, and some of us bear a greater burden than others. I became fascinated with this concept as a girl after I read Lois Lowry’s The Giver, convincing myself that the reason I suffered so much was because I was feeling the collective pain so others wouldn’t have to.

Many people seem to liken mental illness to disability–like it’s this thing that other people have, and it doesn’t apply to everyone. Sorry, no, anyone can become disabled at any time, and anyone can struggle with mental illness at any time. Most do and keep it hidden. I strive in all my writing to crack open a deeply personal experience in such a way that it feels universal.

Why do you create, still, despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made slaves to?

It’s a compulsion. I struggle to communicate my thoughts  at times, especially with difficult and hard-to-name experiences and emotions; on paper, words are neutralized. On paper, I have the illusion of control. Sometimes writing feels pointless in the face of the avalanche of catastrophic news, but then I remember that creating is more important than ever–it’s a form of testimony.

 When was the last time you told your psychiatrist or therapist something you were afraid to disclose? In your own words, how do you feel about going up against the stigma?

I’m always afraid to disclose. My life has been so marred by trauma that I trained myself from a young age to keep my inner experiences to myself lest I become a burden to others. As a kid, I thought I was unlovable and unworthy of love. I made myself funny in the hopes I’d be tolerated despite my brain’s quirks. I’ve learned to let that go as I age. Trauma and suffering make us myopic; they convince us our suffering is unique and special and ours alone. In reality, I’ve found that to be false. Yes, writing against the stigma can feel uncomfortable, but in doing so, I’m reminded–in the flood of comments/notes/emails from readers–that something I wrote resonated. Shame can’t live in the light, and it’s likely that if something happened to you, it happened to someone else and that person may not have the words to describe it.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Build local community. Build mutual aid networks. Share your stories even if no one is reading them (at least one person will). Take care of your body. Safeguard your energy. Talk to your neighbors. Run for local office. Get a library card.

I briefly deactivated my Instagram account because of privacy concerns, but I’ve decided to keep it up, albeit with tighter privacy settings. If anyone wants to follow along with me or reach out for a collaboration, find me there!

(And if anyone knows of job opportunities for a skilled lawyer with 11 years of public health regulatory experience, please send them my way.)

Clayre Benzadón:

What have you been up to these last couple of months?

These last couple of months, I received a book deal, for my collection titled Moon as Salted Lemon! I also was recently published by new words press and Jet Fuel Review: link, link, & link.

What are your long-term creative plans? Are you working on something big and secret or taking it day by day?

My long-term creative plans are to start working on my next book, with the tentative title Boundary Work. I’ve been involved in a weekly writing group, so my poetry has not been as secret as it usually is, but I’m also taking it day by day, also currently working on a project that includes more politically-driven poems, speaking out about what’s going on in the world today.

What’s the status of your mental health these days? It’s in all ways prosaic to say that we live in trying times. How is the zeitgeist responsible? What are some actionable ways in which you’re taking steps to quiet the void, if any? (If it’s a glass of wine and an episode of Mad Men at the day’s end, that counts, please know that).

The status of my mental health these days, I’m happy to say is on a stable path. The zeitgeist is responsible for much of my more negative mental health symptoms, such as the anxiety of impending doom, the depression of isolation, and not feeling safe in this world in the body that I live in. I don’t take enough steps to quiet the void, but I would say going to the gym and hanging out with my friends (especially my queer friends) helps to feel less alone.

What is something you’d like readers to take away from your work in regards to mental health advocacy, discussion, or criticism?

I’d like readers to feel a sense of relief after reading my pieces that have to do with mental health. It’s not easy to write about such stigmatizing topics, but I’d like to bring in my experience of what it’s like to like with bipolar disorder so that others can relate and understand what it means to live with a mental health disorder, and to also emphasize the fact that I’ve overcome this challenge and am continuing to live my life despite it.

Why do you create, still, despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made slaves to?

I create despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made salves to, because, quite simply, if not, I don’t know how else I’d be able to survive.

When was the last time you told your psychiatrist or therapist something you were afraid to disclose? In your own words, how do you feel about going up against the stigma?

It’s not difficult for me to go up against the stigma anymore, as my therapist and I have a pretty close relationship at this point. I would say that I don’t have anything currently that I’m too afraid to disclose.

During my time in the literary community, I have been lucky enough that I can’t remember a time when there has been a stigma or belittling language surrounding mental health. My literary community is the place where I feel safe getting to voice my experiences, and I’ve been fortunate to have an inclusive, supportive environment surround me.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’d like to say, to those who are struggling now more than ever, to keep writing. It’s the thing that keeps us going, keeps us in community, keeps us sane.

What have you been up to these last couple of months?

I am finishing up my last couple of semesters of school. I went back as a nontraditional student. So that takes up a fair chunk of my time. I am also in the process of resurrecting my university’s Art & Literary Journal that’s been dormant since the midst of the pandemic

 (www.TheAccentJournal.com).

Shameless plug: We’ll be open for submissions soon so stay tuned. 

So that takes up another chunk, along with family and a sports writing job, I am constantly trying to crowbar in some writing time for my own stuff.

What are your long-term creative plans? Are you working on something big and secret or taking it day by day?

I would love to write fiction full-time. I have a couple projects going, but the main one is a novel. I’m currently slogging through Draft No. 3. Also planning on applying to grad school this fall so we’ll see where that goes if I get that opportunity.

What’s the status of your mental health these days? It’s in all ways prosaic to say that we live in trying times. How is the zeitgeist responsible? What are some actionable ways in which you’re taking steps to quiet the void, if any? (If it’s a glass of wine and an episode of Mad Men at the day’s end, that counts, please know that).

It varies but mostly riding on top of the wave.

I had some significant life events break open simultaneous to the start of Covid which made for a strange macro-micro trauma dynamic. Like most of us, I try to find a balance between the big-picture stuff and managing things I can control, but I’d say these times at least add a layer of overall tension and anxiety.

When I’m good, I try to exercise or run, or read or write to quiet the void. Things that are for me, help me. But sometimes it involves a glass of something, cooking a meal or some form of productive procrastination, while pumping Audible into my ear.

What is something you’d like readers to take away from your work in regards to mental health advocacy, discussion, or criticism?

I don’t know that I have much that’s profound to say but I like to think I let my characters do the talking. To that point, I try not to shy away from their ugly parts, which can be scary since their ugly parts mostly come from some ugly part of me. So, I guess I’ll say: We’ve all got warts. So acknowledge your warts, folks. Normalize warts.

Why do you create, still, despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made slaves to?

I think that’s a reason to create. Personally, it helps me process some of the stuff I couldn’t otherwise. As an artform, reading fiction specifically, allows us to connect with others, or to at least practice empathy in a relatively safe space. There’s an unfortunate lack of empathy in our society and those connections seem to be more devalued every day.

When was the last time you told your psychiatrist or therapist something you were afraid to disclose? In your own words, how do you feel about going up against the stigma?

It’s been a minute. I won’t get specific, but I will say that it was a pretty profound moment. She looked at me, smiled, and gave me some version of “it’s about time.” The resistance is normal, it’s part of the process. I can’t say that I have witnessed anything specific to the literary community, but you fear those comments are just around a closed door or bobbing below a turned-up nose. I think it goes back to empathy and connection and treating others as humans. Once you’ve gone through issues in your own life, there’s no excuse not to have a little grace with others.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I just appreciate the opportunity. I love Libre and was truly honored to be considered for publication. Lit mags and journals are important, but this one is especially so.

Travis Cohen:

What have you been up to these last couple of months?

2025 has been a very busy two months. I’m currently in the process of finishing my MFA at Florida International University with my thesis defense coming up the first week of March. I’ve begun sending the manuscript out to contest and trying to find an agent and submitting even more than usual to try and use all this momentum. More submissions means more rejections, so that’s been a part of it these last couple months too, though I guess that’s always a part of it. I also applied to PhD programs in Creative Writing in December and January and have started hearing back lately, and again, more submissions means courting more rejection. This year has started out with a lot of rejection, but it’s also involved a lot of exciting news and new beginnings, like bringing Gulf Stream Magazine, the literary journal I currently serve as the Editor-in-Chief for, back to print for the first time in 17 years. More submissions means more rejection, but it also means more room for hope.

What are your long-term creative plans? Are you working on something big and secret or taking it day by day?

I’ve got a lot of projects that I’m excited about. The manuscript that I’m trying to find a home for is a short story collection and all the ideas I have are pivoting away from that. Without getting into too many specifics, I have 5 or 6 longform projects I’ve been wanting to get back into that have either been sitting in a drawer waiting for me to finish my thesis and bring these last two issues of Gulf Stream home or in my notes app or in a pile of index cards that periodically accordion their way across my desk or make my work bag look a bit like a bomb has gone off inside it. But these are good problems to have. I’m very excited about the work, I’m very much looking forward to having my hands full.

What’s the status of your mental health these days? It’s in all ways prosaic to say that we live in trying times. How is the zeitgeist responsible? What are some actionable ways in which you’re taking steps to quiet the void, if any? (If it’s a glass of wine and an episode of Mad Men at the day’s end, that counts, please know that).

Recently, I was fortunate enough to see Ada Limón do a reading at the University of Miami. At one point, while she was talking about meditation, she mentioned that if she doesn’t meditate or have something playing in the background, she feels the weight and pressure of the silence welling up. I don’t know if we try to quiet the void or if we try to scream into it to avoid listening to ourselves in the quiet. In the past year, I’ve lost count of the rejections I’ve received, I’ve stopped trying to keep track of how much of the news is bad news, I’ve seen as many endings in my personal life as I have seen beginnings. But I have been focusing on the beginnings, focusing on hope, focusing on looking forward to things, including change, including uncertainty. I think part of what makes the void so unbearable is that you populate that silence of the unknown, of the empty with your own fears. But emptiness is also a space for things to grow. I’ve been trying to remember this. The new beginnings in my life, whether in love or in work or in where I’ll be living in a few months, these are things I can either look at through the anxious lens of uncertainty (and of course, sometimes I do) or through the excited lens of possibility. I’ve been working harder lately to look through the latter and it’s been good for me.

What is something you’d like readers to take away from your work in regards to mental health advocacy, discussion, or criticism?

It’s okay not to be okay. I pretty much only write about people who are not okay and mostly ones who don’t know what to make of that or how to internalize the why for that state of not okay. And yes, there is a degree to which that’s Storytelling 101: Only Trouble is Interesting and so on, but for me it has more to do with the resonance of seeing a part of myself reflected in the characters I read and wanting to do that with my own work for people looking for pieces of themselves. I want you to be able to see someone who’s not okay and have that make you feel a little more okay with not being okay because nobody’s okay. There is nothing more human than to feel pain and ask why and not have an answer. I try to write characters who are also asking why because I think it’s important to see and be reminded that we’re not alone, any of us, in this experience.

Why do you create, still, despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made slaves to?

Because there is nothing else to do. There is the work. That’s it. The rest is bullshit. It’s not, but it is, it has to be. Doubt is part of it, fear—of the world and of your own failings—is part of it, loathing and loneliness and absolute devastation is part of it, bleak moods that make you not want to move, not want to breathe, not even a little, these are part of it too. But nothing else makes this world a place where I feel alive and feel like living except the work. To quote Sister Corita Kent’s seventh rule of the Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules: “The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.”

When was the last time you told your psychiatrist or therapist something you were afraid to disclose? In your own words, how do you feel about going up against the stigma?

I’ve worked as a therapist and I’ve been in therapy for many years, so it’s been a while since I was afraid of saying something in that room. I would always tell myself the same thing I would tell patients which is that I you can either spend your time and money being honest and maybe get the help you need and deserve, or you can spend your time and money and lie and get very little in return. That’s not to say it’s easy or comfortable to be so vulnerable, it’s just meant to serve as a reminder that growth and healing rarely come from a place of comfort. I’m a fan of the Brené Brown notion of leaning into discomfort.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Find the thing that makes you happiest, that makes you feel like all of yourself and not just a piece, and then find a way to do that all the time. Whatever that work is for you, find a way to give it to yourself. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be whole. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.