Always. There’s a daily, monthly, annual rhythm. Learning to gather when the energy is low and expand when the energy is high has been one of the most positive developments for my own creative cycle. Tai Kojro-Badziak, Illinois, USA | Yes. I’m mainly a prose writer. My rhythm starts off strong, mellows out, then rushes back in. I definitely feel a heartbeat and a wave of fresh air. Joan Stevensyates | Hunger is my Muse. An insane, unpractical need to knead language until I find a word hearty enough to become one’s bread. Communion is the state of matter of love and poetry at their purest form. R. Vanessa Otero, PUERTO RICO | I sit at a glass table before teaching, listening to birds sing the day. Leaves shiver in the trees. We are open to receive. Then children’s stories appear whole, a breath of the creative, a push of ink. Alexandra Newton Rios | Yes, exactly that … a moment arrives, a deep breath triggers, eyes close, sucked in air flows from me…if it dissipates I must wait till it finds me again. Jeanette Luchese Jacobs, Ontario, CANADA | Every three months or so, my toxic commute beats at the car window, drum-like, driving me to book isolated airbnb spaces – where I unleash all that went unpenned, like a crazed sorceress. Stephanie Rae, Washington, USA | No birth ritual, more a sense of being one with the work, no body awareness. Susan Weinstein, New York, USA | When syllables clash and the page becomes a battlefield, a walk (almost) never fails to restore peace to the pen — each step, a piece of a larger story. Jen Schneider, Pennsylvania, USA | The melody, the mood, the moonshine. The dance, the stillness, the chaos of the city, the whispers of the country. Life, all of it. Kacie Devaeny, New York, USA
