Tune in for one of the top 3 all-time episodes from the You Betcha She Did archive. If you have ever thought about pivoting your career especially as the start of 2024 looms large on the horizon, then this episode is for you. Learn from the master of the pivot, Lisa Vihos. She is a woman who knows how to embrace creativity and joy in life.
Get ready to be captivated by an inspiring conversation with Lisa Vihos as she outlines her path from the art world to poetry to writing. Lisa spills the secret of her unique practice of sending out a weekly poem to a group of friends, a practice that surprisingly paved her path toward publishing triumph. Get an inside look at the significance of setting deadlines and maintaining accountability while chasing your dreams, a fundamental lesson Lisa learned and shares fervently. We'll also delve into the heart of Lisa's new novel, revealing her process, influences, and themes that bind her narrative.
Tune in for one of the top 3 all-time episodes from the You Betcha She Did archive. If you have ever thought about pivoting your career especially as the start of 2024 looms large on the horizon, then this episode is for you. Learn from the master of the pivot, Lisa Vihos. She is a woman who knows how to embrace creativity and joy in life.
Get ready to be captivated by an inspiring conversation with Lisa Vihos as she outlines her path from the art world to poetry to writing. Lisa spills the secret of her unique practice of sending out a weekly poem to a group of friends, a practice that surprisingly paved her path toward publishing triumph. Get an inside look at the significance of setting deadlines and maintaining accountability while chasing your dreams, a fundamental lesson Lisa learned and shares fervently. We'll also delve into the heart of Lisa's new novel, revealing her process, influences, and themes that bind her narrative.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of you, betcha she did the podcast for women change makers, entrepreneurs and leaders, especially from the midwest, share their wit and wisdom. I'm your host, rainer Rikiki, and welcome to our series of the top three episodes of all time of you, betcha she did. Today I am honored and delighted to reintroduce Lisa V house. Not only is she a poet laureate, she is an amazing writer and just a woman who knows how to pivot and try something new. And what's remarkable about Lisa is that in her forties she decided to pursue poetry, a passion she's always had. She took to it, she did it. She became a huge success, has been inspiring people for years and years and, in addition to became a novelist and she wrote an amazing true story about a feminist from the fifteen hundred says historical fiction at its best. So sit back, enjoy and get ready to be inspired and maybe think about that pivot that you want to take in twenty twenty four. Did she really do that? You, betcha, she did. Hello and welcome to you, betcha she did.
Speaker 1:
The podcast for female entrepreneurs and women who have paved the way to share their wit and wisdom. I'm your host, reina Rikiki, today. I have a long time friend and special guest, lisa V house, who is she boygins poet laureate and a newly published author. Today she's going to tell us about her journey of working in the art world to working in the writing world. So, lisa, welcome to the show. Thank you, reina, I'm so glad to be here. I am. I first knew Lisa in the early two thousands when she was the head of the education department at the John Michael Kohler art center, and it was shortly after that when you began dabbling in poetry. Can you talk a little bit about what led you to poetry and how that path kind of meandered and blossomed into your new writing career?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, sure, well, really, I had been someone who was interested in and who wrote poetry from the time I was a kid. Really. I mean, I I love Dr Seuss. That was like my first, my first inspiration, all that good rhyming. And then In college I took poetry classes and I started writing, continued the writing there, and it was at that point, though, when I left college and I didn't have like a little community around me anymore that it kind of drifted into the background and every few years it would come back in and I take a class or I'd try to pursue my writing.
Speaker 2:
You know, whether it was poetry or short story writing or memoir, I kept taking classes. But you know, it never really got off the ground until I had left my job at the John Michael Kohler Art Center and I started working at Lakeland, and there was a real Well. There was a professor there, carl elder, who every fall did something called the Great Lakes Writers Festival, and I was kind of involved in that, bringing alumni to come and hear the writers and stuff, and I sat in on one of the writing class, writing workshops, and I had this epiphany like, oh my God, I used to do this in college, I used to write poetry and that's when I kind of rejoined the effort to do my poetry and that's when I started. Poem of the week.
Speaker 1:
Nice. I remember when you first started poem of the week, so I it was, I don't remember was a Monday or Friday, but you would mail out a poem and they were just lovely, like little treasures to open up each week.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that is so nice. Yeah, I started it. You're right, I would. I would submit, I would post. Well, no, I wasn't posting back in those days, I was emailing. This is back in the days of email and I would email it out, I think, on Sunday night or sometimes early Monday morning, but you would receive the poem.
Speaker 2:
I started with like 23 people, I think, and I remember I told everyone I just want, I need a deadline and I need to know somebody's eyes are going to see what I write. And one friend said you really think you could write a poem every week? And I said I have no idea, but I'm going to try to do it and it really helped me become you know. It helped me have a practice because I had that deadline and it was a really important thing for me to do. I mean, I was just looking back at at all the all the stuff I produced and it was started in January of 2018.
Speaker 2:
And I kept doing it every week until middle of 2011. I stopped the weekly and I moved it to a monthly format because weekly was getting to be too much. But that was like 167 poems to starch. I mean I'm like, oh my god, and many of them, you know, I sent out and they've got published. But there's a ton there that I just realized looking at it again today. If I go back and do a little editing and revising and like now that I know so much more about what makes a good poem quote-unquote I have a lot more work.
Speaker 2:
Just like sitting there it's like oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:
I Find that really fascinating how you had had this love of poetry early on, you know, dabbled it in college. You kind of drifted away, like many things do in people's lives, and then it kept coming back to you and one way or the other, almost like fate, and what you did was so smart, like having that accountability piece, like I know I need to practice this, but I need to make sure I do it, and when you have people waiting on you, that's sometimes all the push you need.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was, it was great and it it was that people were waiting and that people also would chime in and say, oh, I really liked this one and that just having that little piece of positive reinforcement was also helpful. And Having friends say, oh, I've sent, like suddenly I went from having 23 people who I had asked to do, you know, like family friends, you know people like you in my life Suddenly there were people reading it who I didn't even know, because people would give me email addresses of friends and then I had it grew to like over 200 people, which at the time for an email was kind of a big deal, I guess. And I did at one point somewhere in the midst of all that Started to do it as a as a blog Using blog spot, and then it's so people could. I think I still directed people to it through their email, but anyway, whatever it, yeah, my technology advanced only just slightly there for a little bit.
Speaker 1:
It served a purpose and it worked. I just want to let you know one of my favorite poems. I can't remember the title, but it was something about you and your son. You're taking the train to Chicago and eating olives. Yeah, I love that one. Yeah, it just really touched my heart, and it was before I even had a son. Yeah, and now that I have a son, that's what I want to do. I want to take the train to Chicago. I have it right here, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that was a good one. That was a good poem. I mean thank you that being able to, you know, write about the people in my life and but kind of go beyond the sentimental and try to find, you know, what is the metaphor here, what is the, what is the thing that makes this, this experience or this thing that I want to talk about, a poem that would be universal for someone else to read. It's not just like it's my happy memory, but it's good feedback to hear that you connect to it. So, thank you.
Speaker 1:
So walk us through that, so you practice poetry you know for for that good chunk of three years, 2008 to 2011. How did that bring you to becoming Sheboygan's poet laureate? Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:
Well, all the while that I was doing poetry or I guess maybe not all the while, let's say after I got through those three years of really building my, my craft and feel like finally being able to say, when someone asked me, oh, what do you do? I say, well, I work, as you know, a grant writer or whatever, but I write poetry, I'm a poet and I before that I would never say I'm a poet. It sounded too pretentious. But the thing about it for me is not just the writing part, but it's bringing people together to read, you know, to sort of, as they say, hand over the mic and let other people share their voice. So I got really interested in that aspect of like organizing poetry events. And also with three friends who all happen to be people I knew from Lakeland, we started a poetry journal, although not poetry, I'm sorry, literary journal. Poetry was. I was in charge of the poetry part, but we had fiction writing, nonfiction even like comics and black and white photography. So it was called Stoneboat Literary Journal and we I was part of that for 10 years and that also, like being on the other side of the editorial divide was very the word. It was very educational for me to understand.
Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh, when I send my stuff out into the world, if someone says no, it doesn't mean it's because it was not a good poem, because I would get stuff and I would have to go no, this is good but it doesn't fit this month, or we have too many poems about mothers or I can't take this. So I was doing all these things and my other poet friends in Sheboygan said we, you should be the poet laureate of Sheboygan, we need a poet laureate. I was like well, I don't know what do we do. So they are, people took it to the mayor's office and and asked you know, to get a process going and and it was kind of cool. And so the mayor was, he had actually participated in poetic pairing, so he knew I know like this was Mayor van der Stien, our previous mayor, and he knew you know what it was about and and.
Speaker 2:
But then they create like they they kind of researched like how does the city have a poet laureate to, how do you make it official? And so there was a process and I mean I had to actually apply I think there were maybe a few other people who did and I was selected. So it's a three year term. It started in 2020. And it come to an end in 2023.
Speaker 1:
I didn't realize the grassroots aspect of how that came about. That's kind of neat, you know, because I definitely heard about poet laureates, President Biden's inauguration and Amanda Gorman going up there. It's becoming a bigger, bigger thing, which is nice to see. How did that branch into you dabbling into literature? Did you always wanted to write a book? Or you know where did this idea?
Speaker 2:
Interesting. Yes, I think I did always want to write a book from again, from the time I was a kid. I was a voracious reader growing up and I guess I kind of felt like boy. Writing a novel would be really, really hard. A poem is one thing, but it's short, you can do it, you know. In a few revisions you got to finish product. I had no idea how to write a novel.
Speaker 2:
But what happened was in the late 1990s I was writing for a magazine, for it was called New Moon, the magazine for girls and their dreams, and the editor there gave me an assignment, or offered me an assignment, and said would you like to write about this artist named Sofany Zba Anguisola? And I had never heard of her then and I was like, yeah, sure, I'll do that. And so I went to the library and I fortunately found a biography, very good one, with lots of primary research about the artist. So this was back in the mid-90s and I wrote the story about her. I mean, she was such an amazing person. She lived to be 93 in the Renaissance, which is huge. You know, most people in general did not, but women's especially, because they would die in childbirth often. She never had any kids, so that helped. But she had this interesting life. I mean, she studied with Michelangelo allegedly. I made that a fact. You know I wrote a fiction but I had to, you know, make that be a real thing for me.
Speaker 2:
She was called to the Spanish court to teach the young queen to paint. She married twice, but she didn't get married the first time until she was 39. She just had this super interesting life and so I learned about her way back when and then I thought, huh, this person needs a story. But I thought at first, maybe I was at the moment in my life when I was trying to write books for children, like I was trying to do children's picture books and stuff, and that never really panned out.
Speaker 2:
But at the time I thought, let me see if I could do this as kind of like a middle grade reader. Because she wanted to start when she was a young girl but because her father made sure she was educated, which most fathers did not necessarily do in the Renaissance, anyway. So she had a lot of education and artistic training and she really blossomed. And I thought, but see, I wanted to also deal with her life as she grew up and got married and you know it was like, wait, fifth grader might not know. I didn't know how to tell that part of the story to a fifth grader.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, at that level, yeah I kept sort of pushing it back, pushing it. But like with the poetry, you know how you were. We were talking about how it kept drifting out, drifting in, and every few years I would go take the same book out of the library and read again and take notes. And one time I found a journal from several years before where I had taken the exact same notes from the book like that I was taking five years later, like the same things were jumping out at me and I was like, okay, you have got to buckle down and figure something out. And a friend was doing was offering a thing called January novel writing month, and sometimes people do it in November. But this this writer her name is Jennifer Morales and she's wonderful. She wrote a wonderful book called Milwaukee Stories and she was doing this novel writing thing where you're supposed to. You know, you had a community of people all doing the same thing and the goal was to write 50,000 words in the month of January and this was 2017. And what I learned in that month I did write pretty close to 50,000 words was that I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2:
It was very hard to write a novel. I mean, when you read a good book. When you read a good book, it just feels like it must have flowed out so easily. And one thing I did was I worked, actually over time once I tried to get it going with a woman who is a creativity coach and she her name is Sarah Sadie and she's in Madison and we would meet, you know, on Zoom or whatever, and she helped me understand that my preconceived notion about that you would just sit down and write the novel from word one to the end is not what happens.
Speaker 2:
It's not what happens. And she introduced ideas like write letters to your characters and then have them write back to you and see what you learn. And she just made it be something fun, something that I was playing around with, and it didn't happen in a linear way and in fact, from 2017 till 2022, I mean, there was, I mean I think I had like nine drafts of this novel and people kept helping me, you know, and at one point I thought I was done. This was back in 29, like before COVID 2019. I thought I'm done, it's good, and I started to see if I could find an agent and that was like the most demoralizing thing ever.
Speaker 1:
I know, I wanted to hear about that. I was like, how do we even get a book published?
Speaker 2:
I mean, that's what people wonder, yes, and now that I've had a book published, I have people asking me how do I get published? And I'm like you know what? I'll tell you what I did. But it's not easy and I had thought I need to see if I can find an agent. Why not? This is a great story, someone will love it.
Speaker 2:
And what happens is, I mean, you know, agents, that's how they make their living. They need things that are going to be, you know, big blockbuster sales, blah, blah, blah. And I mean my book. You know it's a lovely story. People are getting really good feedback. It's kind of a quiet story, it's kind of inner about this woman, I mean.
Speaker 2:
So the point is, what happened was I have a friend in here in Treboygan who started her own publishing company because she was trying to get her novel published and her name is Dawn Hogue and she couldn't get an agent. So she just started Waters Edge Press and she told me at the beginning of my search for an agent. She said, well, try. I know you want to try because I understand, but if it doesn't work out in a year from now, let me know and I would. I would publish your book for you and I kept that in the back of my head and I it's like, suddenly, you know, I came to her and I said you know what? This is crazy. I need this to be done for me, like I can't keep this dragging on and on and on. I want to have a finished product I'm going to book in my hand. So will you still help me? And she was like, of course, so that was a huge, huge help.
Speaker 1:
You know, what advice do you have for someone who loves writing in some form, whether it's poetry or fiction or literature? I don't know if you have advice about the process or how to keep going. What would you say to that?
Speaker 2:
Well, a couple of things, I mean.
Speaker 2:
I think, what this?
Speaker 2:
I want to share a quote that I found in at the time when I was trying to write the book, and and it's from Toni Morrison, and she said if there is a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
Speaker 2:
And I would read that every so often and just remind myself like this story is, there's something here and I need to keep trying to do it. So I would say to someone who's maybe feeling like they're struggling with it or whatever, just to just keep going, maybe to find, you know, other writer friends to bounce things off with or talk about what you're doing, and to just look for the ways to make it fun like my friend telling me, write letters to your characters, you know, and because the story might take a turn that you didn't expect, which my story kind of did, I had. It was trying to do one thing and like it wasn't working, and then, and then I don't remember how, but it shifted, and then I, you know, I all along the way I kept learning new possibilities for how to tell this story.
Speaker 1:
If you'd like to learn more about Lisa V House, please check our show notes. In the show notes, I'll have links to Lisa's website, as well as links to the waters edge press where you can buy her new novel. And, as always, thank you for listening to you. Betcha she did. If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe, share it with your friends or even leave us a review on Apple podcasts until next time. Betcha she did is brought to you by the ladies first digital media company, helping female entrepreneurs launch and manage podcasts and YouTube channels. Find out more at their website wwwladiesfirstdigitalmediacom.