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Today’s podcast episode is a Book Award Winner episode, where we get to know a writer who won the NAIWE Book Award.

Joe McGovern won the 2024 Book Award for her book Words Left Unspoken  in the Young Adult category.

Joe McGovern is a published poet, songwriter, and independent filmmaker.  A graduate, with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science – chemistry focus with criminal justice minor, Joe McGovern currently works as an analytical inorganic chemist. Founder and curator of the literary art anthology, Perception, his artistic team has received multiple nominations and awards for their work. In 2018, Joe McGovern received an American Songwriting Award for lyrics in folk music, for his independent film’s title song, “All Over Again.” Words Left Unspoken is Joe McGovern’s debut poetry collection publication, which won the NAIWE Book Award for poetry.

Here is a preview of today’s discussion:

When did you first have the idea for this book? And what inspired you to write this book of poetry?

I have been writing consistently for twenty years between: different forms of poetry, novels, novellas, song lyrics, and screenplays.  Roughly ten years ago when I was in my late twenties, after publishing in different literary magazines – I still felt my work wasn’t gaining notoriety or being considered for top tier magazines such as Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, etc. – I was tired of waiting for my opportunity to gain enough recognition to publish a collection. I took the time to begin curating my poetic works into a collection.  Over the next eight to ten years, I would change the direction of the collection: replacing certain poems with others, discarding pieces altogether, rewriting, editing, and placing new poems within to eventually create Words Left Unspoken.

My inspiration for writing this collection is to bring a variety of stories to light to help give different perspectives readers wouldn’t typically experience; hopefully, inspire writers of all levels and experiences to search for independent publishers who believe in their work and contact them or submit to their competitions for a chance to publish or simply review their work. I hope my transparent literary journey with this collection helps inspire writers to understand the importance of laying proper foundation as an artist: connecting with book organizations, reviewers, libraries, and competitions to provide their work the best opportunity to accelerate and help gain recognition and notoriety – not only to their work to gain sales; but, more importantly their name as a writer and creator. I hope when readers open this collection: they are able to relate to the stories being told, help realize compassion and empathy along with understanding identity, and the pursuit of your individual aspirations are more important than the perception society has carefully groomed within each of us.  Most of all, I hope this collection inspires writers to take out their pens and paper to write stories – not only to practice but to find their honest voice with no boundaries limiting their creativity.

What did you learn while working on this book? And what were some challenges you faced during the writing or publication of this book?

My background as an artist comes from starting off acting and crew work in theater productions then transitioning to independent filmmaking. Anyone who understands the filmmaking process or knows a filmmaker at any part of the process – knows the immense amount of time, energy, and sacrifice required to complete a film or be a part of the process to lead a film successfully to completion. This art form takes an incredible amount of tech knowledge not only within camera and computer tech, but also from a scientific standpoint of comprehending wave forms and being able to read color waves, sound waves, etc. The amount of endurance and personal drive is very complex and one of the highest measures of difficulty of any art form.

All that being said – writing a book is just as complex from a complete creative standpoint – writing a successful book which readers would like to read and enjoy is a highly difficult skill. To sit down and write a one hundred- and twenty-five-page book with different pieces/stories/poems or a novel of similar or higher page count takes much endurance, patience, and perseverance. This process is just as involved as filmmaking, I learned, within its own respective and complex world – it’s more difficult because no story is the same format and there is no formula to a well written and carefully edited book – not similar to the film industry where once you have the process under control and you know your limitations and who you can outsource to, etc.  A seasoned filmmaker can calculate and anticipate, even working through all the different issues which will arise on a production set and within pre-production and post-production, with detailed notes and reminders you will be fine through the process to completion.

Both the filmmaking world and the literary world takes a village. The correlation I made is necessary to help provide accurate and respectful praise to both processes since I have much experience between being an independent filmmaker for twenty plus years and I have published two books – first book I self-published in college, Perception, and my first solo collection being Words Left Unspoken published through Anamcara Press.

I learned lessons of perseverance to never give up and there are people who will believe in your messages and words – the two parties just need the opportunity to find each other and they will. I learned lessons of compassion and empathy – the fact Anamcara Press believed in my messages was a form of compassion and empathy for me coming from many other publishers who ripped my collection a part and insulted me as a person and my ideologies – which disagreeing is perfectly fine but tasteless demeaning messages I’ve experienced isn’t; but when you write with obscenity and focus on uncomfortable controversial themes, these can be the reactions you receive – writers should always keep an open mind when readers don’t and never stop creating just because of a few meaningless insults – there are readers who want and need your work.

The process of publishing is very extensive but as Maureen, the owner of Anamcara Press said best – “It’s a beautiful and wondrous process to see how the book starts and after many months of endurance and working on it, the final product comes out precious and incredible! The journey is an amazing one!”  I couldn’t agree more with these sentiments – but similar to film like I stated earlier within this question, the literary journey to creating a book after it’s been accepted by the publisher for publication is only the beginning.  When a writer has the book written, it’s a great start and even taking it a step further and completing rewrites and edited drafts is awesome; however, the literary process is a journey which requires a village – while Maureen and I were editing and formatting the overall design of the book and covers, Amber and I on alternating days were editing and formatting the poems line by line. Also, Amber and Maureen, had their poetry department reviewing the book simultaneously too.

Together: Maureen, Amber, Anamcara Press, and myself – edited this book through many versions – a solid fifty plus drafts between all of us, even on our free time, we were reviewing alone and this would create further drafts – personally, I work multiple jobs and take freelance work on the side too. Accumulatively, the amount of time the publishing process required from beginning to completion with corrections continuing to the last week prior to printing, was roughly one full year. After Anamcara Press released the book, they helped me so much with the marketing process and provided a really solid foundation of information, competitions to enter, review forums, contacting bookstores, places to connect with other writers, etc. – along with my years of personal research, preparation, and time I put into marketing the book and spreading the word.

I learned so much through this journey publishing Words Left Unspoken with Anamcara Press from editing along-side with them, working on book formatting, front and back cover formatting, working with them within the publishing program, and working through the marketing process – they were patient, understanding, and compassionate and together we created a very special poetry collection. Maureen, Amber, and everyone at Anamcara Press are the best!