Interview with LindaAnn LoSchiavo
First, can you tell us a little bit about your recently published poetry collections Cancer Courts My Mother and Vampire Verses. What inspired each collection?
1-A: Though authors are often on a journey toward an understanding of the self, their roots, and the past, writing about my difficult parents has always been a struggle. I had to find a strategy for my full-length collection “Apprenticed to the Night.” Released in England in May 2024, this hardback book reached numerous reviewers – but almost all were fixated on the paranormal poems and the small suite of poems about being my mother’s caregiver. This inspired me to go deeper in. I began writing more on this topic, which became “Cancer Courts My Mother.”
By choosing to frame my relationship with my mother during the interval of her late-stage cancer when I was her sole caretaker (in my parents’ home in the Sun Belt), the potency of her past abuse could be diluted. Moreover, since my ghostly guardians followed me to Florida, I had an inkling there would be supernatural surprises in store. And there were. [Sorry, no spoilers. Read about it in the book.]
Defying expectations, I treated this journey not as the typical caregiver-patient sufferer's digest -- but as a story of adultery. One reviewer wrote: “Cancer is personified as the relentless lover of her mother. It is likened to a suitor who does not take no for an answer.”
1-B: During the 2020 pandemic, a fellow started Dracula Daily, which became an overnight sensation. Dracula Daily is an email newsletter that sends you the novel Dracula, in ‘real-time’— as it happens to the characters. It rapidly acquired over 200,000 subscribers and inspired worldwide news coverage.
Though I was not a subscriber, I did become aware of the enormous buzz surrounding Dracula Daily. Since I had not thought about vampires for awhile, a new curiosity rose from the dead. On my own, I reread Bram Stoker’s classic along with all of the selections gathered in two hefty anthologies edited by Michael Sims and David Skal. I thought, "What innovations could I bring to this well-worn genre?" There were quite a few. In this frame of mind, I began a long narrative poem inspired by an iconic first line in a Jane Austen novel about a bachelor with inherited property who must be in want of a wife – except the bachelor in my marriage-plot poem is Count Dracula.
You’ve won many awards for your poetry collections, including Cancer Courts My Mother. What poetry collection is your favorite? And what is its overall theme? Which award are you most proud of?
“Cancer Courts My Mother” strikes a very personal chord, especially since my cancer-stricken sister-in-law has nearly reached the terminus. Since she and my brother visited every weekend when I was in charge of my mother, I dedicated the book to them.
However, my favorite book (so far) is “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems.” Theme: It is a poetry collection about social justice cleverly disguised in a trick or treat costume.
The award I am most proud of is a gold medal for “Literary Achievement” I earned when I was 15 years old. It gave me the validation my teenage-self needed as I was transitioning from being a playwright to a fiction writer. (Since I was 9 years old, I had gotten my plays produced onstage in NYC.)
What author or authors, if any, have inspired your poetry? What made you decide you wanted to become a poet? When did you start writing poetry?
Dante, Boccacio, Chaucer, and other Medieval poets are my inspiration. I started writing metrical poetry at age 3. We lived in a large house owned by my grandparents and other family members also resided there. It was my privilege to open greeting cards and read them aloud to the entire family as we gathered together for supper. The clunky rhymes in Hallmark cards made me cringe so I started my own greeting card line with one of my aunts, an illustrator. We received praise for our “bespoke greetings” and I kept on writing. At age 9 I had a poem published in a school magazine.
Where do you get your creativity from? What does your writing process look like?
Creativity often comes out of thin air. A friend mailed me a Xmas card with ice skates pictured. The nonet it inspired was "Ice Skating on a January Night" – which appeared in Sublimation: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry and Art, Vol. 2, Issue 1. Additionally, I read a lot. A single word can send me off into a writing frenzy.
Writing process: I have intense focus on whatever I am writing or revising. Writing is joyful.
Which one of your poetry collections is your favorite? Which one would you recommend a new reader start with?
“Cancer Courts My Mother” is a good choice for someone faced with losing a loved one to a terminal illness. “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems” is ideal for folks who want to hold Hallowe’en in their hands. “Apprenticed to the Night” has a wide variety of poems offered in a family setting.
You’re listed as the senior staff writer (theatre critic) of the magazine L’ldea. Can you tell us a little bit about this publication and your part in it? What do you enjoy the most about it?
Though L’Idea is only online now, there was a long period when it was published on paper. One of the most joyful things I did was to organize their lavish 25th Anniversary Program, which lasted for more than a week, and which took place at the Museum of Natural History, The National Arts Club, high profile restaurants, and concluded with a “Miss L’Idea” beauty pageant in an auditorium.
The magazine’s content was focused on the Pugliese community in New York City along with other topics of interest to Italian-Americans.
What advice would you give to a beginning writer?
Read immoderately and join a critique group.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
My W.I.P.s are “Return of the Werewolf: Poems” with lavish full-page illustrations and “Past Tense: Poems and Portraits of Suicides” with b/w portraits on every page. This is a sequel of “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide” (Ukiyoto, June 2024).
Thank you for the opportunity to interview you. I appreciated it!
Cancer Courts My Mother by LindaAnn LoSchiavo has received two literary distinctions: the BREW Seal of Excellence from The Chrysalis BREW Project and the Voyages of Verses Award from OneTribune Media.
The BREW Seal of Excellence recognizes literary works that demonstrate strong thematic coherence, craft, and contribution to contemporary writing. In its published review, The Chrysalis BREW Project stated that “Cancer Courts My Mother consists of twenty-five poems. Each and every piece is a raw depiction of LoSchiavo’s feelings. She masterfully uses metaphors and allegories to portray her experience. The poems blur the boundaries between visionary art and lived experience, yet being presented as a work of fiction.”
https://chennaivoice.net/press-release/2025-11-07/26010/cancer-courts-my-mother-by-lindaann-loschiavo-wins-accolades
Cancer Courts My Mother by LindaAnn LoSchiavo
