PLU Open Mic Interviews: Monique Lewis

Monique Lewis will feature at our weekly Open Mic in Belleville, Paris on Thursday 16 March 2023

Who are you and who do you write for?

I'm originally from Colorado and moved to France four years ago. I have always loved to write since I was a small child. After I graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in journalism, I moved to Salisbury, Maryland. I reported on local politics for daily newspapers in Maryland and upstate New Yorka and finally moved to New York City to cover business journalism. 

During this time, I went back to school to get an MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. This experience inspired me to launch At The Inkwell, a live reading series and book review site in 2013 at KGB Bar in New York City. I expanded the series to other markets managed by local curators: Denver, Colorado; Richmond, Virginia, San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington and London. Today At The Inkwell is solely active in Denver with plans to reboot the New York series, which went into hiatus during COVID. Finally, I moved to France in 2019, a longtime dream of mine, leaving not only my native home behind but also a 14-year career in journalism as I transitioned to communications. I am the head of internal communications for the MBA program at HEC Paris.

My writing is mainly for the adult female audience and I hope they see themselves in my characters. 

When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I was 14 and wrote a poetry collection that my teacher loved, and he said that I should get them published one day. His confidence made me believe in my writing. I still have that poetry project stored away at my mother's house and I like to look at it from time to time. Sometimes I wonder if I should try to publish them one day, but first I want to publish my flash fiction novel. I also knew I wanted to write during high school when I saw that the popular students were always featured in the school newspaper and yearbook. I joined the yearbook staff during my senior year to feature students who were often overlooked in the study body because they weren't popular. I was not part of that popular crowd and wanted to feature different faces in my yearbook articles. That was when I knew I wanted to be a journalist to give a voice to those who are ignored in their communities.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Trying to get published can be demotivating when you receive rejection after rejection but there is a home for every story. Just when you feel like giving up, you're closer to the goal than you know. I've seen many writers give up because they received too many rejections or it was taking longer than the timeline they imagined. I believed in their stories and I'm convinced that if they kept pursuing a publisher, they would have eventually found the right fit. Trying to get published can be like dating.

How do you react to criticism of your work?

I like to keep in mind that not everyone is going to like my writing just as I don't like every book I choose to read. When I'm working on a new project, I think my mother's feedback matters the most to me. I try not to take her criticism to heart, but it can be difficult sometimes. 

What do you miss most about the pre-pandemic world?

This is tough to answer because everything seems back to normal these days. I also think it's good that people wear masks in health facilities. I recently shook hands with a student and realized how foreign it felt. I miss feeling comfortable with simple, casual greetings. I don't know if it will ever feel the same again.

How has your work developed over the last 12 months?

In the current book that I'm writing, Looking For Mr. Wrong, a flash fiction novel, I've been drawing off more real-life experiences to make my characters relatable to my audience. This is both fun and challenging because I need to create distance at the same time.

What does the future look like to you? 

If I think about the next 5 years, I would like to have my first book published and start writing a novel loosely based on the complicated relationship between my late grandmother and her identical twin sister. This is a book I started years ago and I'm very excited to work on it after my first book is published.

What importance has other people’s art had for you and your creative process?

Reading other writer's work has forced me to be tighter in my writing. I always aim to be less wordy and try to convey exactly what I want the reader to see and feel with as few words as possible. This is a necessary skill for journalism and this is probably why I was so drawn to flash fiction.

Have you looked at different ways of expressing yourself or taken on a new medium?

No I haven't.

Tell us about someone’s work you admire.

The first time I learned about flash fiction was when I reviewed Paul Beckman's Peek collection. I fell in love with the genre and his book inspired me to write my first flash fiction novel, Looking for Mr. Wrong.

Where can we find more of your work?

My flash fiction and essays have appeared in American Writers Review (Summer 2018, 2021), Art in the Time of Covid, My Body, My Words, Polarity eMagazine (Winter 2017), and PoetryBay (Fall/Winter 2016). Monique’s articles have appeared in Mergermarket, Dealreporter, Agence France-Presse, the Financial Times, Forbes, HuffPost, Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY, 2007), The Daily Times (Salisbury, MD, 2005-2006) and more.

Monique has an M.A. and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University, and a B.A. in Journalism from Colorado State University.

She is currently the Internal Communications Program Manager for the MBA program at HEC Paris and lives in Versailles, France.