A multi-Pushcart nominee in RHINO and Drunken Boat, Carol Smallwood’s founded and supported humane societies. Her 2017 books include: In Hubble’s Shadow (Shanti Arts); Prisms, Particles, and Refractions (Finishing Line Press); Interweavings: Creative Nonfiction (Shanti Arts); Library Outreach to Writers and Poets: Interviews and Case Studies of Cooperation; and Gender Issues and the Library: Case Studies of Innovative Programs and Resources (McFarland). Here, she is interviewed by author Aline Soules. Your books cover a wide range of topics and genres—poetry, creative nonfiction, and non-fiction mainly aimed at the library world. How did you end up writing such a broad array of work? How do you balance these various projects? I started when teachers asked me for classroom materials as a librarian. Then, seeing my first book spurred me to do another, and then another. After a while, I wanted to try fiction and then poetry to balance reading the writing of others. I found writing a novel to be very challenging, so I finally tried poetry, feeling I had nothing to lose; I was very surprised to get acceptances right away. It probably worked for me because I’d taken so many notes in college as a history major (my first Master’s) that capturing ideas economically with words was already continue...