Lit Up Interviews: Meet Our Team

A Few Words With Diamaya, Our Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Diamaya Dawn is a writer and poet, as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of Lit Up, The Land of Little Tales. BA in English (Language, Literature, Civilisation), MA in TESOL (in progress), Certificate in English Composition — ASU, TEFL, and aims a PhD in Linguistics. A native Athenian, she can usually be found at the shores of warm coasts, dancing under the moonlight and the rain, or otherwise teaching English and creative writing. Her works have been published in various magazines, collections, and anthologies. She’s part normal, part Greek.

https://www.diamayadawn.com/

Either Or (Please highlight or underline your choice)

1. Tea or coffee
2. Hot or cold
3. Movie or book (ugh, I love movies, series, anime, though!)
4. Coke or Pepsi
5. Toilet paper — over or under: for the love of God.
6. Morning person or Night owl
7. Shower or bath.
8. City or country
9. Social Media or book (again ugh, I spend so much time on Social Media daily though!)
10. Paperback or ebook

Would you rather (Please highlight or underline your choice)

1. Would you rather be in a room full of snakes or a room full of spiders? In either case, I’d die ( heart attack most likely) so let the monsters decide.
2. Would you rather have an endless summer or an endless winter?
3. Would you rather have constant nagging pain or a constant itch?
4. Would you rather only be able to have sex in a room full of bugs or no sex at all ever? *walks away, shrugging*
5. Would you rather always be an hour early or be constantly twenty minutes late? (That would make no difference in my punctuality. Everyone knows that. BUT before you judge me, you an-hour-early people, think of how much of your life you’d be wasting just waiting around!)
6. Would you rather live in a haunted mansion or live in a un-haunted cottage? (Too much of a chicken, the cottage would be just fine. Or a bench, too.)
7. Would you rather lose the ability to read or lose the ability to speak?
8. Would you rather have one real get out of jail free card or a key that opens any door? (what if I opened the doors and went to jail for it? WHAT THEN? 😜)
9. Would you rather go back to age 5 with everything you know now or know now everything your future self will learn?

Under the Spotlight:

1. Where were you born? In that magical place to which I’ll always return: Greece :)
2. Who was the most influential person in your life and how? Definitely my dad — no second thoughts. I’ve just always admired the man and I’ll never stop, no matter what (this may be the only time I say “never” without feeling silly). He and my mother, a dream-team role model I’ll always aspire to even come close. Working on it.
3. What was the happiest time of your life? They say happiness is in small things and I strongly agree.
4. Tell us your first memory or something you remember vividly from Lit Up Haha, oh, well… this baby has brought me joy and despair. I think I won’t forget how it all started when the amazing Alexandro Chen convinced me to join Medium and helped me set up my profile and create Lit Up. He believed in me and what I do so much, he was the source of inspiration, and I’m pretty sure if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have dared. So I remember all the little details of that whole process and the time we started receiving the first submissions. 10 000 readers and writers later, it makes me emotional :’)
5. What do you value most and why? Trust, honesty, and good intentions. I just feel our society needs more of those in order to return to humanity which I start believing is in danger.
6. Did you like school? I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time, if I am honest.
7. Now let’s remember the good old pro-Covid days: What were some memorable trips or outings? I will write all about my world wanderings, just stay tuned!
8. How would you want your loved ones to remember you? Smiling :) (and if I dare be a dreamer, with a song).
9. When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? Never, haha. Like, it was never intentional. I wanted to write (yes, I know, cliché) for myself, mostly. And I wanted to be an editor. It’s mostly due to my close ones that I still share my writing and that I want to do something more with it.
10. How long does it take you to write a story/poem? That depends. I have a story that took me more than three months to finish. Another that took an evening. A poem (a sestina in particular) that took me around two weeks, and another that took me two days. I also have two books in progress and a half-finished collection. That muse of mine is quite evil.
11. What is your work schedule like when you’re writing? Messy. I sneak writing into whatever spare minute I get (usually) and/or I stay up late writing. Other times I write as I’m having my morning coffee.
12. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? It goes like this: I write on paper while listening to music. I keep the same song (mostly) until the story is done. I transcribe, reading aloud to correct rhythm, flow, grammar. I play the same song which I listen to with eyes closed. I replay the song as I’m reading the story one final time. Then, I usually leave the story aside for as long as it feels right. If I go back and I’m still happy with it, I publish. Poetry is much easier, though. I don’t even need a song. I write, check for specifications if it is not a free verse, send it to the angelic (evil) A Maguire, and if she doesn’t demolish it, I publish.
13. When did you write for the first time and how old were you? Primary school. Maybe Mairoula Roupaka remembers better, she’s the one for whom I wrote stories ;)
14. What does your family think of your writing? Most of my family doesn’t even know I write. The few ones that do… some like it, others don’t care. You know how it goes :)
15. Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say? They usually inspire and motivate me very, very, very much. It’s how I keep going, mostly. There have been a few that were not so supportive, of course, but that is only natural. The funniest of them all, however, which I’ll never-ever forget, was one guy at a writer’s workshop who meant to ACCUSE me of writing literary fiction, that means, he meant it as an insult and to me, it was the best compliment he (or anyone, really) could’ve given me.
16. What is the first book that made you cry? Books make me cry quite often. I don’t even remember the first time.
17. Does writing energize or exhaust you? It exhausts me. I write down emotions and that drains me.
18. What is your writing Kryptonite? Music and emotions. When I want to shout I write. And this doesn’t mean I write about the things that caused my emotions; I can write irrelevant things to my emotional state, or simple thoughts, or even things I don’t necessarily believe, just the act of writing is calming down my emotions.
19. Do you believe in writer’s block? Indeed. Going through one of them right now. (Emotionally drained) That doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t write at all, however. It can also mean that I write things I just wouldn’t publish.
20. Have you ever gotten a reader’s block? Quite often. I read SO much daily for university, for Lit Up, for pleasure, on social media, news articles, that sometimes I can’t focus on a simple sentence.
21. What do you think makes a good story? So many things! Further than the basics (plot, character arch, etc) each story/poem needs to have something unique. I mean, who hasn’t found themselves in one of Murakami’s magical worlds, who hasn’t felt love through Neruda’s words, who hasn’t questioned humanity through Charlie Kaufman’s scripts? See, each one unique.
22. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Sales.
23. What other authors/writers are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? Gosh, they’re so many! A Maguire is the one I look up to and my guardian angel, Stephen M. Tomic is an absolute necessity — he’s helped me endlessly and he’s a wonderful friend, I can’t begin to express my gratitude, Pat Link’s support and encouragement have kept me going for so long, Chris Drew’s beautiful soul and words inspire me, Alexandro Chen’s originality and interesting personality has motivated me quite often, Ray Harvey’s readership has lifted my spirits countless times and his majestic talent has taught me so much, J.L. Littlejohn’s amazing poetry often wakes my muse, Brian Kerg’s support and unreachable prose motivates me to improve mine, Edd Jennings’s unique experiences and storytelling are giving me quite a journey every time I read him (let alone his wisdom and wit), Jeff Suwak is fabulous and definitely a writer to follow, Mark Starlin’s humour brightens my day frequently, Dwight Gray’s poetry is truly, truly exceptional, Ryan Bell’s stories extraordinary, Dan Moore’s restlestless, creative spirit is uplifting and sometimes acts as a wake up call for me, Kay Bolden’s skills are just endless, I admire what she does…and there are so many more, I’d need to keep writing for hours!
24. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? My first subscription on Scribophile was the first step of exposing my writing. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t even be here today.
25. What are your favourite literary journals? I used to have many. The problem is, with time, I stopped liking most of them. Same content started getting boring, change of style is sometimes off-putting, or I have the problem. I still read the occasional fiction and poetry here and there, though. This is part of the reason I wanted to start our own website, to read and publish things I find worth reading!
26. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Two! (and a collection)
27. How do you select the names of your characters? By their meaning or how I instinctively relate them, usually.
28. Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find? I do in my stories and poems!
29. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any you’d recommend? I am addicted to audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks every night to fall asleep. I don’t have any to recommend, I have just enjoyed Murakami’s books very much because they involve many characters and beautiful worlds which works well with the voices in Audible. Right now I’m listening to Charlie Kaufman’s Antkind and I do want to share the opening paragraph of chapter one, the man is a genius: My beard is a wonder. It is the beard of Whitman, of Rasputin, of Darwin, yet it is uniquely mine. Salt-and-pepper, steel-wool, cotton-candy confection much too long, wispy, and unruly to be fashionable. And it is this, its very unfashionability that makes the strongest statement. It says I don’t care a whit (a Whitman!) about fashion. I don’t care about attractiveness. This beard is too big for my narrow face. This beard is too wide. This beard is too bottom-heavy for my bald head. It is off-putting. So if you come to me, you come to me on my terms. As I’ve been bearded thusly for three decades now, I like to think that my beard has contributed to the resurgence of beardedness, but in truth, the beards of today are a different animal, most so fastidious they require more grooming than would a simple clean shave. Or if they are full, they’re full on unconventionally handsome faces, the faces of faux woodsmen, the faces of homebrewers of beer. The ladies like this look, these urban swells, men in masculine drag. Mine is not that. Mine is definitely heterosexual, unkept, rabbinical, intellectual, revolutionary. It lets you know I am not interested in fashion, that I am eccentric, that I am serious. It affords me the opportunity to judge you on your judgment of me. Do you shun me? You are shallow. Do you mock me? You are a philistine. Are you repulsed? You are… conventional.
30. Your hero? Again, my dad. (I don’t mean that I don’t see my mother the same way — quite the contrary: she’s unique, she’s a fighter, she’s shaped me in so many ways, she’s the only one for whom I wrote a poem: Anna, and I love her with all my heart…I’m just…daddy’s little girl, you know?)
31. If you could choose celebrity parents, who would you choose? I would not change my parents for the world, honestly.
32. Share something your readers wouldn’t know about you. I’m such a sucker for linguistics, I actually got a wug tattoo (don’t laugh and don’t call my wug a chicken — thanks in advance!) (If you don’t know what a wug is: “Jean Berko Gleason (born 1931) is a psycholinguist and professor emerita in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University who has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of language acquisition in children, aphasia, gender differences in language development, and parent–child interactions. Gleason created the Wug Test, in which a child is shown pictures with nonsense names and then prompted to complete statements about them, and used it to demonstrate that even young children possess implicit knowledge of linguistic morphology. Menn and Ratner have written that “Perhaps no innovation other than the invention of the tape recorder has had such an indelible effect on the field of child language research”, the “wug” (one of the imaginary creatures Gleason drew in creating the Wug Test) being “so basic to what [psycholinguists] know and do that increasingly it appears in the popular literature without attribution to its origins.

Gleason devised the Wug Test as part of her earliest research (1958), which used nonsense words to gauge children’s acquisition of morphological rules‍ — ‌for example, the “default” rule that most English plurals are formed by adding an /s/, /z/ or /ɨz/ sound depending on the final consonant, e.g., hat–hats, eye–eyes, witch–witches. A child is shown simple pictures of a fanciful creature or activity, with a nonsense name, and prompted to complete a statement about it: This is a WUG. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two ________. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Berko_Gleason#wugtest)

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Latest favourite song:

Don’t forget to live, love, and create

❤

DiAmaya Dawn