Ask the Author: Amber Koneval
Answered Questions (6)
Amber Koneval
It comes from a poem in the collection of the same name, which is a reflection on this specific moment. A friend of mine called me super late at night, drunk off his rocker, in fairly standard booty-call style. But instead of saying the typical drunk-kid stuff, he just begged me over and over to pray for him. To talk to God for him, to help him talk to God.
Which got me to thinking a lot about the nature of vulnerability and how it plays in with our relationship with God- was this kid the worst kind of sinner because he was obviously not living a 'holy' life, or was he more on the way to holiness than a lot of the pew-warmers I knew because he was willing to cry out to God any way he could when he was at his lowest?
The collection 'Drunk Dialing the Divine' hinges on that kind of tension, that kind of feeling. It's not a collection that comes from a place of calmness- each poem comes from a place of chaos, of longing, of anger or a sense of abandonment, and struggles, really fights, for a sense of peace and God's grace. When I'm struggling with my faith, when I'm deep in a dark night of the soul, I kind of feel like that kid who called me at 3 a.m.- disoriented, lost, desperate and jumbled. I'm searching for anything, anyone, who can help guide me out of that place and at the same time God is reaching out to help direct me to the people, to the experiences, that will best help me with that.
So it's a collection for all those times that I felt like I was drunk dialing God with all of my baggage. It's my hope that it can be relateable to those who have gone through the same things. It's a kind of roundabout love letter for God, as well as a kind of 'it's okay. you're not alone' letter to those who've felt like they are lesser Christians when their lives, when their faith, gets messy.
Which got me to thinking a lot about the nature of vulnerability and how it plays in with our relationship with God- was this kid the worst kind of sinner because he was obviously not living a 'holy' life, or was he more on the way to holiness than a lot of the pew-warmers I knew because he was willing to cry out to God any way he could when he was at his lowest?
The collection 'Drunk Dialing the Divine' hinges on that kind of tension, that kind of feeling. It's not a collection that comes from a place of calmness- each poem comes from a place of chaos, of longing, of anger or a sense of abandonment, and struggles, really fights, for a sense of peace and God's grace. When I'm struggling with my faith, when I'm deep in a dark night of the soul, I kind of feel like that kid who called me at 3 a.m.- disoriented, lost, desperate and jumbled. I'm searching for anything, anyone, who can help guide me out of that place and at the same time God is reaching out to help direct me to the people, to the experiences, that will best help me with that.
So it's a collection for all those times that I felt like I was drunk dialing God with all of my baggage. It's my hope that it can be relateable to those who have gone through the same things. It's a kind of roundabout love letter for God, as well as a kind of 'it's okay. you're not alone' letter to those who've felt like they are lesser Christians when their lives, when their faith, gets messy.
Amber Koneval
Write, write, write. Write when you feel the muse, write when you don't. When you're done writing, submit. If you don't think your writing is good enough to submit, edit until you think it is. Keep moving forward, no matter what. That's what will make you a writer.
Amber Koneval
With poetry, I let it be. If I'm not feeling the need to write verse, I won't. This can lead to weeks, months going by without any new poetic material- but I've made my own peace with that.
Amber Koneval
Being able to use the medium of writing in order to work through my own personal struggles, and then seeing readers doing the same thing in order to get through their own lives.
Amber Koneval
Compiling two different poetry manuscripts and shopping them to publishers- one of them being a religious manuscript that is a kind-of sequel to 'Drunk Dialing the Divine', the other being a coming-of-age autobiography written in love poems.
Amber Koneval
With poetry, I mostly get inspired through every day living- which means I often push myself to experience as much as is morally possible.
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