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rajacoby@gmail.com
One of my poems won a Wick scholarship in 1986. I thought: "Wow. Money and publication." There's not much more a young writer can ask for. What I didn't know is that those things aren't what the work is about. They are a type of "validation," I suppose. Looking back on it, I really can't say what I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my art, my work. Around this time I was publishing poetry in a handful of "little magazines" around the country. And my first short story was published in the New Kent Quarterly. That was validation. And the encouragement of one Diana Culbertson. I still remember her reaction when I told her that was my first story. She said, "You have got to go to a top school."
I did apply to creative writing programs, and I was accepted to two, based on a small collection of short stories. I did not attend, due to family obligations. Instead, I focused on my career in publishing and communications. I did that for more than 10 years, working on my craft sporadically. I kept a notebook, most of the time, and still do. That was one outlet. By my count I have close to half a million words in my notebooks.
Then, after 9/11, I re-examined what I was doing with my life and my time. I resolved to pick up my craft and start again. I was too old for any MFA program. What could I do, I thought, but write? So that's what I did. My goal: Write five books in 20 years. To date I have three books completed: one novel, one nonfiction book, and a book of poems. I am well on my way with my second novel.
My most recent poems have appeared in The 2 River View and The Vocabula Review (October 2008) and are upcoming in Slow Trains (Spring 2009), Dogzplot (Spring 2009), and Xenith. My first novel, There Are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes, is seeking a publisher, as is my nonfiction book, Escaping from Reality Without Really Trying: 40 Years of High Seas Travels and Lowbrow Tales, a memoir-by-interview of a 61-year-old, life-long merchant seaman re-counting his fantastic, hilarious, and politically incorrect exploits (excerpts have been published in The Oregon Literary Review and Alice Blue Review).
It's taken me some time to learn: the writer's life can be any life you choose.
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