Meet Anders Carlson-Wee | Poet

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anders Carlson-Wee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anders, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I’m from Moorhead, Minnesota, which is basically an appendage of Fargo, North Dakota, and my parents are both Lutheran pastors. My childhood was dominated by attending both their congregations. I have two brothers, and as pastors’ kids, we felt we had a choice to be either good kids or bad kids, and without ever explicitly saying it, we chose to be bad kids. We’d sit in the balcony––as far from the pulpit as we could be––and we’d try to distract the organist, and we’d doodle on the bulletins, and we’d make up lewd lyrics for the hymns and blurt them out from on high. But regardless of these antics, my parents’ personal-narrative style of preaching seeped into my imagination, and my poetic style are profoundly influenced by that preaching style.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
When I found writing I knew it was for me: it was what I would do with my life. But I needed time. Lots of time. And the main thing that takes your time away is a need for money. So I decided to not need money. I stopped buying things and started dumpster diving for everything I needed: food, clothing, camping gear, etc. As it turned out, it was so easy to find a surplus of materials that I began to donate massive amounts food to Food Not Bombs, an organization that fed people who were experiencing homelessness. I also started throwing fake moving sales, because I knew shoppers would feel more urgency at a moving sale than at a yard sale. It worked. Anyway, not needing money gave me the many years of free time I needed to develop my writing craft. Eventually I went to Vanderbilt’s MFA program, began to publish my work, and received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. That gave me more time to complete my first book, THE LOW PASSIONS, which I had the great fortune of publishing with a major house: W.W. Norton & Company. While on book tour in 2019 I connected with Rob McQuilkin, who is now my agent, and who helped me sell my new book, DISEASE OF KINGS.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’d take them backpacking in the Sierras and rock climbing in Joshua Tree, then stop for a soak at Deep Creek Hot Springs. After working up an appetite, I’d take them to Sqirl in Silver Lake, which has the best coffee and best Earl Grey morning bun in the world. I dare you to find a blemish on their menu. Then I’d take them to Skylight Books before rounding things out with a sunset swim at Point Dume.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout to my grandfather, Roald Carlson, to whom my new book, DISEASE OF KINGS, is dedicated. He introduced me to dumpster diving, which has been a huge part of my life, and plays a major role in DISEASE OF KINGS. When I turned 18 and left home, I knew I wanted a life in the arts, and I knew that meant I’d never have much money. So I decided to learn how to live on as little money as possible. I attended multiple wilderness survival schools to develop self-reliance skills, and I started dumpster diving for all my food and clothing. Soon I stopped buying food altogether and reduced my expenses to less that $3,000 per year. I lived that way for the next ten years, which gave me the free time I needed to pursue poetry. Without my grandfather’s influence, my life would look very different, and I never would have had the unfettered free time it required to become a writer.

Website: https://www.anderscarlsonwee.com/

Instagram: anderscarlsonwee

Linkedin: Anders Carlson-Wee

Twitter: AndersWeePoet

Facebook: Anders Carlson-Wee

Other: https://www.amazon.com/Disease-Kings-Poems-Anders-Carlson-Wee/dp/1324064706?ref_=ast_author_dp

Image Credits
Author Photo: Anessa Ibrahim Other Photos: Kai Carlson-Wee