We had the good fortune of connecting with K.E. Ogden and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi K.E., why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I’ve always loved reading and writing. As a child growing up in Hawai’i I was really interested in becoming a reporter. I had one of those Brother brand blue typewriters and each week I’d type up copies (using carbon paper) of the “Ala Amo Amo Street News” which was the street we lived on, and I’d give copies to all the neighbors. I also loved reading poems and loved stories. I remember the book Watership Down had a big impact on me, and I also remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank and then beginning to keep my own diary and writing not just about my life but about the observed lives and events around me. When I got into Middle School and High School I took theater and creative writing classes and was still writing for the school paper and a column for our local paper too, so I knew I’d try to do something in my life that involved writing.

When I got to college I took psychology courses and began to see how writing could be healing and therapeutic for people. That really factors into the kinds of poetry and essays I write now, and also factors in to how I teach creative writing and composition to my students. Writing is really powerful and has the possibility to change the world in ways both good and bad, so helping students learn how to respect their writing and their voices is important to me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m a multigenre writer. I’ve always written poetry, but also write literary non fiction, screenplays, and plays, and the occasional fiction story. I also am a director, actor, and a book artist. All of these things inform the way I approach writing which is really just sitting down and writing on paper by hand, and then reading it out to see what it wants to become. When I teach writing I try to tell my students that the most important thing is for them to tap into their own, unique, authentic voices. When I started writing I would send my stuff out to contests just not really knowing what I was doing but wanting people to read my work. I’d go to open mic nights whereever I could and would read my work just to get connected to other writers. When I went to graduate school for my MFA it almost killed my voice. I felt so insecure – major imposter syndrome. As the first kid in my family to even go to college, getting a graduate degree was like “What is that for?” And then when I got to my program, everyone else seemed so much better read, so much smarter, so much more talented, and I felt like what I had to offer was garbage. After I came out of that program I went back to theater where I felt more comfortable and supported. It took me a while to write poems again and really feel like I had my voice back. That happened in L.A. actually. When I got here I had won an honorable mention in a screenwriting contest and thought I’d become a screenwriter, and I took a class offered by Jack Grapes called METHOD WRITING. The people in those rooms in those classes really helped me get my voice back and feel empowered and feel like I had something to say to the world. I made life-long friends in those writing rooms. since then I’ve spent a lot of time teaching, so sometimes my writing takes a backburner so that I can support my students. I try not to get bogged down in the “getting published” part of writing. DOING the writing is the important part. I tell my students the same thing.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
When I first came to Los Angeles I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel like this city was my city. I grew up in Honolulu, Hawai’i, spent summers and years of my life in Southeast Louisiana and New Orleans, went to college in Fairbanks, AK and went to high school in the Bay Area, so I didn’t know that Los Angeles would become a part of me the way it has. And of course, a lot of people forget that Los Angeles is an incredible literary town! When friends visit, I always take them to all the great bookstores — of course the whimsy of The Last Bookstore is great, and it’s a wonderful place to take visitors! But there’s also The Iliad and of course Vroman’s is a fun place to hit. An incredible diversion to Pomona is necessary for A Mic n’ Dim Lights hosted by my good friend Cory Cofer, where some of the most amazing spoken word talent takes the stage, and us amateurs can get up there too! That’s been going strong over a decade, and it’s an important venue for writers. Also, if somebody cool is reading at Beyond Baroque, I definitely try to take my friends there for a reading and maybe to poke around in the archives. If there are Chandler fans, I think it’s always fun to walk around Los Feliz. For a little literary inspiration, there’s nothing like Korea Town. I live in the valley so one of my favorite places is Aroma Cafe. Great food, great coffee, and a little bit of the wild around you. And there’s always a really unique mix of people there, from the chess players to the writers and poets to the actors and industry people. There’s so much more but I have to stop there.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
None of us ever achieves anything alone. I’ve been lucky enough to have teachers who cared about me and who mentored me, like my Skyline Community College professors Rich Yurman and Katherine Harer, and my dear friend and mentor, fiction writer Nancy Zafris who passed away last year. I also am lucky enough to be inspired regularly by my students and colleagues at Pasadena City College, especially my colleagues in the creative writing program at PCC, Emily Fernandez, Simona Supekar, Brian Adler, E. Katherine Kottaras, and Akilah Brown. We cheer each other on.

Website: http://www.kirstenogden.com

Instagram: @SizzleAndBounce

Other: K.E. Ogden’s award-winning poetry debut What the Body Already Knows is available at bookstores everywhere, amazon, from Ogden at her website, or direct from the publisher, Finishing Line Press: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/what-the-body-already-knows-by-k-e-ogden-nwvs-164-2021-nwvs-winner/

Image Credits
Cover Art by Kiyoshi Nakazawa; Cover Design by Mathew Digges.

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.