Creative
by Julie Donn
Donn: Do you have any other writing projects in the works?
Prettyman: I’m trying to self-publish a small poetry collection sometime this spring in a hard copy format. That’s a little project of mine.
Donn: How’s that going?
Prettyman: I want to sell them as a fundraiser and give the proceeds to the Empowerment Center, which helps people who are homeless, helping them get resources they need to get jobs and get back on their feet. That’s my hope, that it will prove my idea that I can sell my poetry books by raising money for that.
Donn: What kind of format are you going to try to sell them in?
"When I go to write a poem, I try to think of… usually, it’s a moment where I felt inspired, a really touching experience, or a concept that I’ve been mulling over."
Prettyman: It’s a little booklet format. I designed it in Adobe InDesign on an 8½” x 11” page, folded in half to make a little booklet.
Donn: That’s cool. Why poetry? When did you get into that?
Prettyman: I think I started doing poetry… I guess I’ve been doing it since I was pretty little. I remember writing, for Mother’s Day, a little hand-written poetry book with pictures illustrating the poems. So I’ve been writing poetry a long time. I started my poetry blog two or three years ago now.
Donn: I’ve just been reading the poems through the emails you send out. How is the blog doing? Like, do you get a lot of traffic on it?
Prettyman: I do not get a lot of traffic on the blog. I have about forty followers, so people get the poems, but it doesn’t show up as traffic. I know there are ways to increase my traffic; I just haven’t buckled down and done all the marketing that goes along with writing a blog.
Donn: Back to your poetry itself, a lot of it is inspired by your faith, right? How do you decide what to write about? What goes into writing poetry?
Prettyman: When I go to write a poem, I try to think of… usually, it’s a moment where I felt inspired, a really touching experience, or a concept that I’ve been mulling over.