Michael Ryan | CTRL+Shift: Writing practice at the dawn of the digital era

What digital devices do you have access to for writing?

I have a desktop computer and an iPad. I don't use the iPad much, but sometimes for internet stuff.

What role does correspondence play in your revision practice?

Well, I have trusted readers, some of whom I've had for a very, very long time. I think what you want in a reader is somebody who loves your work-and maybe loves you-but will tell you the truth about a piece. Even to the point of saying, "This really doesn't work at all, and belongs in the bone pile," but who will tell you, at every place, what doesn't work for them. And you can get a group of these responses, and you can see which ones are useful. I've changed things because of those responses, but I also have not changed things.

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How long have you been writing professionally?

The first poem I published was in 1970. So, 44 years.

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What digital devices do you have access to for writing?

I have a desktop computer and an iPad. I don't use the iPad much, but sometimes for internet stuff.

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What physical tools do you use for composition?

I draft poems by hand and then I'll go back to the computer and go sometimes back and forth. Prose, I write on the computer.

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What genres do you work in?

I write prose and poetry, essays, nonfiction, and mostly poems.

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How do you name your files?

I try to do them in terms of the draft numbers. Like, I will save the title. Sometimes, I'll put the date if it seems germane, but I will put numbers so that the first draft that goes on the computer is "1," and so forth. ... (The folder is named) "Poems 2012-" because that was when I finished my last book of poems. So they're kind of arranged by book. ... I hope (my computer) has a back up system on it-I think it does. I think it backs it up automatically.

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How did the advent of personal computing and the internet influence your writing practices?

Of course it has changed. Everything has accelerated-you can look up stuff, look up definitions of words. I would often write with a dictionary. I never have called a poem finished before I looked up most of the words in the poem. I like to see how the etymologies work in relationship to one another before I call something "finished." Now you can do a lot of that on the computer.

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How do you 'feel' about your digital files? Do they feel dear to you?

Well, I do invite it to dinner every once in a while. I take it to the movie when it feels neglected. And I pet it, sometimes. Speak very soft, kind words. Um-no.

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What role, if any, do other people play in your writing?

When I'm responding [via email] to somebody's manuscript...I will write them a letter, essentially the exact same thing I would have been sent through the mail.

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