"If there is an idea that is so crucial to who you are, you can approach it from a thousand different angles. And it's okay to write about that one thing over and over and over even 30 years down the line, because you're always going to be looking at it differently."

The editors of Eucalyptus Lit recently had the privilege and opportunity to speak with Jessie Leitzel, editor-in-chief of Trace Fossils Review. Their work “Euphemisms for the Hunt” features in Issue 4, Overture.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

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How did you start writing?

That's a really good question. I think it all started when I was a kid—my mom read to me a lot. I was definitely a reader before I was ever a writer, which I believe is important. In order to be a writer, you need to be a listener. And I listened a lot, a ridiculous amount.

I lived deep in the mountains. It was a place where there was a lot of natural sound, a lot of industry boom, the coal mining stuff. But if you go farther, where our house was, it was very quiet. A lot of birdsong. I really enjoyed that as a kid.

When I did start writing, I moved down to Charleston. I joined a creative writing program—I've been in that for seven years. I think that enabled me to enter fiction, because I was already observing people and places and things. And then that just kind of turned me into a storyteller.

But yeah, I went through a writing program, which, for an hour and a half every single day, we sat down and did art. Now, looking back on it, in my brain that was something that all kids did. But I go to a magnet school, so I know it's a really unique experience. I'm leaving with a cohort of 11 kids, which is really crazy, having known someone for that long. It definitely made me who I am. It cemented for me a path in writing.
 

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You mentioned being a storyteller. I was wondering what your creative process looks like, and how storytelling might be a component of that. 

For me, it's very, very different based on what I'm writing. Some pieces happen in a flash—it's really late, and a line comes up, or a title, something fundamental that you can work off of, and then it's there on the page in front of you.

Others have taken me years. The essay that I gave you, “Euphemisms for the Hunt”, was a rather quick one. But some pieces I have to take breaks from, especially if they're emotional.

For me, my brain works better in the morning. If I can start out creative, then it informs the rest of the day; I’ll take that and be able to walk into the lab thinking like a poet. I work best in the morning also because it’s that sliver of time before I'm talking to people, before I'm really talking to myself. It allows the piece to show up for me instead of having to pull something out of me.

Also, pausing from my own work and reading other people's work is incredibly important, especially if I'm inspired by a certain thing or if I've been toying around with ekphrastic works. With a lot of my fundamental authors and favorite books, I'll consult certain passages and look back on anything from general ideas to minute syntax, a process that helps me a lot in finding a cornerstone to pull from.
 

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Could you tell us about a favorite author or work that you've read recently, or just something that's had a really big impact on your life? 

Sure. One of my all time favorites is B.H. Fairchild, specifically “The Art of the Lathe”. It is absolutely monumental. I have it on my desk. I keep it at hand, always.

It’s a phenomenal book, set in the deep Midwest—very, very rural. Just recently, in the 2024 Poetry Out Loud competition, I was able to read one of my favorites from the collection, “Old Men Playing Basketball,” as my final poem. I got to speak with some members of the audience afterwards, and you could see it in their eyes, the way his words had found a home with them. I first read the collection in my junior year, but this was a moment when I realized that it was the type of publication that lingers for a lifetime.

Fairchild’s poems do a wonderful job specifically of speaking about a place. The town that he comes from is—I'm not going to say “decaying” because it's not necessarily—but as all small towns have, Fairchild notes a certain slow fade, a slow ebb. The book moves through images of people fading away, cultures fading away, through the ego of the Midwest and the human need to work.

In the end, I believe the collection resonated with me simply because it's similar to my heritage, and the values of the people I come from. But also, there's a certain poem in here called “The Death of a Small Town” that talks about what it means to have a place embody something your entire life and then one day it’s disappearance, and silent as snow. That piece really influenced me and my writing, as well as this essay and my book. Go read him, please. It will change your life.

 

Okay, we'll definitely check that out. Putting that on the list. The long list. 

Never ending!

You talked about B.H Fairchild’s small town, can you talk about how place and setting has influenced you? 

Well, hugely. One of my friends, when they were reading my book, said, “This is just a giant search for origin.” And I think that's completely true. 

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Specifically with my writing, it really began, whether I knew it or not, when we moved down south. I'm originally from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, a very small coal mining town deep in the heart of the eastern Pennsylvania mountains. There's a lot of tradition there, buried in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. We moved down here because there was little to no opportunity; maybe we had a shopping mall, but I'm not even sure if that's there anymore. 

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The South is so inherently different from PA, in everything from weather to mannerisms to the quality of Dunkin Donuts. I felt, I think, even as a seven year old, that there was something missing. It would show up in my writing, too: in class, I would present a script that had like a canary in it, or a poem that was talking about coal mining, or a microfiction set in Appalachia. At the time, I couldn’t figure out why.

But by the time I got to writing this book, I realized, oh, there is something missing. We write because we're inherently curious, right? Whether we're curious about ourselves, or about something we have no groundings in yet, we have a need to fill a gap in some way. I like to think of it like digging the hole in the sand, and water keeps filling in. That's kind of what it feels like for me to write. I'm trying to get somewhere, but sometimes things just keep washing in. 

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For me, the place where my writing lives is somewhere in PA. Maybe in my house, maybe at the farm where my great-grandfather grew up, the same man who gave me my name, “Leitzel,” and who took the trove of family stories with him when he passed. My writing lives in that liminal space that I guess you could call “the namesake.” 

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That's why I write—because I don't have an actual place anymore. I don't own land; none of my family does anymore. But for some reason, I still want to be able to call it mine. My writing, then, is a territory that I can claim. It's not soil, but it's something—I don't have dirt, but I have a name. 

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I think I'm searching for a place in the hopes that I still have one. 

It seems like you're often working with a lot of different genres of creative writing. Do you see any overlap between these different types of creative writing? How does this multifaceted approach influence each genre?

That's a great question. Well, yes, definitely, you're correct. I haven't met a lot of writers that started in one genre and never ventured out of it.

I'm a firm believer that different things need to be said in different ways. A poem is really good for lingering on an image, but it’s hard to move through a poem the way you move through a fiction piece. I've recently been very into writing creative nonfiction, but it was only because I hd been writing poetry beforehand.
When I say what I need to say in a certain genre, I find something else, and I kind of jump. Or oftentimes I'll read one of my peers' works, or I'll read a book, and I think, Oh, you tried something that I really want to try.

Writing is something that you can't really plateau in. No matter how old we get, we're always learning something. And I think the same logic applies here—when you get stuck in a genre, you may simply need to approach it through a lens that constitutes something new.

Because my work is influenced by my science brain, I have a need to leap back and forth between different things. And that is where I see “the poet” and “the writer” and “the scientist” coming in: the action is less a decision than an impulse.
 

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Can you tell us a little bit more about biomed? What does it mean to you? How does it influence your writing, if at all? 

I think my writing is definitely why I'm here.

But biomed is the way I think. I’ve always approached schoolwork as a scientist. And I'm going into biomedical engineering in college, which is a pretty big leap for me, especially coming from an arts background.

I've done some research in regenerative medicine over the years. I worked primarily with stem cells, dealt with concentrations of medicines, et cetera. I would like to get more of a footing in tissue science, though; there's a professor I've been in contact with who learned how to 3D print living tissue so that it lessens the demand, which is really, really cool.

In the end, I want to end up in the nonfiction realm. I want to have a knowledge of science without being holed up in a lab. I have spent a lot of time in labs, and it's extremely rewarding, but I'm more so a writer; I'm an artist. I need to be working like an artist.

If you can write well, you can make anything interesting. There are a lot of authors that I've been reading up on—there's a book called When Einstein Walked with Gödel, by Jim Holt. It’s a thick collection of scientific essays, but they are so interesting. I first read them long before I knew what I was doing in the science realm, and at the time, I thought, How can this person make these abstract, nonsensical topics make sense? And I’m realizing now, all these years later, that it’s because he's a writer. He's not only a scientist. I feel as though even if I don't do a whole lot of things well, then I would at least like to have that ability, to be able to pique someone’s interest in these types of things. There's a lot happening in science right now that needs to be shared. I would like to share them through the lens of a storyteller.

You talked about connecting biomed and writing and nonfiction. How do you hope to interact with writing in the future?

The biggest thing is going to be working on Trace Fossils Review, the literary magazine I founded with a friend. We really want to start bringing in some contests, specifically for science-based writing. We haven't toyed with that yet, but it would be really, really fun.

I also want to get people involved. I'm going to be heading up to school in Boston, and they're pretty big in the tech scene. I would like to find kids that also think, Wait, I like art and science — what do I do?, and see if we can use our platform to help a little bit.

But I think where it ends, for me, is, regardless of what I'm doing, I want to be able to wake up in the morning, make a cup of coffee, sit down, and write something. I need my writing time. And that could come in the form of either creative works, science reports, or a mélange of the two, simply because I believe the practice of putting words on the page is where it all ends for me. I want to have that kind of peace in my life.

 

If you do end up having a science-themed creative writing contest, please keep us updated. That's something I know I would be super interested in. 

Switching gears a little bit—I know “Euphemisms for the Hunt” is an essay from your collection, The Small Hours. Could you talk a little bit about what the process of developing the collection was like? How did you know when it was ready to come together?

The Small Hours is a collection of poetry, essays, and fiction that talks about my family heritage in Pennsylvania and the inherent disconnect between who I am now and the person I could have been had we never moved down South. I like to think of it as an ode to the mountains and the traditions of that region, especially those that I'll never be able to carry on.

The book was a long time coming. As I'd said, there were little signs throughout the years that I would find myself drawn to region and origin, so when I sat down to figure out what I was going to write about, I thought, oh, that's it. There's a nice little deposit there for me.

At the summit of our creative writing program, in your senior year, you write a book. The “Senior Thesis” consists of mentorships, workshops and slaving out 100+ pages in eight months. It is definitely an interesting feat—we were applying to college, flying places for competitions, running a lit magazine, which was a lot. But in the end, this book is a product of that not because it was assigned but because it was a labor of love. Seven years spent with the same people, the same family.

Funnily enough, the first draft had around 300 pages—it was a lot. A really hard thing when you're writing a book is sitting down with yourself, especially if you're on a deadline, and saying, Does this deserve to go to print?

A lot of the pieces I have in here, I really love. There are also a lot of pieces that never made it to print, and probably won't ever see the light of day, that I really love. That's a hard thing to come to terms with, especially when you're a young writer, because you want to be “out there”—you want to have your name on your work and you want people reading your stuff.

But something I’ve had to come to terms with is that if there's an idea that's really, really important to you, it's okay to not publish it immediately. There's an essay called “Namesake” that I’ve been writing for a really long time. It’s about why I have a pen name, and what that means to me. But it just wasn't ready for publication. Consequently, it wasn't in the book, which was heartbreaking to me, because it held the psyche of what this book is about.

But something comforting, something one of my favorite teachers told me, is that you don't ever have to stop writing about certain things. There will never be one piece that talks about everything. If there is an idea that is so crucial to who you are, you can approach it from a thousand different angles. And it's okay to write about that one thing over and over and over even 30 years down the line, because you're always going to be looking at it differently. And that was a hard realization that came to me when I was writing this book, but also a good one. It's what I needed to know. That not every piece has to be “it.”

As far as ordering the pieces in the collection itself, I took a lot of advice from my mentor, Eugenia Leigh. She's wonderful. She wrote Bianca, a devastating collection of poetry and essays. During the final stages of revision, after she generously ran through my entire manuscript, she noted a certain flow between the pieces; she noted a dialogue that pulled the reader on a journey through the collection. For instance, the piece that I ended on is called “Tumbling Run”, and it has more of an uplifting note. If anyone does music, it's felt like it was just one note higher than the rest of the collection. And that felt like a good ending for me. Whereas, the first piece of the book, “We Must Be in the Harvest Again,” is at the beginning because it's the first piece I wrote. It was my opening gate; it set me in the place that I needed to be in to write what I needed to write. So I thought, for my readers, it was extremely important that they had the same grounding point as I did. This was a journey of discovery for me, too.

The last thing I want to say about The Small Hours is that it’s one of many searches for origins. There's something about coming back to a place and searching for a place that is so inherent to being a writer. I don't think you can be a writer without coming back to a liminal spot.

I wrote this entire book in my teacher’s office. That's been my writing spot. When I leave that room—and I'm going to graduate on Thursday, which is crazy—when I go up north and I start the process of writing up there, I have a feeling I'm going to write about the South. It’s not my home, not necessarily; it's not where I'm from. But a part of me was born there. The writer was born there.

And so, if you feel like you're connected to a certain landscape or a certain building, something with walls, something with infrastructure, any place that belongs to you, write about it! For me, with my Pennsylvania origin, that’s how The Small Hours came to life. Whatever book I write next, I believe it's going to have something to do with South Carolina. Little premonition.

Okay, we’ll definitely keep on the lookout for that. What have you been up to recently?

I have been enjoying not taking classes for a few short months, which is really nice. I mean, I'm going directly into college—no gap year or anything. But as far as writing, I've really been working on Trace Fossils Review. Because it’s completely student run, our masthead that used to see each other every day will now be scattered at multiple universities across the nation, so we're spending the summer building a five year plan to promote our mission.

I've also been reading a ton. If there's something to be said about finishing high school, my anecdote is that the moment I published my book, something in me said, I need to consume every single written text. When you finish and you hit print, it's out of your hands. You're not going to have a single word left in you—if you still do, I am madly impressed.

I just started eating books. Genuinely. Right now, I'm on An American Childhood by Annie Dillard. She wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Phenomenal writer—she’s set in the Philadelphia area as well, so every time she writes about place, I'm like, you are my writer. The goal of the summer is to read as many books as possible and to step out of my own shoes. I feel like if you write nonfiction for too long, especially memoir-based nonfiction, you get a little bit existential. You start believing that every single thing you do matters. That's not true. So it's nice to read other people and realize that the world is so much bigger than you. And if I can live my summer and enter my writing again with that mindset, I think I'm going to be just fine.
 

Do you have any advice for young writers? People who are interested in both science and writing? 

You are not just one thing. When I was in my writing program, I heard a lot of “Oh, but you're an artist. Why would you want to be a scientist?” And when I did science things I heard a lot of “Wow, STEM is really hard. You’ve got to pick one.”

You've heard the ‘art versus science’ brain, right? That kills me. I hate that phrase. One, it’s anatomically incorrect. Two, writers are interdisciplinary people. Artists are interdisciplinary people; you need to communicate across fields. You need to listen.

If you are going into a science field, you can have an art background—or if you're going into arts from a science background. You can be both, and even if it's hard, even if it takes up a ton of your time, it's fine. There are people that have done it, and there are people that continue to do it. There is a support network out there for people who want to do that.

So don't get discouraged. Also, specifically for young writers—this is gonna sound really weird—build a rejection wall. I mean physically print out your rejection letters and tape them up together. I have mine hanging above my dresser. You're gonna get thirty no’s for every yes, but when you do get the ‘yes,’ it’s going to be a massive achievement. And it's going to be so much fun, because art is so subjective. When you start seeing your work getting accepted to contests, and magazines, and your name’s out there, you’ll realize that the opportunity didn't just come to you.

Often, editors will send little notes as well—when I started out, I submitted to a contest through the University of South Carolina Honors College, and one of the editors said, “Hey, your piece didn't really align with the prompt, but I really liked it.” And while that was such a small little line, I internalized it. I thought, that's really cool. I'm a writer.

So put your work out there, put yourself out there, be vulnerable in your work. Being vulnerable in your work allows you to be vulnerable in your life. We want to know about the person who's writing it, not just the work itself.