Poet paves profitable path via offbeat writing gigs
More than 4,000 people applied to be the Mall of America’s writer-in-residence, which, if you think about it, probably says something about just how tough it is to make a living as a writer.
Sure, “the chance,” as the mall put it, “to spend five days deeply immersed in the Mall atmosphere” in suburban Minnesota near the Twin Cities might not be the most glamorous gig around. But there are plenty of writers out there eating ramen on a friend’s couch who would gladly upgrade to four nights in a hotel, along with a $400 mall gift card and a $2,500 honorarium.
So perhaps it should not be surprising that the competition proved fierce. What might be more surprising — and perhaps even perturbing to other applicants — was that the winner, a poet named Brian Sonia-Wallace, has also won a highly publicized Amtrak residency. And a closer inspection of his resume revealed he had also been an artist-in-residence for the city of Los Angeles and had held similar gigs with the National Park Service and even Dollar Shave Club.
How was all this success at landing offbeat residencies possible? Had Sonia-Wallace crafted the world’s most perfect application and recycled it over and over? What mysterious secrets did he know that other writers do not?
Interviews with Sonia-Wallace and mall officials uncovered no signs of collusion, conspiracy or a secret cabal. In fact, Sonia-Wallace, a 27-year-old recovering theater nerd, turned out to be disappointingly normal. He seems to be just another guy trying to string together enough work to make a living doing what he loves.
He has just done better than most. And he does have some tips that are neither mysterious nor secret.
“For everything on the resume, there are nine other things I applied to with projects that I was really excited about that never happened,” he assured a reporter.
He does not feel bad about winning so many residencies. As Sonia-Wallace sees it, if a project he proposes represents the closest thing to what judges and the corporate sponsors are looking for, he’s just happy he “was able to scry what they wanted.” (If you’re wondering about his obscure word choice, that means “to practice crystal-gazing.”)
Pragmatic poet
In a world filled with highminded masters of fine arts and self-absorbed screenwriters, Sonia-Wallace has managed to scrape together a pretty cool living as a poet by placing a premium on pragmatism. Although he readily admits that some of his friends consider writing for a mall “selling out,” he sees his writing as a service he can provide. Like all good service providers, he places the needs of the customer before his own.
His somewhat unconventional journey up to this point offers a window into why.
After college Sonia-Wallace worked at an affordable housing nonprofit where a mentor helped him learn how to write grant applications. When he moved on from that job and needed income, he decided to try writing personalized poetry in public spaces for tips. He and his typewriter — yes, his typewriter — became popular enough that strangers for whom he had written poems soon began inviting him to tap the muse at private events.
In fact, his first corporate “residency” came to be when a person who did marketing for Dollar Shave Club asked for a poem from Sonia-Wallace and then wondered if he’d be interested in doing a haiku column for the company’s email newsletter.
Another time, a man invited him to write for a conference of investment bankers who all had poems penned for their wives.
And he still has lots of people ask him to compose lines about their dogs.
“Those,” he said, “don’t tend to be my favorite.”
But that was kind of the point. His poetry, Sonia-Wallace came to understand, was for someone — someone other than him.
He kept that framework in mind when he applied to residencies, especially corporate ones. Amtrak, for example, wanted to know if the artists would be sharing their work, so Sonia-Wallace proposed going into the cafeteria car to talk to people, taking his typewriter into common areas and using social media during his cross-country trip.
The Mall of America created its writing competition as a way to celebrate its 25th birthday, so Sonia-Wallace told officials he would explore questions like: “What were you doing 25 years ago?” and “Who do you wish was here right now?”
During his residency in June, he plans to pound out 125 poems on a 100-year-old folding Corona typewriter. They will all be inspired by shoppers and their experiences — an idea that the mall said “stood out as creative and engaging.”
Sonia-Wallace also said he knew creativity was important to the judges, so he wrote an 800-word poem with numbered sections corresponding to the activities he was pitching.
Persistence pays
His most important attribute, writing experts agree, would seem to be persistence.
In an email, Lan Samantha Chang, the director of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, one of the more celebrated graduate creative writing programs in the country, said that writers should feel no shame in applying for anything that will support their work. She said Sonia-Wallace “sounds like an enterprising person” who does exactly that.
“If he continues to win residencies, fellowships, and grants,” she said, “more power to him.”