Student Spotlight: Zoe Chuang
There are a lot of creeks in Zoe Chuang’s home state of Alabama.
In this 2019 interview with River of Words, Zoe says that if she could be outside and do more outdoors, she would. She loves being in nature. She remembers talking a walk to her local Buck Creek with a friend where they talked about what kind of people they were, and what kind of people they might become.
Scroll to the bottom of this page to read Zoe's full poem, the 2019 River of Words Category IV Winner!
Q: What is your current age?
I am 15 years old.
Q: Tell me a little bit about how you got into writing.
I started writing back in Kindergarten. When the other kids were napping, there was alternative craft time if you couldn’t nap, and I would make little picture books. A lot of them were about my dog. Then my parents got divorced when I was seven. That was a big thing, so I started writing a lot more. I started taking it more seriously in sixth grade. In seventh grade, that was the first year my school had a literary magazine that students could work on. I was part of that, and that got me writing a lot. In eighth grade I applied to the Alabama School of Fine Arts, which is a public fine arts school. I didn’t get in, but it helped me think about things that could be better in my writing. It helped me work harder.
Q: Do you mostly write poetry? Do enjoy any other type of writing or making any other type of art?
I write poetry and prose, but it’s mostly poetic prose. We read the House on Mango Street in my English class this year, and it has inspired a lot of the way that I have been writing lately. I also do a lot of painting and collage work. But yes I had to do both, short stories and poetry for my creative writing class last year.
Q: What’s your process like? How do you go about writing a poem?
I normally write about the things around me. I like to start with a title, because it gives me something to start or to end with. I don’t write as often as I like to, but often times if I have an idea and I sit down at that exact moment, I'll write it. I do a lot of writing in class. I just go with the idea.
Q. Do you do a lot of editing?
I do a lot of editing because I write stream of consciousness, so I have to make sure that it is coherent, it makes sense, and it flows.
Q. What’s your editing process like?
I do a lot of writing on my phone. I use Google Docs. When I’m editing though, I do it on a computer. I use Hemingway App. It’s an AI software. It’s a website that you can use to figure out if you are using words redundantly, or if a sentence is too complicated. I use that initially. If I still don’t like it after that, I go through and I pick out individual words and continue to change stuff. Then, I normally end up with a poem or a short story that I like.
Q: What do you enjoy the most about writing?
I like being able to loose myself in language. When I was younger I really liked the Wizard of Oz. I loved the idea of this other world where you could get lost, where everything was colorful. That’s the same thing that I like about writing. I can put myself somewhere else. When I write short stories, I can put myself in a whole other universe, with whole other people. People that I wish I knew, a different kind of world.
Q: Let’s talk about your piece “Creekwater Girl.” What inspired you to write it?
The first draft of that poem was actually something that I wrote in the first week of my creative writing class last year. I was still thirteen, the beginning of my first year of High School. The assignment was to write a format poem in the style of a “where I’m from” poem. I didn’t really know a lot of the people that were in my class, so there were things I wasn’t comfortable reading out loud. The first draft of “Creekwater Girl” was called “Green Tea Over Ice” and it was about where I’m from. Then, as the year went on, I kept getting more and more ideas to do more writing that was similar to that poem.
The day I wrote “Creekwater Girl,” I was sitting in my room over the summer, and I got a text from a friend inviting me to go to Buck Creek before theatre rehearsal. Buck Creek is this park near my house. It’s like the biggest thing in my town, probably. It’s this island that was originally heart-shaped because this man had it made for his wife. There’s this man-made creek there and it is full of dirt and bottles and everything that is murky and gross. We were sitting there on the dirt and it just clicked. I have an idea, I said, and I wrote the first draft right there.
Q: Now that I think about it, I realize that this poem is about a watershed. Can you tell me a little more about Buck Creek? What was it about it that lit that spark?
I guess it was the nastiness. Everything in Alabama is gross. Every house I’ve ever lived in has been within a few miles of a creek. There are a lot of creeks in Alabama. We don’t really have a lot of lakes, but we have a lot of creeks. There was another creek by my mom’s old apartment and it had beer bottles and a bunch of gross stuff. Being near the water at Buck Creek made my friend and I think about what kind of people we were, and what kind of people we might become. I said that I felt like I was always going to be the person that I am. No matter how far I went, I was always going to be made of dirty Alabama creek water.
Q: What does that dirty Alabama creek water represent?
It represents a part of me that I can’t erase, that I can’t replace. Something that I am and I am always going to be. I’ve lived here since I was born. I can move away to other places, but that is not going to change.
Q: You’ve curated your details so beautifully for this poem. Was it way longer when you first started?
It was actually a lot shorter. I had to go back and flip through a scrapbook. I went through a lot of old notebooks. I used to write a lot of diary entries, so I went through them. The poem didn’t feel finished, so I went back. You know the line about the wasp stings? That was a real thing that happened, and I added it. They are moments in your life that you are never going to live through again, but you can kind of re-live them by writing about them.
Q: The poem exists in the balance between nature and this gritty modern force. Can you talk about that a little more?
When I was younger, my family and I would be a lot more outdoorsy. It influenced a lot of my life. If I could be outside and do more outdoors, I would. I love being in nature, riding my bike down the street, hiking, and camping. At the moment, I am stuck in this loop of going to school, going to rehearsal, coming home, and sitting on my phone. I feel like a lot of my writing reflects the fact that I used to spend a lot of time in nature but I don’t anymore. It’s not because I can’t, but because I stopped.
Q: How did you find out about River of Words?
I was trying to find literary magazines that I could submit to that would take younger writers. Some have age limits. My old creative writing teacher sent me a list of places I could submit to. I saw River of Words and I found it very interesting.
Q: What role has River of Words played in your life?
It made me realize that even though I am super young, I am still capable of being part of a publication.
Q: Here at River of Words we talk a lot about Watersheds: about getting to know them, about observing them and conserving them. What does the word watershed mean to you?
A watershed is kind of a home. Things working in tandem with other things to make other things work. I feel like I’ve had a lot of people that read my work describe it as homely or nostalgic, so it really fits with the idea that a watershed is an ecosystem and by proxy, a home.
Q: We call someone who explores their watershed and the environment they live in a Watershed Explorer. Do you consider yourself a watershed explorer? Why?
I’d say so. I like to get up early some times. Well, I used to. There used to be a spot in my neighborhood that’s not there anymore because they built a house, but you used to be able to get up there and watch the sunrise. I used to go almost every day and watch the sun rise from the hill. I saw so many sunrises on so many different days. I saw so much nature being magical and literally awesome. I’d ride my bike around and explore this place that is my home.
Q: What is some advice you’d give another young person about writing?
If something knocks you down, there is always going to be someone there to help you get back up.
Q: What is your advice for a young person who wants to be more involved in taking care of their environment or get to know their local watershed?
I participated in this thing recently, which was on May 7th, to produce as little waste as I could on that day. I think everyone should always strive to use as little waste as they can. On May 7th, I used no plastic utensils, no straws. I made sure every piece of scrap that could be recycled ended up in a recycle bin. I planted a garden. Also, bring your own bag to the grocery store!
"Creekwater Girl" by Zoe Chuang
I am made of dirty Alabama creek water and the sticky sweet clover honey that I taste during the summer, the honey that smells like dead flowers until it touches your tongue and it is the forbidden sweet goodness that your parents put on the top shelf of the pantry when you are a child so that you do not eat it.
I am made of sun bronzed skin from running in the neighbour’s sprinklers because it grows so hot in July that my skin melts off the bone like the ribs everyone here likes to eat and I would prefer to cool off in needle sharp water than become the next piece of meat at the Turner’s cookout.
I am made of chasing the ice cream truck miles through the neighbourhood for a taste of the chemically tasting coconut fruit bar that reminds me of sunscreen but I will eat anyway because my parents gave me one dollar and the rest of the kids have one dollar and fifty cents, at least, but money is tight and I do not complain.
I am made of the ghosts that reside in the choir room of the Presbyterian church I used to attend, the ones that whisper names in the dark room and shriek when the keys of the piano are played, no matter how tenderly.
I am made of My Little Pony plastic castles that smell like artificial bubble gum flavouring and the cheap plastic of dolls, the kind you touch once and the smell will not rub off no matter how hard you scrub yourself in the shower.
I am made of muddy footprints that children track into the bathroom after a long day of doing nothing but causing trouble, the ones that smell of dirt and sugar cookies from the neighbor’s house, the tracks that become embedded into the bathroom mat after so long. These tracks become the next closest thing to veins.
I am made of the caffeine free cans of Diet Coke that my grandmother drinks religiously. I am cold like them and much like them I have a bitter after taste, the only differences that my grandmother loves her caffeine free Diet Coke and she despises me for how much I remind her of my mother.
I am made of wasp stings that hurt when you touch them, the kind that brothers laugh over when you are rubbing your puffy eyes with dirt stained hands because the sting on your knee hurts. It is the kind of sting where the stinger stays in and your body burns as your father removes it with tweezers and your sister holds your shoulders down.
I am made of dirty Alabama creek water and the dead black-eyed Susans that grew rampant in my old backyard. The flowers wilt and die, but in the end they always grow back next spring. I would like to think I grow the same way.
Zoe Chuang, age 15
Helena, AL. United States
2019 Category IV Winner