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I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. I flew to San Francisco last October for a terrific literary festival called Litquake.

I had an event in support of the People's Project, an anthology I co-edited with my dear friend, Said Jones.

Three of our contributors were also there,

Abby Maxwell, Jill Dhamatoc, and Randall Mann.

We each read from the anthology,

and then we chatted and answered some audience questions.

During our conversation on stage, we talked about craft,

the decisions we make when we write, from line length to word choice.

Poet Randall Mann said that he rarely wrote using prompts or on demand,

which our anthologies call for submissions and the tight turnaround, required.

Saeed and I are so lucky that Randall Mann said yes to us and embraced the challenge.

At the festival, he mentioned that finding the poem's form, its container, was what made his poem in the People's Project possible. I know that feeling well. Sometimes I

flail about in a piece of writing, whether poetry or prose, until I find the right structure

for it. Once I find the form, I'm off and running.

This was true most recently in my craft book, Dear Writer.

Once I decided to organize the book around my own ten principles of creativity,

...