Nina Nicole Garner is a Series Editor at CryingHeartPress Zine and the Author of Let Want Be Hunger & The Composition of Returns, a poetry collection.

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Red Lipstick, Poetry, and Memories: A Conversation with Nina Garner

Love is everything, isn’t it? But there are many forms of it. To me, love is a verb more than an emotion. Emotions change. They’re volatile. But love is a state of being, and it begins with myself before extending outward. Love is a choice.

Abdullah Lakdawala in Conversation with Nina Nicole Garner

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: First of all, I’d love to know more about you on behalf of our audience. Who are you behind the book? Who are you behind the pen?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: The person behind the pen is very much the same as what’s in the book. I tend to be honest, blunt, and very passionate about life. I think that’s reflected clearly in my writing. There’s a strong emphasis on color and the senses, and that’s genuinely how I experience life. A lot of it is inspired by relationships in my life or the places where I grew up. There’s really no illusion there. One of my biggest goals is to be as honest as possible. I’m a mom, a wife, a daughter. I love reading, history, language, and travel.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: How would you say your life transpired in a way that led you to become a writer? How were your surroundings growing up?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: They were very supportive. I learned to read sitting on my great-grandfather’s lap when I was little. I read early and voraciously. My childhood was basically buying books, reading books, and talking about books. I always wanted to be a writer, and I knew that from a young age. This is truly my childhood dream. I pretty much have everything I ever wanted, and I feel very fortunate. Writing is actually how I met my husband. He read my first book, and after the second one, he asked me to marry him. My family was always supportive of my writing, and I’ve had many mentors throughout my academic life and beyond who believed in what I was doing. I’m very blessed.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: How would you describe the joy of discovering books and reading through your grandfather? And what was the first book you remember reading?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: My grandfather read Harlequin historical romances, books geared toward women. He had this philosophy and admiration for women. Every woman in his life was good to him. He used to say, “How do you know what a woman wants if you don’t know what she’s reading?” So he taught me to read through those books. I had to skip certain sections because they got a little feisty, but I actually didn’t start with children’s books. I read those later. What stayed with me was the experience of sitting with him and sharing that time together. Because of that, books became tied to comfort, care, and quality time for me. One of the first books I read on my own that had a huge impact on me was Alice in Wonderland by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I remember thinking, I want to do this. I want to create my own worlds and write words that feel magical.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: Which book would you call your favorite, and why?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: My favorite book in the world would have to be The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. If I had to narrow it down to one, that would be it. To me, it’s the most perfect book ever written. It reads like poetry without being poetry. The imagery, symbolism, wording, and the way it’s written, there’s so much depth to it. It’s heartbreaking, but also strangely beautiful. A close second would be Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, but The Great Gatsby is the epitome of a perfect book to me.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: What are your future plans? Is there any upcoming work you’re planning or currently working on?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Oh yes, this is just the beginning. I recently released a chapbook, and on April 1st of last year, I released my first full-length collection. I’m not working on a third book just yet. Right now, I’m focused on my role as editor for our press in France, CHP. We just launched our first issue, and it’s been wildly successful. Next week, we’re announcing the open call for issue two, which will be published on July 14th in honor of Bastille Day in France. Then we’ll release another issue toward the end of the summer and another later in the year. I’m also doing individual submissions. After this interview, I’m reading a piece published in Thorn and Bloom as part of Red Rose Thorns alongside Christine Richards and several other authors from the next issue. Vinegar Press also picked up a piece in my school paper, and I have a few other submissions out there. Right now, my focus is really on building the magazine and growing in my editorial role. I have ideas for a third book, but for now I’m concentrating on contributing to other magazines and publications.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: Can you give us a glimpse into your everyday life? From morning until bedtime?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: I usually wake up and spend about 30 to 45 minutes checking the news on my phone. My husband brings me coffee, copious amounts of coffee, huge cups of it. Then it’s brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, getting dressed for the day. A lot of my day is schoolwork because I’m pursuing two degrees at LSU simultaneously, so there’s a lot of reading. Honestly, I probably read more than anything else. Then there’s regular life stuff, letting the dog out, taking care of teenage kids, mom responsibilities. Most of my writing happens at night when everyone else has settled down. There’s really no mystery or glamour to it. I consider writing work. It’s a craft, and if I don’t show up and work, the work doesn’t happen. I try to do something every day, even if it’s just editing or writing down ideas in my notes app.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: I read your book and noticed these raw portrayals of desire and heartbreak throughout your poems. What was the backstory behind that?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Absolutely. I’ve been writing my whole life, but I had set it aside for a while until the end of 2024. My father died, and I had a very difficult time coping with it. Around the same period, I was diagnosed with the same chronic illness my father had. It was a dark time, and I reached for the one thing that had always held me together, writing. My first book, Let Want Be Hunger, which I published in 2025, contains around ten or eleven years of work. It spans an entire decade of my life. My first goal was simply to finish it and prove to myself that I could do it. Then I asked myself: Can I do better? Can I grow as an artist? This second book was written almost entirely within nine months. When I sit down to write, I tell myself to block everyone else out. Pretend nobody will ever read it. Write the things you never want anyone to know. Then erase the performance and tell the truth. The cover itself is a composite of men in my life, including my father, combined with myself. And the title, The Composition of Returns, reflects this journey of looking back with new eyes, revisiting moments from my younger self as a woman in her mid-thirties instead of the person I was ten years ago. Some of the heartbreak and desire in the first book came from relationships that felt volatile at the time. This book feels different. It’s more about what remains once you realize desire itself can never truly be satisfied. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also a love letter to the past. And writing it allowed me to close those chapters of my life.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: That’s very emotional to hear. Could you tell us more about your relationship with your father and the poem The Coffee Cup?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: My father was my hero. There’s a quote by Anne Sexton that says something along the lines of: It doesn’t matter who my father was. What matters is who I remember he was. To me, my father was indomitable. He was the strongest man I ever knew. I respected him deeply. He wasn’t perfect, but to me, he was. I was always very much a daddy’s girl, and losing him felt like amputating part of my soul. It was devastating. But because we had such a close relationship, there was comfort in knowing he wouldn’t want me to suffer endlessly. My father was complicated, and we definitely butted heads sometimes, but we had a very good relationship. I always knew he loved me.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: I hope he’s happy wherever he is. I also read Somewhere in Oklahoma or Texas, and it felt very personal. Was it based on a real-life experience?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Yes. It’s about medical trauma and what it’s like to experience a serious loss as a woman within the U.S. medical system. I lost a baby.

At the time, I wrote this stream-of-consciousness piece about what was playing on the television while everything was happening. Nearly ten years later, I finally went back to it and turned those notes into the poem. It’s about watching a disaster unfold on television while feeling an equally devastating disaster happening inside yourself.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: I also wondered whether Blood Gumbo and Cathedral of the Undigested were connected to that experience.

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Those are different. Blood Gumbo was written for my family. My mother’s side is Cajun French from Louisiana, part of the Acadian diaspora from Nova Scotia. The poem is about the resilience of Acadian culture. I actually won the Parish Library Poetry Contest with it last year, and it’s written as a villanelle. Cathedral of the Undigested also carries Southern Louisiana undertones, but it’s specifically about my stomach condition.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: What is one work of yours that you’re especially proud of?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: In this book, the piece I’m most proud of is probably Prayer for Nothing. I honestly don’t know why, I just love it. I wrote it in one sitting, and it was published in issue 31 of Wild Roof Journal last fall. It might be my favorite poem I’ve ever written.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: I’ll tell you my favorites from the book: Liz Taylor, When I Fall in Love, and On a Monday in March. What inspired Liz Taylor?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Every person I’ve spoken to has named that one among their favorites. First of all, I adore old Hollywood. I love vintage glamour. I watch a lot of old films, and I spent a great deal of time with my great-grandparents, so that era always fascinated me. Liz Taylor is actually based on a true story, just like On a Monday in March. Someone I was once in a relationship with used to call me his Liz Taylor, his glamour girl. I enjoy femininity. I enjoy being appreciated for it. So the poem became a celebration of that. It might sound vain, but I’m comfortable in my own skin, and I’m okay with being adored for who I am. To me, Elizabeth Taylor represents the epitome of glamour.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: What about the inspiration behind On a Monday in March and When I Fall in Love?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: On a Monday in March came from the same relationship. It’s about the first night we spent together. That relationship eventually ended badly, but I wanted to preserve one beautiful moment from it instead of only remembering the pain. It’s easy to focus on the bad and forget the good. I wanted to carry the good forward. That moment was when I realized I was loved too, and I felt it deserved attention. And When I Fall in Love is probably the poem that got me married.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: I also noticed the color red appears very prominently in your work. What significance does it hold for you?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Red has always been one of my favorite colors. I wear it often. The moment it really became symbolic for me was on my twenty-third birthday, when I wore red lipstick for the first time. I had always wanted to, but never had. It felt incredibly empowering. I’m glad you noticed that because every detail in the book is intentional. The red on the cover, the font, I actually created it using one of my lipsticks. Red represents passion, vitality, life, luck, lust, even obsession. It’s the color people’s eyes are naturally drawn toward. All of that was deliberate.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: How do you see love? It’s reflected heavily throughout your work. What kind of person are you when you love someone?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Love is everything, isn’t it? But there are many forms of it. To me, love is a verb more than an emotion. Emotions change. They’re volatile. But love is a state of being, and it begins with myself before extending outward. Love is a choice. For example, if my husband irritated me this morning, which he didn’t, love would mean choosing not to lash out because I don’t want to harm him. Love is folding laundry even though I hate doing it but it makes his life easier. Love is guiding my child gently when they make mistakes instead of hurting them with anger. Love is caring for my grandmother even when I’m tired or frustrated. Love is the space where I try to exist all the time. It’s when I stop focusing on what I gain from a situation and instead focus on how my presence affects the people I care about.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: How have people like your professor Jamie Jones, Gabe Smith, and the Crying Heart Press family supported your journey?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Jamie Jones was my favorite English professor during community college. His creative writing and poetry classes taught me lessons I still use today. He’s an incredible writer himself and a Poet Laureate from northwest Florida. Gabe Smith is also phenomenal. From him, I’ve learned patience in both my work and my relationships with people. His work ethic is inspiring. He just keeps going every day, and there’s something deeply admirable about that. He also has one of the kindest souls I’ve ever met. As for Crying Heart Press, what makes it special is the sense of family. There’s genuine camaraderie there. People support each other constantly. If someone has a reading or a release, everyone rallies around them. It feels far more collaborative than competitive, and I’m grateful every day to be part of that community.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: Is there anyone else you’d like to mention who has played an important role in your life?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Definitely Rachel Turney. She’s incredible. She recently released multiple books at once, runs poetry podcasts online, does interviews, book reviews, she’s constantly uplifting the indie poetry community. And Vaughn Ross, the editor-in-chief of Crying Heart Press, deserves enormous credit. He picked up my first book, believed in the idea for the magazine, and trusted me enough to help build it. I don’t take that for granted at all. And honestly, my therapist deserves a mention too.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: What is your thought process when you share your ideas with people you trust? How do you handle feedback?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: I’ll tell you how the magazine started. I had been thinking about launching one, so I messaged Vaughn and asked if he’d ever considered creating a zine. He replied that he’d literally just discussed it with his daughter a few days earlier. So I put together a proposal, which turned into something like a twelve-page document. I thought through every possible detail. He opened it and basically said, “That’s a lot.” That’s just how I am. I love organizing things. Give me planners, sticky notes, color-coded highlighters, I’ll map everything out. And when people give me feedback, I take it seriously. For the last issue of the magazine, we both made notes on every submission and discussed them together. Sometimes we disagreed, so we talked through our reasons and compromised. It really comes down to professional respect. He respects my perspective, and I respect his.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: And what about feedback from readers? How does it feel when people connect with your work?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Every response means something to me. Luckily, most of the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Honestly, I can’t remember the last genuinely negative response I received. It’s humbling because, to me, this is just something I created. Then people read it and connect with it in deeply personal ways. One writer told me my work inspired them to start sharing their own poetry online, and eventually they got published. Now we actually collaborate together. Another person told me the theme for our magazine issue, Waking the Dead, inspired them to write something they otherwise never would have explored. A lot of the time, hearing things like that makes me cry. It’s incredible that something I love has connected me to people all over the world. As for writer’s block, I don’t really allow myself to believe in quitting. Writing matters to me too much. Even if what I write is terrible, I’m still going to write it. I actually keep a mason jar full of prompts, poetic forms, colors, places, foods, verbs, random nouns, and if I ever feel stuck, I shake it up, pull out a few pieces, and build a poem from them.

[Abdullah Lakdawala]: Is there any message you’d like to give aspiring authors who are just beginning their journey?

[Ms. Nina Garner]: Read twice as much as you write. If you want strong output, you need strong input. And don’t just read what feels comfortable. Read outside your preferences. I love nonfiction, history, and poetry, but I still make myself read fiction, biographies, and other genres because they expand your perspective. You’re building your toolbox every time you read. Also, be gentle with yourself. Just because something looks effortless for another writer doesn’t mean it actually is. We all started at the exact same place. Writing is lifelong. It’s one line at a time, one step at a time, one moment at a time. People think they need to become Shakespeare overnight. They don’t. Make mistakes. Write crappy poems. That’s part of becoming a writer.

About the Interviewer