Silja Liv Kelleris
POET       NOVELIST       READER       SPEAKER

Hello and Welcome!

Check back or subscribe for updates on publications, upcoming projects as well as my thoughts on writing.
-Silja

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Featured Poem

I sing “Hallelujah!” because I think God might be listening

March 10, 2020
A poem about the uncertainities and changes that COVID19 brought in its first weeks.
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Featured Story

At the Brewery

May 17, 2016
An alcoholic's last day of work at a brewery comes sooner than he had planned.
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Featured Poem

Trumpet’s Ode to Clarinet

Feb 14, 2016
At Hermann's Jazzclub, Trumpet speaks to his old love, Clarinet.
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Featured Poem

The wind picked up by the water

April 5, 2017
A love poem, about letting go.
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"Someone at the apartment across the way begins to sing,
and then someone else does too.
I sing Hallelujah! because I think God might be listening,
and then perhaps he really is, because a flock of blackbirds
pour across the sky in perfect harmony
to the songs coming from people’s windows now,
and I think ‘Okay, now that’s pretty special’
and that becomes a sliver of a silver lining to all this."

- I sing Hallelujah! because I think God might be listening (March, 2020)


New in the Blog


Opening Image

Jan 30, 2021


For today’s post I’d like to formally say hello, and talk about some things that come to mind when I think about writing. Life’s got a funny way of teaching you lessons on the way that things go, ones we keep learning again and again, and that’s what happens when you write too. I kind of think that writing is (among other things) interpreting circumstance. Understanding that things happen because other things have happened first. A novel, a poem, or a story- they all depend on some kind of opening image, something to tie everything else that happens together. A feeling, that leads to an action, or vice versa. A beginning that leads to an end, and all the things that occur in between. These are beautiful things. And they’re all around us, all the time.
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Letting Go Is Hard

Feb 5, 2021


Those of you who know me personally may know that I’ve been working on a novel for the last year and a bit, one that I hope to eventually publish traditionally. The story itself took a little under a year to write once I hunkered down, and during that process I felt pretty damn good about it. Of course, that didn’t last. This is where I’ll get into the editing aspect of fiction; a whole different ballgame from drafting, and ultimately where your novel will shape itself around the story you wrote. Even though I’ve technically made the decision at this point that I’m done, that it’s done, and all that’s left is to rip off the bandaid and submit it, I sometimes have to restrain myself from going back for a further round of edits. Afterall, I’ve already done six of them.
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