Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maja Trochimczyk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Maja, appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
My parents were 100% Slavic, with ancestors living in ancient Slavic lands, probably since the end of the Ice Age, 11 thousands years ago. Aleksy Trochimczyk was of Belarussian and Ukrainian roots, born near Grodek Bialostocki. Henryka Wajszczuk was of Polish ancestry, nobles living on small estates near Baranowicze in what is now Belarus, on my Grandma’s side, and farmers from a Royal village of Trzebieszow in Poland’s Lublin area, on my Grandpa’s side. They did not have easy lives, especially their childhoods, traumatized by the Second World War. Extreme poverty, hunger, oppression, and deaths in the family (my father), the same plus loss of everything but life, while escaping from Soviet-occupied Polish lands back to my Grandpa’s village (my mother). They survived – thanks to their resilience and hard work. “Never give up, no matter how difficult it is.” That’s lesson number one, key to the good life that I inherited from both. “Genius is 10% of talent and 90% of work; talent is 10% of skill and 90% of work – pick what you like and work, you will see the result!” That’s lesson number two – my father’s. “Not the riches you own, but the riches of a happy life in joy, love, delight every day, that’s what matters” – that’s lesson number three, my mother’s. I wrote a book of poems about the suffering and survival of Polish civilians during WWII, based on stories my parents told me in the hospital, after they were shot by robbers in their home in 2000, and suffered terribly, but refused to give up, to become victims and pity their own fate. My Mom was sorry for the robber who shot her – “look,” she said, “what a poor boy, by shooting me, he made himself a murderer. My wound will heal, but he’ll never escape from that.” So, I learned: Never be a victim, never be a murderer. Do not harm others, do not feel sorry for yourself. Forgive and seek joy in the present, instead of regretting the past, or fearing the future. All is well in the here and now…
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I have worn many hats in my life – if foxes have nine lives like cats, and if I’m a nine-tailed fox, I’m on my sixth life, sixth career, in the third country. Born in Warsaw, Poland, I had an endless thirst for knowledge and reading; just for fun as a teen, I read the whole multi-volume Encyclopedia, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and all poems by Norwid in one year. I preferred books to people and being alone in nature to any group activities or team sports. A valedictorian with free admission to any college, I picked music history at the University of Warsaw and sound engineering at the Chopin University of Music, getting two M.A. degrees and starting on a Ph.D. in music history, that I completed at McGill University in Montreal, Canada in 1994. My dissertation and articles on musical space and spatial aspects of music are still being cited. I came to California to manage USC Polish Music Center in 1996; after leaving the university I worked for nonprofit agencies, while publishing music history studies as an independent scholar. Meanwhile, my stack of unpublished poems grew, and I finally decided to start my own small press, instead of dealing with huge, impersonal, and greedy corporations. Since 2008, my Moonrise Press has published over 20 books of poetry, music history, and Polish culture. Poets liked the look of my poetry volumes with covers using my own photos, so they asked me to publish their work – Ed Rosenthal, Beverly M. Collins, Cindy Rinne, Toti O’Brien, Marlene and Lloyd Hitt, and Margaret Saine are “my” poets. I also published five poetry anthologies – complete with editing, layouts, cover design, websites, blogs, and PR. Having been “burned” as an underpaid author of overpriced books, I decided to issue my leftover music studies as Moonrise Press books – “Gorecki in Context,” “A Romantic Century in Polish Music,” and my dissertation are already available. I published nonfiction books by Kazimierz Braun, Phyllis Budka, and Andrzej Wendland. The four volumes of complete Polish-and-English dramas by Braun are in preparation, along with poetry books by Joseph Galasso and Konrad Tademar Wilk. Of submitted proposals, I pick what interests me, I will not publish poetry nor history studies I do not like. But I will help the authors shape their volumes, organize poems into a continuous flow, and copy-edit the text. I make cover designs, letting the authors select from several options. All books are issued in paperback and as e-books; the latter sell the most copies. At present, my PR abilities are quite limited, so do not expect miracles, but my books – like the “Chopin with Cherries” anthology, “The Rainy Bread: More Poems from Exile” (about WWII) and “Bright Skies” (poems from the garden) – are in over 20 libraries; they have been reviewed in journals and announced in popular press. In general, I prefer celebratory and joyous content. Write about what you love, what you care for, what you want to remember and commemorate… I publish in English and Polish: proposals are welcome at maja@moonrisepress.com.
Have you ever had to pivot?
When looking back on my life, I see several major transitions that I made, having to remake myself in the process. The first I’ll describe here is moving from Poland to Canada, after marrying a Canadian composer and enrolling at McGill University to work on my doctoral degree. From being a Polish “social butterfly,” attending concerts, art exhibit openings, and film screenings, enjoying reading and learning in a passive way, I had to transform myself into a competitive, hard-working scholar, writing in a second language. I still speak with a strong Polish accent! But I was determined to succeed and saw just one way ahead of me, the way forward – as an English-speaking, English-writing historian. It soon turned out that I’m quite talented in my field. I started winning essay competitions and fellowships. I got published – and ignored naysayers that told me I could not. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome with enough hard work. When I sent an article on Henry Brant’s music to several journals, it was rejected at first; then, the same article was accepted with praise by “American Music.” It is crucial to find the right fit – there is always someone interested in what you have to say… So, after moving to California, instead of being an embittered and resentful exile, or a unattached, temporary visitor, I consciously decided to become an American of Polish descent, a citizen of this country, fluent in English, loving the Independence Day Parades (that I participate in since 2010!). I’m a Californian by choice, an English-speaking, foreign-born American. Thus, I have made my home where I belong. The second main transition was leaving the academic world and working for nonprofit agencies while starting my own press. At first, it was just a hobby, but unexpectedly it has continued to grow, as more and more people have decided that I give them what they need for their own publications, to have their voices heard. As I said in one of my poems: “It is not much, but it is enough…”
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
My small publishing house, Moonrise Press, is an outgrowth of my own creative activities. I did not think of myself as a poet or photographer, when still living in Poland. I was a listener, an audience member, a scholar… Then, after moving to America, after losing the ground under my feet – my native culture, language, land, family, friends – I had to re-invent myself to survive. The first benefit of being a poet was creating and asserting my own identity as “me” through my art. I was not writing about what others thought and did, I was writing about what I felt, what I thought. While this “poetry as self-expression” is at the root of so many bad books, so many failed artistic efforts, it is also healing, it is also empowering. It gives you the strength to survive and go on. These aspects of creativity should never be discounted or ignored… Artistic criteria and “taste” change in time, evolve with shifting fashions – but being true to yourself in your own words, expressing the deepest emotions and the most personal thoughts, will never go out of fashion! The joy of being creative is in the very act of creation. Someone said that when creating we become truly Divine, we are the Divine co-creators of this beautiful world. Therefore, we are responsible for the worlds we conjure up with our words and images. Are these worlds dystopian, hideous? Are these worlds full of light, joy, laughter, beauty? When I was studying music history, I was told to never write about “beauty” in music, only about the “know-how” of compositional techniques and the mechanism of the artwork, taken apart in analysis like a clockwork… I never fully agreed with that, so in my own poetry and photography I happily capture and share with others what I find beautiful, inspirational, good, and true… I still believe in the Platonian trinity of beauty=goodness=truth. I also believe in the Three L: the trinity of Life=Love=Light. Creating beauty, building new, fantastic worlds – what could be better than that? Self-expression is good, but my advice to poets is borrowed from Clancy Imislund of The Midnight Mission, helping the homeless in Los Angeles (where I worked on grant proposals for a while): “Absolutely No Whining!”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.moonrisepress.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maja.trochimczyk or https://www.facebook.com/MoonrisePress
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maja-trochimczyk-2994178/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sun_maja
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHI2SPtAaJ6q_OPvqePgS1Q (Moonrise Press)
- Other: chopinwithcherries.blogspot.com; poerylaurels.blogspot.com; californiastatepoetrysociety.com
Image Credits
Photo 1: Poets from “Crystal Fire” at Scenic Drive Gallery Photo 5: Poets from “Grateful Conversations” at Flintridge Bookstore Photo 6 (seated at home): Photo by Arturas Morozovas of Lithuania