Entering the “real world” after college brings so many questions and possibilities life can seem overwhelming. Finally out of 16 years of schooling, it is your turn to take that education and make something of it; prove that it’s not all a waste. This is a daunting task for most, but not Brian McGackin. An Emerson alum that majored in Visual Media Arts with a minor in Writing, he went on to the University of Southern California to study Poetry, and is now a published author.
Originally his thesis at USC, Broetry, is an original concept that combines poetry with all things “bro”. The poem that began what would become his first published work was entitled “Ode to Taylor Swift”. Although clearly inspired by popular music icon Taylor Swift, McGackin does not draw from one subject too much, he says, “I force myself to continually try new things and look to new sources for inspiration.”
The ingeniousness of Broetry stems from the combination of the unpopular with the popular. McGackin is a long-time poet, but found that he “was displeased with the state of contemporary American poetry…[he] wanted to update the form a bit and invite new readers into the world of poetry.” Broetry perfectly embodies this philosophy and clearly, the publishing world agrees with him.
After finishing his thesis, Brian decided to go the unconventional route of researching publishing houses and sending his manuscript out to the one he felt most suited his work. After a few months of email correspondents, Quirk finally decided to sing him. This is when the difficult part started. In three months he wrote 90 poems in addition to all the poems he already written for his thesis. With one-on-one editing sessions he cut the final product down to 65 poems, plus 10 extras for the E-book edition. The process was long, but taught McGackin an important lesson; “it’s okay to throw out poems; sometimes things just don’t work.”
Although at times a stressful process, the editing paid off. Broetry has become a 4 star book on amazon and has welcomed a new audience to poetry. Brian believes it “has been well received because it’s inclusive and…has done away with the stuffiness and the stigma that poetry has to be uber-philosophical, melodramatic, and as inaccessible as possible.” McGackin has brought a new life to poetry and hopes to inspire other people to write because there is no reason poetry cannot be “back in the literary forefront.”
McGackin is a definitely enjoying his success since the release of Broetry in early July. The promotion is definitely the more glamorous part of publishing process. After sending copies of Broetry to the Marvel studios as a thank you for years of entertainment, McGackin met Axel Alonso, Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, while promoting Broetry at San Diego’s Comic-Con this past summer. Alonso told Brian “he and another editor had been laughing at the book during a creative meeting they had,” which Brian thought “was the coolest thing in the universe; the fact that [his] name was brought up in a positive context by those guys in that room is still unbelievable to me.”
McGackin hopes he can continue to have more incredible experiences as he continues to write. In future projects he hopes to explore other genres and mediums. He is not afraid to make mistakes, Brain says, “I succeed and sometimes I don’t, but luckily no one has to see the failures.” For all writers, this is a great philosophy to live by because there is no way to improve something if the original idea is not always on paper. McGacking recommends all aspiring writers to “keep writing constantly, every day, good or bad.”
If you want to learn even more about Brian McGackin, check out his websites or twitter. To purchase Broetry check out Amazon.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Emerson chapter.