IMPERSONAL INTERVIEWS: Benjamin Schmitt, author of Satan’s School for Girls and Other Works.

I haven’t read the book. I haven’t Googled the author. I haven’t tailored the interview questions or limited the word count. This is a raw, unfiltered, impersonal interview. Prepare to meet Benjamin Schmitt, author of Satan’s School for Girls and Other Works.

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What is the title of your book?
Satan’s School for Girls and Other Works

What’s the book about?
The title poem is a narrative horror piece about an all-girl heavy metal band fighting a demon. The book also includes lyric poems, satirical prose, and hybrid works. 

Why do you write, generally?
Sometimes I write because I am inspired by a phrase or a fun narrative idea and I want to explore the full potential of those things. It’s kind of a what would happen if… type of play. Other times there is something vital that I feel I need to communicate but writing (often poetry) is the only way to express that. You can share thoughts in a poem or story that are impossible to bring up effectively in a conversation. 

Where/how do you write?
I have always been a night writer. Some people write in the mornings but that has never really worked for me. I prefer to write after everyone has gone to bed, when I can reflect on the day and its meaning as I near the infinite worlds of sleep. As a single parent of two young children, it’s also the only time there is really any semblance of quiet in the home. 

What/who you do read?
I read all kinds of books in multiple genres. In fact, I was excited to read your review of Roadside Picnic! I love sci-fi and I read that book last year. I also read a lot of poetry obviously. I was recently introduced to the work of Steven Jesse Bernstein, a Seattle poet of the 80’s and 90’s who read his work alongside many of the grunge bands of that era. 

What book disappointed you most? Why?
There are only two books that I have started and not finished. One was Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, the other was a novel about necrophilia. The novel about necrophilia was slightly better. 

Do you listen to music?
Yes, mostly metal and jazz. But for some reason I have become obsessed with the music of Travis Scott recently. I blame my kids. 

What do you need to survive?
Water, bread, shelter, a blanket, a good selection of books. 

How did your oldest friendship begin?
My family moved the summer between middle school and high school, so I was the new kid, as I normally was growing up. My chores that summer included mowing the lawn and I would often see one of the neighbor kids doing the same. A few weeks after school started I saw a bunch of students getting out of the crappiest car I have ever seen, pot smoke pouring out behind them. One of them smiled at me, barely able to open his reddened eyes. I said, “hey, I think we’re neighbors.” 

Have you ever written any songs? If yes, describe your sound.
Yes, the aforementioned friend and I were in a band in the mid-aughts. We had a kind of folk/punk/comedy act, like a combination of the Violent Femmes and Tenacious D. 

Describe your hairstyle.
I’ll quote a poem from the new book, “Self-Portrait as Action Figure”: “hair comes in shaggy or Roman Senator.” 

What’s the most popular thing that you don’t enjoy?
The music of Katy Perry. 

What’s the last movie you watched? How was it?
Moonage Daydream, a rock doc about David Bowie. Bowie continually fascinates and amazes me. 

Do you prefer writing by hand or typing? And does this depend on what you’re writing?
I write poetry longhand, then I type it up and edit it on my laptop. That may just be habit. I have been writing poetry since a very young age and I did not have access to a personal computer then. I type book reviews and articles. Once again, most likely this is habit since I got most of my practice writing prose in the computer lab in college the night before a paper was due. 

If you had the opportunity to time travel, where/when would you go and what would you do? And how do you think this might affect the present when you return[ed] to it?
In 1948, the sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick was roommates with the poets Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan. At this point, only Duncan had published anything. Apparently, there were some wild happenings in that apartment but I’m also just curious about what they all talked about and how those conversations influenced them to create so many different creative works. 

Cher sang, “Do you believe in life after love?” Do you?
In 2025 my wife died from brain cancer. “Life after love” is my current state. So I do believe that, despite the hardships. 

Do you sincerely believe in anything broadly considered a “conspiracy theory”? What is it and why do you believe it? How do you feel about everyone else dismissing this opinion?
I do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK. With everything I know about the CIA; their numerous assassinations plots of world leaders around the world, their ties to the mafia, their willingness to harm Americans through experiments like MKULTRA (testing LSD on unwitting patients), I can’t rule out their involvement. Also, if you look into Oswald, a lot of things just don’t add up…ok, I’ll stop now, hahaha. 

What’s the largest body of water you have gone swimming in?
The Pacific Ocean, a body of water that I am consistently drawn to. I love the West Coast!

What was your most recent epiphany? If you’ve never had one, why do you think that is?
That I am a poet and writer and that’s ok. The United States does not treat writers well, especially poets. When I was a kid, even though I was drawn to poetry it was often hard to admit that I wrote it because of certain stereotypes and expectations around masculinity. People who wrote poetry were weirdos, definitely not manly men. So oftentimes I wouldn’t tell people I wrote or I would keep it to myself. In one sense this was good because it gave me more freedom to create as I had a greater opportunity to learn from private failures. But it also caused me not to be honest with myself or others about who I was. Now that I am a widower in my forties, I don’t really care what people think. I am happy with who I am as a poet and a human being. Writing is a gift and if people don’t recognize it, that’s their problem. We’re free!

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Author Bio:

Benjamin Schmitt is the Elgin Award-nominated author of five books, most recently Satan’s School for Girls and Other Works (Goldfish Press, 2026). His writing has appeared in Sojourners, Antioch Review, The MacGuffin, Sensitive Skin, Hobart, Columbia Review, The Seattle Times, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he lives in Seattle with his children. 

More info at: https://benjaminschmittpoetry.com/