Issue 2.2 Contributor Interviews

Ace Boggess

“I think of nostalgia for childhood as being rather formal. That’s the perception of the world as children see it: rules, structure … parents still act like parents, even when they’re playing poker.”

Tasha Coryell

“Writing isn’t hard. It’s all the things that come with writing that are hard, submitting, editing, rejection, talking to other writers. But writing itself is a very pleasurable thing for me, especially writing fiction.”

Karen Craigo

“Embracing the hyperbole is something I try to do—to speak boldly, to inhabit my space, and to honor the self. Hell, yes, I’ll make earthquakes. Listen to me rumble.”

Gregory Crosby

“It’s interesting and gratifying to hear which lines in a poem get a laugh. They too are ‘grabbers,’ in addition to being (one hopes) actual examples of wit. Humor also helps punctuate the self-serious, grasping-for-gravitas tendency in poetry.”

Christopher Dollard

“The narrative thread is versatile—it can be stitched and looped and braided throughout a poem for variety and to offer a richer experience to the reader.”

Devon Miller-Duggan

“Something about making my own rules on top of the straightforward rules of the abecedarian created a great deal of energy.”

Lou Gaglia

“The Lower East Side and that section of Brooklyn will always be a part of who I am, especially the Lower East Side. There are so many people, and there is so much movement, and one’s senses are bombarded. I love the sounds, all those voices, and I love the many different languages, the store fronts, and the hand trucks, and the many faces, and the old buildings. It is very hard to brood there.”

Jessica Goodfellow

“I wanted to write about how secrets and taboos in families, anything consciously unspoken of, are as palpable as or perhaps more palpable that what is spoken of.”

Zeke Jarvis

“I think gaps are interesting because they let all of the characters be a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and that lets you develop a rhythm of the characters sometimes being right and sometimes being wrong.”

Christopher Lowe

“A modular piece should build meaning as it goes, allowing for a sense of movement that comes from the plugging in of new ideas/images/memories/information.”

Sarah Hulyk Maxwell

“It seems suddenly as if all I write about is power and lack thereof. People in control becoming victims, and vice versa. (Does anyone really write about anything else?!)”

Kelsey Liebenson-Morse

“I often find the process of writing and preparing food compliment and reflect one another. When I’m having trouble writing I bake because the results of my labors are tangible. Line editing on the other hand doesn’t give you instant gratification. ”

Daniel Romo

“When I notice something I encounter that I feel the need to write about, I do. When I notice something I encounter that I feel the need to photograph, I sometimes do. Writing is a need. Photography is a desire.”

David Salner

“My concern in writing is with the setting that ordinary people face and the way history places a great panorama before us.”

Jesse Waters

“My memories, and stories just like yours all have something in common…the ‘I’. In that vein, all of our inner vibrations can find a harmony or a dissonance with anything else in our fields of living. It’s our mission as writers to find those sounds, and make a music.”

Sasha West

“Sometimes a form seems to arrive via intuition and sometimes it comes through trial and error.”