Issue 3.1 Contributor Interviews

Roy Bentley

“What may be surprising is that rock ‘n roll taught me the musicality of words: groups like Yes and The Who, the Beatles and the Stones, individuals like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell—folks whose work is behind every word I write.”

Judy Bolton-Fasman

“I suspected that my Dad was in the CIA since I was in my early 20s, He and I would actually joke about it, but he was silent whenever I asked him a direct question about his trips to Latin America in the 1950s.”

Kayla Rae Candrilli

“I find most of my work exists in a purely physical, visceral state. That is perhaps why when the language of Siri came careening into this desert landscape I was shocked but also riveted by how sonically pleasing it was inside the space.”

Justin Carmickle

“I think many writers are insecure creatures, often tossing aside our confidence the second we sit at the computer. I’m no different. Often I think perhaps I should just become a dog walker or open a daycare for exotic pets.”

Tasha Cotter

“As a poet, I’m interested in amplifying the narratives I come across and finding ways to build the oral history, the passed down narratives into present day stories and experiences.”

Barbara Harroun

“Running used to also be part of my thinking process, and running with my friend and colleague, Rebekah, often helped me work out or rethink and re-envision a story. Both running and writing require such endurance, such struggle, and such pleasure too.”

Jaap Kemp

“To historicize anything is to first turn it into a narrative, a narrative implies a narrator, a narrator implies a point of view (or at best a few points of view). How do any of us today know anything about the Titanic?”

Michael Levan

“Writers aren’t always the best rockstars (and vice versa; I’m thinking of you, Billy Corgan and many others), but hopefully at a reading, we can transport our audiences someplace new just as much as they can be at a great concert. Still, it all starts with the words on the page.”

David Nelson

“For Tusk, I really wanted a sense of intimacy. I wanted it to feel like you were reading the lyrics to a Fleetwood Mac song. I also felt that not giving the characters names gave them a certain universality.”

Connor O’Neil

“My mentor talks about writing projects as tunnels, that when we’re writing, all we have are a flashlight and our legs, exploring.”

Karl Plank

“I speak of an arduous path, the movement from one place (lost) to another, to a destination, though, that is not simply defined by its pain, absence, or loss.”

Alex Pruteanu

“My aim is to always offend. Not offend the readers, although plenty have felt violated by my work, but to offend the genre. Or, more accurately, the rules and rule-makers.”

Christina Stoddard

“I think the two extreme reactions to grief are to burn everything or to save everything that reminds you of the loss. The speaker’s answer to this problem is to engage in a deliberate removal, to recast the years the lovers spent together and find a way to hold onto her own history without including the lover anywhere in what she keeps of that time.”

L.B. Thomas

“I was comfortable around dead animals because my parents expected me to be. The only time I remember my dad acknowledging that something was disgusting or disturbing was when he asked me to watch him skin an elk head.”

Billy Wallace

“For me, a good story starts with the language. Startling, lyrical, sparse; it can go a lot of ways, be a lot of different styles but I want it to grab me off the bat and do something interesting.”