Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Guernica, and elsewhere. Her poetry collections have won the Arab American Book Award and the Crab Orchard Series. Her debut novel, Salt Houses, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2017, and was the winner of the Arab American Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her newest poetry collection, The Twenty-Ninth Year, was recently published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Campbell McGrath talks about his new collection, XX: Poems For The Twentieth Century, capitalism, history, and what it might mean to write a wordless poem.
Karen Salyer McElmurray talks about academia, the relationship between flaws and perfection, writing memoir, and the "tapestry" of writers who inspire her.
The image that comes to my mind is a foot hovering above a stair. Marriage is the fabled next step, but engagement implies a kind of limbo, an almost-not-quite-there yet—the zero that comes before the one.
Prolific writer and Director of the FIU Creative Writing Program Les Standiford takes a look back at his career in books, including Water to the Angels and Bringing Adam Home, and tells us what's next.