The First Book: Karissa Chen
Despite the many periods of self-doubt I had, the stretches where I felt I would never write anything good again—I would always eventually return to my desk, because I wouldn’t let myself give up.
Features & Reviews
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Saints, Bodies, and Machines: A Conversation with Erika Swyler
When we push societal roles aside, what’s left between parents and children is the desire to both care and to be cared for.
Writing in the Aftermath: Paul Rousseau’s Friendly Fire
It wasn’t until I was older and started hunting with my father that I began to understand the implications of proximity to gunfire.
Open to the World: A Conversation with Irvin Weathersby Jr.
You can walk around with your eyes closed, but if you do decide to open them and embrace the world around you, you can often be injured by what you see.
The First Book: Zahid Rafiq
There were feelings, images, voices, silences, and there is life, the experience of living. It came from that.
One Can Be Alive Again: Madeleine Cravens’s Pleasure Principle
Cravens’s reliance on and loyalty to the image become a propulsive, vibrating force—this is a poetics of presence, of that which is tangible....
Memoir as a Vehicle for Connection: A Conversation with Sarah LaBrie
If I can be as specific as possible about my own understanding of my experience, that will have to resonate with some other people.
“Why Are You Still Resisting?”: On M.M. Olivas’s Sundown in San Ojuela
Olivas’s novel is a gross-as-hell ghost story and a razor-sharp vision of the present moment, a multi-narrator rollercoaster you’ll binge like your favorite television show.
The Light Realm, the Dark Realm, and Everything in the Middle: A Conversation with Hyeseung Song
People have to give themselves more grace. It takes effort to do what we are doing.
Through the Y2K Looking Glass: A Conversation with Kristen Felicetti
I think as a reader, you can make the mental connection between the internet then and now and how much things have changed.
Getting the Last Laugh: Alexei Navalny’s Patriot
Navalny’s tragicomic memoir, which one might also categorize as his last call to action, accomplishes the feat of keeping the reader so ensconced that they forget the person capturing every ounce of their attention, intellect, and sympathy is no longer alive.
A Productive Tension Between Grief and Beauty: A Conversation with Emily Jungmin Yoon
I think as a poet overall, I’ve come to really picture specific people when I write, regardless of what the poem is about.