Blog / Interviews

10 Questions for Marcela Sulak

December 21, 2020 - By Edward Clifford

For three hours I've been thrusting my body past the breaking waves on the northernmost beach in Tel Aviv, where the surfers go, and the lifeguards keep calling—little girl!

Little girl, come back!—when I move just outside the border marked by red and white plastic lines tied to metal poles sunk into the sea floor.
—from "Breaking," Volume 61, Issue 3, (Fall 2020)

We asked Marcela Sulak the same 10 Questions we ask our other contributors. She provided the following interview.

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote. 
Roses are red.So’s the Indian Blanket.
What happened to the Titanic?
An Iceberg sank it.

At the time, I was proud of extreme...

10 Questions for Emily Van Kley

December 18, 2020 - By Edward Clifford

Often we bled
afterwards.
A seep high
in the nostrils,
then red. Or
our heads pounded
& we slept
for hours in dark
rooms, waited
for our thoughts
to unbrick.
—from "Effluvium," Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first story I ever wrote was a near-total plagiarism of “Popcorn” by Frank Asch. If I remember correctly, my only ‘original’ contributions were the title—“Pippi Poppi Popcorn”—and the fact that the protagonist was a little girl instead of a bear in a racist Halloween costume (yikes).

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now? ...

Rose B. Simpson at the Denver Museum of Art

December 15, 2020 - By Emily Wojcik

We are thrilled to share the Denver Art Museum's video of their artist-in-residence, Rose B. Simpson, who we were happy to feature in our current special issue, A Gathering of Native Voices (Winter 2020). 

10 Questions for Emily Schulten

December 14, 2020 - By Edward Clifford

At seventeen, he didn't have permission
like his friends to go under the ice,
to dive down and see
what the river held secret in winter

So he sat on the bank instead, bundled
and waiting for the two divers
to come up from the jagged manhole
—from "Ice Diving," Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I sent a poem in to an anthology competition I found in the back of Seventeen Magazine. It rhymed – it was a little box of exact rhymes. I remember that one of the lines was “Peace will unite us through all the lands.” Real good stuff. Like everyone who submitted, my poem was accepted and published. I was giddy. My folks bought a copy of the...

10 Questions for Karen Hilberg

December 11, 2020 - By Edward Clifford

I am this naked
mineral:
echo of underground:
I am glad
to have come so far
from so much earth:
I am last, barely
entrails, body; hands
—from "XXIII" by Pablo Neruda, Translated by Karen Hilberg, Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
I studied poetry in college and was learning Spanish during the summers working in Mexico. As a way to work on both at the same time, I planned a poetry translation independent study with my poetry professor. She told me to pick out a Spanish language poet from the library and we’d choose a poem to start with. At the library, I pulled out Pablo Neruda’s Las Piedras del Cielo. When I flipped...