From the Blog

Shaping a Style

January 31, 2023 - By Peter R. Bush, with Albert Lloret

An Interview with Peter Bush, translator, by Albert Lloret:

You have recently published an English translation of Víctor Català's novel A Film (3,000 meters) with Open Letter Press. What kind of a novel is it? Does it belong to any genre?

No, it playfully skates between genres. In her prologue, Víctor Català refers to her book as a light-hearted movie the reader doesn’t have to take seriously. She even says the reader doesn’t even need to connect the threads of the plot. The orphan protagonist’s agitated quest for his parents means, on the contrary, that the reader is always trying to see how the rapid sequence of events...

Beers for Burns Night

January 25, 2023 - By Marsha Bryant

If a body meet a body
Goin’ for a brew,
If a lassie raised her glassie,
Would or wouldn’t you?

Auld Lang Syne and whisky fine
Can warm us all night through.
But a beer augments the cheer,
So let the pours ensue!

Here’s a lovely Scottish Ale
Translucent, copper-hued.
And its creamy head prevails
On tongues (and glasses, too).

Biscuity and gently hopped
And mildly malty through,
This Belhaven brew’s an op-
tion while the evening’s new.

Cross an ocean to the West,
And beers of U.S.A.
Honor Scottish styles with zest.
Here’s one to try today:

For if you see a Dirty Bastard
Comin’ through...

10 Questions for Jodie Noel Vinson

January 24, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Six months before your trip, you begin the search. Scrolling through headshots, you note several eligible prospects. One after the other, you dial the numner below each photo.

The first seven receptionists inform you that, contrary to the green check mark on your insurance's provider list, the doctor isn't taking new clients. A few seem upset that you would ask.
—from "Patient, Heal Thyself," Volume 63, Issue 4 (Winter 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
Not the first I wrote, but one of the first I published, “To Know A Bean,” comes to mind because a reader recently reached out to let me know they’d come across it in The Concord Saunterer. The essay is about a literary...

10 Questions for Rosebud Ben-Oni

January 19, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Only death::orse is real. Only forward is unhorse

            & the little graces & galactic undeeds—& you

                         can't slick     nor kick to spur(n)

                                         a :: direhorse ::can never own a force
—from "\DEAT {H :: O R S E} \\\," Vol. 63, Issue 4 (Winter 2022)...

10 Questions for Salma Harland

January 17, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

If only I could refrain from eating,
the route to corruption and folly.
I never deprive a mother of her sucklings
or have a share of a calf's milk
—from "If Only I Could Refrain from Eating," by Abū Al-'Alā' al-Ma'arrī, Translated by Salma Harland, Volume 63, Issue 4 (Winter 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
I probably first attempted to translate poetry around the age of 15, when I was in high school. I fell under the spell of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry, how the existential meets the sublime in his writings and how he reads both as a Palestinian and international poet. So I tried to translate parts of his Mural (Jidārīyah) into English. A few years...