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10 Questions for May Huang

June 20, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

In the same spot where Father died, the dead body of a deer lay prostrate in the rain. Raindrops collected on the ground, flowing like a river. Invisible to the naked eye, electricity trickled into the moist soil as if through the veins of leaves, electrons packed closely together. Micro-organisms gnawed away quietly, exchanging trace elements, absorbing the weaker monomers to form new substances, or nutrients for the plants and soil.
—from "Raining Zebra Finches" by Chiou Charng-Ting, Translated by May Huang, Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
I translated Ya Hsien’s poem “Chicago” as an undergrad studying abroad in Chicago, reading and learning about the...

10 Questions for Alexa Doran

June 15, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

For every year you aren't a tongue away:

America clogs. I ice the White
Zin, choose a filter, call this mood.

Not to say I'm a hunter
but I refuse to see the syllables
which luck your name
—from "A Toast to the Narcissist's Exit," Volume 64, Issue 2 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I’m thinking of the first poem I had published, called “Every Poet is a Partition; Every Love is a Sea” published in Ekphrasis magazine. This poem was based on the work of Jason deCaires Taylor, a British sculptor who created the first underwater sculpture park, and has since built several underwater museums and parks, all of which feature “living...

10 Questions for Cherry Lou Sy

May 25, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Maria slinked in corners and stood next to objects that did not move, pretending that she was an object. She held on to her growing belly. It wouldn't stop moving, wriggling like a worm exposed to the sun. She tried to wear bigger clothes, pretending that nothing was happening in the area of her stomach, but still, it would not stop.
—from "The Nameless," Vol. 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
One of my earliest memories of writing a piece of fiction was in fifth grade. I was a student in a small school in the Philippines where the principal was also my fifth grade English teacher. I don’t recall now what the prompt was, but I remember writing about the travels of an old galleon...

10 Questions for Shanta Lee

May 23, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

The nanny Fidelia Córdoba kept her rhythm in her tetas. She'd been born on the banks of the River Sipí and she had bulging tetas, small and round like a pair of corozos, with retractile nipples that also had a sense of direction. They were all at once compass-sextant-weather-vane-plumb-line-quadrant-astrolabe-point-you-left-point-you-right, or wherever you need to go but never get you lost kinda nipples.
—from "Fidelia Córdoba" by Amalialú Posso Figueroa, Translated by Jeffrey Diteman and Shanta Lee, Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
When I was in Cuba in December 2017, I did a bit of a dive into the work of Nicolás Guillén and tried my hand at translating one of his poems...

10 Questions for Chris Campanioni

May 16, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Whenever my mom and dad were at the dinner table (the place of memorial and celebration, the place of conversation), I'd ask them about their days. I wanted to imagine their lives without me, their movements and rhythms when I was not there. What I was getting at, though I didn't know it then, was a desire to know what came before me, how I got here.
—from "Magic Marker," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I’m often drawn to the task of accounting for “firsts,” which is a lot like asking how we might imbue the everyday with the charge of memory, the significance and ceremony of reproduction. I like to take inventory, imagining them assembled for some...