Blog / 10 Questions

10 Questions for JC Andrews

May 11, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

I’m so in love with you all of a sudden, you
    machine angel. Angel machine. Because I am still learning
        your new smells. Plastic, salt, animal, finally and still

thinking plastic, salt, animal, finally. Because you are letting
    me stand you up in the shower and wash your hair like you are not
        my mother, like I am not your daughter.
—from "Momma, Refracted," Volume 64, Issue 1

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I don’t remember the first time I wrote a poem and took it seriously. I will say, though, that my grandmother used to write letters for me to her...

10 Questions for Lauren Hohle

May 9, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Hannah doesn't get on-campus housing for the summer, but she doesn't want to go back to Missouri, back to her old life, back in time. The summer before, her first summer after starting college, she sat in basements sipping Budweiser as her formerly bookish friends swapped stories about frat parties. She sat through each Sunday's sermon as the pastor built God's army out of straw men, drew conclusions her professors would have docked her points for.
—from "Inland," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I dreamed up a lot of stories when I was young but always kind of froze with the writing-it-down part. I somehow finagled my way into a creative writing independent study...

10 Questions for Asnia Asim

May 2, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Maybe it was a reaction to old age; it could be that
he resented retired life. But the ex-neurologist,
amateur collector of oriental coins, had recently

taken to scolding his poor wife for all that praying
under her breath, Mashallah-this and Inshallah-that.
—from "Mr.Kemal Questions God," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My first poem “The White Petal” startled itself into existence through me. I was a lonely Pakistani kid struggling with overwhelming unrest. As I wrote the poem, the vague aroma of its ambience became significant. I remember feeling transported, less alone, but more importantly, I felt a kind of ecstasy as the image of a soft...

10 Questions for Cindy Juyoung Ok

April 27, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

I stay outstretched in a November
coat, not abundant and not wanting
to be. A machine I own mistook shootings

for students in a transcript, ushering
me to tilt canals toward titles and curate
hedges into pages.
—from "Table of Contexts," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
In kindergarten I wrote a neat cursive reflection during recess expressing elaborate distress over a change in dynamic between me and two other five-year-old friends, and drew Mary Poppins, who I guess represents reconciliation. I have another piece from that age that starts: “Once I had the best dream that I’ve ever had.”        ...

10 Questions for Ann Lohner

April 25, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Emergency crews got through a week after the storm. They cleared downed power lines and sawed through fallen trees, creating a way in and out and delivering food and water. But the heat was still off, and another storm was on the way, so Kate swept the prescription bottles into a bag that she wedged in the car between the walker and the wheelchair.
—from "Postmortem," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My early fiction includes a trilogy that commences with Max pursuing Anne into debt and exile in the Rhineland, far from the shtetl where his family trades foals and theories about who fathered Anne’s child. The trilogy spans the world wars, and I wrote it during my time in...