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10 Questions for Hilary Plum

October 18, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

At the university where I worked part-time the most it would cost $700 per month for just my health insurance, much more for my family. This university owned like a quarter of the city. Maybe you could get your BA in landlording. Trump is one of their best-known alums. In those years the university paid Joe Biden about $900,000 to show up about twelve times. In the west of the city sometimes you'd spot a new outcrop of condos, gated in, little private bus waiting with the clean logo of the hospital that belonged to the university, don't worry, it said, to be in the city you don't have to be in the city.
—from "Philly," Volume 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
In my twenties I...

Seeing Through Madness: A Roman Holiday

October 17, 2022 - By W.J.T. Mitchell

This essay was written in Rome on the eve of what may be a turning point in the fortunes of democracy, the political system that Plato called a “ship of fools” for its tendency to elect incompetent captains on the basis of their popularity. On November 8, the United States will conduct a kind of national referendum that could determine the future of the oldest and most powerful democracy in the world.

The very idea of free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power is at stake, though the question appears nowhere on the ballot. Scores of candidates are running for office on the explicit commitment to the Big Lie—that the presidential election of 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump, who lost by seven million votes. The Big Lie is accompanied by a mass...

10 Questions for Tommye Blount

October 12, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

Garnet like the edges of Bible pages—
no, not that dark, think brighter, more 

sacred, less symbol of hatred, more
of the revered called to repair this

land's flag bothered ragged by those 
cured with the devil's mark
—from "Hydra," Volume 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
Not one of the first poems, but definitely a pivotal one. This was the early ‘00s when I worked with the poet, and my dear friend, Vievee Francis. Kevin Young’s Black Maria, an amazing lyrical take on film noir that is still one of my favorite books of poems, had just come out. Clueless about the amount of skill it took Young to make it look so easy,...

September MR Contributor Publications

October 11, 2022 - By Helen McColpin

MR's poetry editor Nathan McClain's latest collection, Previously Owned, is out now from Four Way Books. McClain's "Boy Pulling a Thorn from His Foot," was published in Vol 62, issue 2.

Tawanda...

10 Questions for Rebecca Lehmann

October 5, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

In the whale's spout, a rainbow.
In my daughter's hair, a rainbow hairtie.
In the holy, holy. Holy, holy.
In a diamond's carbon-shape angles.
In each eye, a stone reflected,
a sore.
—from "In Morning," Volume 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
When I was in third grade, my teacher had us do an ekphrastic writing exercise based on postcards of paintings in the Chicago Art Institute. Mine was the painting “The Coast of Labrador” by William Bradford, and I wrote a story about a girl with really big feet who gets stranded on an island and is discovered by a fisherman. I was the tallest kid in my class that year and really self-conscious about it....