Blog / Interviews

10 Questions for Frederika Randall

February 27, 2017 - By Amal Zaman

“He’s a sage, a musical holy man, the friend who consoles us when love falters or when we take the wrong path. He’s got a movement behind him, but he’s miles from any phony ideology. He’s simple, transparent, honest, a rebel…”

--from Caetano Veloso, Walking into the Wind, nonfiction by Igiaba Scego, translated by Frederika Randall which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated

Well, during my first 15 or so years in Italy I worked as a journalist reporting on books, films, the arts, music...

10 Questions for Barbara Ras

February 21, 2017 - By Amal Zaman

“From the drummer, take the cymbals, the crash, and hi-hat
and walk like you’re shining.  From the composer take “water
under snow is wear,” sung by young voices in the timbre
of wind blowing through the antlers of reindeer..."
--from “What to Take” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written

About the first poems I wrote, the less said the better.  I can tell you about an early, early poem that found its way from 1976 into my first book published in 1998.   To think that a twenty-year-old poem...

10 Questions for Tony Eprile

February 15, 2017 - By Amal Zaman

“Song is of a squeaky quality, with little or no repetition.
It is a poor imitator.
Song is a series of evry high, thin, separate, slurred notes.
Call is slurred chewink.
Song, drink-your-tea…"
--from “Bird Song” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written

When I was 17 and still quite new to America, I took a writing class in my college and wrote a short story called “Cough’s Tokoloshe.” Its protagonist, a little South African boy named Cough, became obsessed...

10 Questions for Leslie Stainton

January 31, 2017 - By Amal Zaman

“The same week his father died, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted a funeral for a starling he had purchased three years ealier in Vienna. Guests at the service wore solemn attire, and Mozart, then thirty-one, eulogized his pet as “not haughty, quite, but gay and bright.”
    “My heart,” he said, “aches when I think of him.”
--from “Mozart’s Starling” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written

When I was in the fourth grade, I wrote a short story based on a true story...

10 Questions for T.J. McLemore

January 26, 2017 - By Amal Zaman

"Rhythm is the seed, the little
body we planted in fear of

the dark that rose to adorn
and outlive us. It crawled…"

--from “Found Music” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written

I was fortunate to have two teachers in middle school—their names were Mrs. Strom and Ms. Rambo—who encouraged me to try my hand at making poems. The first poem I remember finishing was for an assignment in eighth grade, a mock-epic (I realize in retrospect) full of images from middle-of-the-night pyromanaical exploits...