Blog / Interviews

10 Questions for Genevieve Plunkett

September 12, 2016 - By Amal Zaman and Danielle Brown

The other mothers covered their children's eyes. April covered her son's ears. She might have expected the animal to cry, or to struggle, grasp for breath. But from the bleachers, there was nothing, not even a crack." -- from "The Rodeo" which appears in the Summer 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 2).

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

I tried to write a grisly murder mystery in fourth grade and a YA novel about dragons in sixth. I have started a hundred stories since then, but The Rodeo was one of the first that I...

10 Questions for Aatif Rashid

September 6, 2016 - By Amal Zaman and Danielle Brown

“The church looked strangely beautiful in the early morning light. The street between the houses was narrow and darkened the steps leading up to the wooden doors, but there was enough sunlight spilling out from behind the roof, and the Gothic façade—all angles and points and flying buttresses, architecture I’d always believed brutal and cold—possessed a melancholy grace. I thought of the workers who had once so carefully laid down stones to build the church and the man who’d overseen the construction. Had he imagined, like Mehmed did now, that it would be a beacon of light, something to reflect the divine and live on for eternity?”...

10 Questions for Colin Fleming

August 29, 2016 - By Amal Zaman and Danielle Brown

"It was the day after Christmas, and watching Danny Splighter skate for the first time in my life was like the holiday was happening all over again." - from "One Way Zebra" which appears in our Summer 2016 Issue (Volume 57, Issue 2).

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

When I was in third grade in Mansfield, Massachusetts, I had this teacher named Ms. Ferris. In first grade they thought I was developmentally challenged, especially when it came to reading. I knew that...

10 Questions for Kathleen Kelley

August 23, 2016 - By Amal Zaman and Danielle Brown

"When my mother asked me 
what in the world I wanted, we were
driving across the Sagamore Bridge.

I could feel the vibration.
I was ten. My mother 
had never raised her voice before."

- from "The Light, the Bridge, and the Fish" which appears in our Summer 2016 Issue (Volume 57, Issue 2).

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

I did not give myself over to the writing of poetry until I was well into middle-age....

10 Questions for Elias Leake Quinn

August 16, 2016 - By Amal Zaman and Danielle Brown

“The tarthky was a beast from a different era, from back when the dunes were just a thin sheet spread over a second sea, the clumps of dune grasses bobbing like Lilliputian schooners. An adventurer with the right equipment could pierce the sand, dive through the floating grasses, and swim beneath their tangled roots. The shaft light drove down from the surface toward ancient monsters with wide, blind eyes.” —from “Driftwood,” which appears in the Summer 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 2).

Tells us about one of the first pieces you wrote

That’s kind of a tough question. Writing has always been a part of the...