Blog / Interviews

Something Solid and Unshakable

December 19, 2022 - By Clare Richards

"I slid my hand down and clasped the small pair of tweezers I’d placed in my pocket before leaving for work that morning. [...] A recent habit of mine. Big or small, holding a solid object put my mind at ease—as if its hardness was preparing me for something."
—from The Lake, by Kang Hwagil, translated by Clare Richards
 

Reading this section, each time I’m transported somewhere hostile. Walking down the wide street back to my old apartment in Seoul; in the heat my mask is like sandpaper and the bulging beads of sweat form patches on the fabric. The sun is not just hot, of course, it is bright, and I can see everything, all at once—every single flyer that has strayed from stacks randomly discarded instead of...

Video Work featured in Vol. 63, Issue 4

December 19, 2022 - By Panteha Abareshi

NOT BETTER YET

Methods of Care for the Precarious Body

PANTEHA ABARESHI is a Canadian-born American multidisciplinary artist and curator. They are based in Los Angeles, California and were raised in Tucson. Abareshi was born with sickle cell zero beta thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes debilitating pain, and bodily deterioration that both increase...

10 Questions for Kieran Mundy

December 13, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

In the country, I could be better. I could learn to weave baskets and identify edible plants. I could learn to sew, to sing, to wear my hair in loose braids that tickle my bare shoulders.

Believe me, I know how it sounds. I know my reasons for wanting this life seem foolsih, too close to fantasy from the very beginning. Would it help if you imagined me as your wife? Your daughter? Your sister? By all means, go ahead. Imagine me what you will.
—from "It's More Afraid of You Than You Are of It," Volume 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My earliest work was actually in “songwriting." I went through a big Garage Band phase when I was 8 or 9, maybe? Lots of slant rhymes....

10 Questions for Ashley Kunsa

December 6, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

In California, in a dumpster, a rattler lay
half-coiled atop a grease-soaked pizza box,

            half-cloaked by yesterday’s news.
It was no friend of mine, the snake, though,

to tell the truth, in such repose, no enemy
either.
—from “It’s Never Just a Snake,” Vol. 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I wrote a pretty epic break-up note to my second-grade boyfriend that, by some twist of fate or good fortune (his or mine?), I never delivered, and so I’ve still got access to high literary phrases like “I know we both tried our hardest to make things work but they just didn’t...

10 Questions for Allison M. Charette

November 15, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

Ambahy—konantitra, I cannot comprehend this power that you wield. . . The power of death's morbid attraction, of the will to turn toward anarchy, toward a world where nothing is sacred anymore, where nothing has more power than its own form . . . I do not know. Intense desire for emancipation from the colonial authority, understanding that returning to a sovereign state would only be returning to royal servitude.
—from "Nour, 1947: Third Night" by Raharimanana, Translated by Allison M. Charette, Volume 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
Long before I knew I wanted to be a translator, I took a translation course for my undergrad French degree. One day, we worked in groups to...