Blog / Interviews

10 Questions for Mark Irwin

March 5, 2018 - By Abby Macgregor

If I could make language simpler I would.
Language says that each word equals something
else, but that’s not true. If I could make
language simpler, I would make an invisible
equals sign that extends through each of us . . . .
—from “Human Pageant,” Winter 2017 (Vol. 58, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
When I was twelvve years old, I accidentally shot a robin, high in a tree, with a BB gun. I think that I wrote something trying to understand how this happened. I’m sure that the piece was not very good, but I learned then that writing was both a way of thinking and feeling.

What writer(s)...

10 Questions for Elizabeth Harris

February 21, 2018 - By Kira Archibald

“A blue eye, floating in still water, blood vessels showing in the yellow cornea. A small, white liquid ball gathering on the lower eyelid, ready to spill over at any moment. The eye, under slackened folds of skin, swung wildly and stared into my own. Now that the iris had half disappeared into the corner of the eye and more cornea was showing, the glassy fluid overflowed and ran down beside the large, sharp nose . . . . The pupil was locked onto me.” —from “Just a Minute,” by Monica Pareschi. Translated by Elizabeth Harris. Winter 2017 (Vol. 58, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated
The first book I...

10 Questions for Marty McConnell

February 12, 2018 - By Abby MacGregor

I come to claim the white boy who yesterday slaughtered nine 
Black worshippers at prayer. Because to deny him is to deny the
ways he and I are the same, deny the hideous lineage that dogs
us and feeds us. Gavel and spit. Rope and bumper and chain. I
claim him but will not say his name. It slips down my throat like
half-gone milk, slick and hard.

—from “The Sacrament of Penance,” Winter 2017 (Vol. 58, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.

When my parents sold the house I grew up in, one of the things Mom found stashed away was some writing from second grade, including a poem...

10 Questions For Lizzie Buehler

February 9, 2018 - By Abby MacGregor

"The customer comes  in alone. The owner is a bit slow-witted and asks, “How many in your party tonight?” This is a family-style barbecue restaurant, though, so you can’t say she’s that slow-witted. Two servings of pork belly, a bowl of rice, a bottle of soju. Nothing too unusual, but for a woman who came in alone at 7:00 p.m., it is sort of strange. . ." —from TABLE FOR ONE, Working Titles 3.1

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
Funnily enough, “Table for One” was actually one of the first pieces I translated. I began working on the story in a creative writing workshop I took as an undergraduate at Princeton. I only ended up translating the first few...

10 Questions for Maya Pindyck

February 8, 2018 - By Abby MacGregor