Blog / 10 Questions

10 Questions for Katherine Kolupke

May 17, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

After Sophie's love affairs had all gone sour, her life became a drought. Once full of lust and beauty, Sophie was now faded and dried, like a stalk of corn left too long in the sun. She drifted through the days at the tiny Denver packing and mailing shop where she workd, next to Sloan's Lake. The customers seemed to withhold from her, somehow knowing that she was vacant, lacking; it made them shrink back.
—from "Poison," Volume 63, Issue 1 (Spring 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I wrote a couple of partial novels that I abandoned after thirty pages or so. They were enthusiastic attempts at the glossy “Chick Lit” genre that was popular in the early 2000’s. It was really hard to...

10 Questions for Travis Price

May 10, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

I didn't know many people who had gone to university. Neither Dad, nor Mom, nor my grandparents went. Still I knew more or less how university types dressed and even how they spoke, partly because my cousin was a veterinary student (though I barely saw him, and until he finally graduated, I wasn't entirely sure that he'd actually been studying for thirteen whole years like he claimed.)
—from "This Is a Pipe," Volume 63, Issue 1 (Spring 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
When I lived in Uruguay in 2018, I discovered a good way of making friends: Inviting Uruguayans I wanted to get to know better to play a game of Settlers of Catan. One of my competitors turned out to be the writer Marcelo...

10 Questions for Sakena Abedin

May 3, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

They came to meet him at the tiny airport in the town where he had attended medical college. As he went from his new house in Texas to the airport to New York and then London and Delhi, he had the sensation that the world was growing bigger and bigger. But on the final leg of his journey, the flight from Delhi to Nagpur, it all shrank back down again.
—from "Kabir," Volume 63, Issue 1 (Spring 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
When I was in fourth grade, I borrowed the family typewriter and wrote a story set in my neighborhood with a plot that was heavily borrowed from Heidi, which was my favorite book at the time. Many years passed before I tried my hand at fiction again.

What writer(s...

10 Questions for Lindsay Sproul

April 26, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

We knew our answers, but they weren't what you were looking for: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Not married.
A man with stronger arms than mine.
A person with the courage to bite down.
An evil queen.
A horse.
—from "Please Don't Ask Us," Volume 63, Issue 1 (Spring 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first words I learned how to write were “cow” and “mom.” In preschool, I distinctly remember writing a picture book about a cow mom who lost her baby in the supermarket.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Aside from Carson McCullers, Alice Walker, Jo Ann Beard and some other greats, I...

10 Questions for Aaron Hamburger

April 12, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, late September 2002. A beautiful fall morning. What was once called an Indian summer, but Jacob is learning to expunge such phrases from his lexicon: Indian summer. Dutch treat, French kiss. Is French kiss okay? Not that it matters; he hasn't French kissed a guy in months.
—from "Simple Past Present Perfect," Volume 63, Issue 1 (Spring 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I always loved to read, but I didn’t really think about being a writer until I was twelve years old and we had a writing contest in our English class: The author of the best short story, judged by our teacher, would get to miss an entire day of school to attend a conference for young writers at a local community...