Blog / 10 Questions

10 Questions for Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay

February 26, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

My
vagina
wants
to
knife
fight
you.
—from “To the Gentleman Who Catcalls Me Without Fail Every Morning on My Way to Work”, Winter 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The Babysitter’s Club fanfiction. Well, they were sort of fanfiction. Being the only daughter of former refugees from Laos, I had to imagine exotic American customs like sleepovers, talking on the phone with your friends, and dating in your preteens. Those things were just not. . . typical. I wrote a handful of chapters: I went on field trips, screwed up my first babysitting job, had my first kiss, and helped Claudia cope with her strict Asian parents. Then it got...

10 Questions for Christine Kitano

February 22, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

From To Kill a Mockingbird, I learn the word “chifforobe.” My grandmother has a lacquer chest, a chifforobe, in her bedroom. She claims it is the only object she brought with her from Korea. —from “Heirloom”, Winter 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 4)
 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
When I was around five or six, I wrote a story about a family eating rice-balls. One family member would add more rice to a rice-ball and pass it to the person next to them. The rice-ball grew infinitely as it made its passage around and around the table. I remember not knowing how to end the story, a problem I still encounter daily in my work as a writer.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the...

10 (or maybe 12) Questions for Bryan Thao Worra

February 18, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

“That was the question the protagonists of the cartoon show King of the Hill asked the Lao character Kahn Souphanousinphone when he debuted on March 2, 1997—even after he’d explained where he and his family were from in elaborate detail. Twenty years later, that question continues to encapsulate Lao American refugees’ enduring frustration when explaining our journey of rebuilding to others.”
—from “‘So are you Chinese or Japanese?’”, Winter 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
There’s not much to tell: It began for a girl,
There was a mask, some ink, some Pagliacci,
A reference or two to the Batman and the human...

10 Questions for Shelley Wong

February 13, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

Set the dove free and try
to call it back within a year.
How do you love a bird so much
you cage it? If I were that bird
I’d sing all day. With the right song,
I’ll dance my bones down.
—from “My Therapist Asks If I would Be Happier If I Were Straight”, Winter 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
In my junior year of college, I wrote a Frank O’Hara imitation after reading “The Day Lady Died.” It involved traveling by train en route to a beloved. I was thrilled by the line break “I couldn’t make out / the voices coming through the train.”

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you...

10 Questions for Sarah Audsley

February 11, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

Early mornings, I waited for the school bus, tiny hands clasping
thin backpack straps, lunch inside a crinkled brown paper bag, tacky

white fluff & peanut butter stuck to the cheap Ziploc. The bus arrived
at 7:05 a.m. The yellow morning light was a warm puddle — soft, I could

touch it. —from “It Was a Yellow Light”, Winter 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I started writing poetry in my childhood bedroom in the log cabin-house my father built. I remember making things up on the page and writing letters to my imagined biological parents in my pink marbled journal. In high school, I wrote poems, looking back on it now, as a way to process my parents’...