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10 Questions for Taylor Zhang

August 9, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

Rotisserie chickens tied up
pre-chop: my skin melted, stuck,
grease dripping on the floor.
—from "Pure Pleasure", Volume 62, Issue 2 (Spring 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I started journaling when I was very young. I used to write these little poems and observations in the margins of books, too. I couldn’t tell you about any particular ‘first’ piece, but I have this very clear memory of writing something morose in my mother’s copy of Gone with the Wind.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Janet Malcolm will forever hold my attention as a stylist. Her prose radiates intelligence and authority and understated...

10 Questions for Stephen Kampa

August 6, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

"Later he won't recollect who wore cardboard crowns--

as always, he stayed sober, the dork calling cabs
for lightweights who couldn't pace themselves till midnight."
—from "Size 12," Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
As I child—was I in fifth grade?—I invested significant energy in writing a novel. It was full of dragons and dwarves and mountains, and I no longer remember if it was midway through the first draft or upon completing it that I realized I had tried to rewrite The Hobbit. In retrospect, I take satisfaction in knowing I was a character in a Borges story.

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

(Almost) 10 Questions for Sage Ravenwood

August 4, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

If you siphon hatred through skin and bones
Long enough, if you gut punch your heart
Hard enough, in between all the layers of
Who you are, you find
The will to live.
—from “Scraped from a Boning Knife”, Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I came into poetry rather recent (later than most), so that would be "Bullet Tithe" published in Glass Poetry —Poets Resist almost two years ago. "Bullet Tithe" was written the day of the El Paso, Texas shootings. Like everyone else at that time, I was trying to come to terms with the shock and overwhelming loss we were witnessing; At the same time I worried if it was my story...

All That Is Yet to Come

August 3, 2021 - By J. Malcolm Garcia

(Photo: Afghan girl in class. Courtesy of J. Malcolm Garcia.)

My Afghan colleague, Aarash, recently received a special immigrant visa (SIV). I’m a freelance reporter, and he worked with me in Kabul as a translator for five years. SIVs are available only to those Afghans who worked as translators, interpreters, or other professionals employed by or on behalf of the United States government for a minimum of two years. Aarash’s wife, Sharjeela, translated documents for the U.S. government at the Ministry of Interior. Her job made the family eligible for the visa.

Hello brother, Aarash wrote to me in a Facebook message on June 24, 2016. Hope everything is going well with you. I’m currently in the States. Just wanted you to know.

He...

10 Questions for Teddy Macker

August 2, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

As drone strikes fell from skies
and executed children
Mary Oliver did not abandon
roses busy being roses.
—from "Marguerite", Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)
 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I first began writing in response to the beauty of girls. Maybe sixth grade. “Thou shalt acknowledge the wonder,” says D.H. Lawrence. In my little fumbling way, I’ve tried to acknowledge the wonder, while also remembering the insight of Robinson Jeffers:

Praise life, it deserves praise, but the praise of life
That forgets the pain is a pebble
Rattled in a dry gourd.

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