Blog / Interviews

10 Questions for Shanta Lee

May 23, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

The nanny Fidelia Córdoba kept her rhythm in her tetas. She'd been born on the banks of the River Sipí and she had bulging tetas, small and round like a pair of corozos, with retractile nipples that also had a sense of direction. They were all at once compass-sextant-weather-vane-plumb-line-quadrant-astrolabe-point-you-left-point-you-right, or wherever you need to go but never get you lost kinda nipples.
—from "Fidelia Córdoba" by Amalialú Posso Figueroa, Translated by Jeffrey Diteman and Shanta Lee, Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
When I was in Cuba in December 2017, I did a bit of a dive into the work of Nicolás Guillén and tried my hand at translating one of his poems...

10 Questions for Chris Campanioni

May 16, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Whenever my mom and dad were at the dinner table (the place of memorial and celebration, the place of conversation), I'd ask them about their days. I wanted to imagine their lives without me, their movements and rhythms when I was not there. What I was getting at, though I didn't know it then, was a desire to know what came before me, how I got here.
—from "Magic Marker," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I’m often drawn to the task of accounting for “firsts,” which is a lot like asking how we might imbue the everyday with the charge of memory, the significance and ceremony of reproduction. I like to take inventory, imagining them assembled for some...

10 Questions for JC Andrews

May 11, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

I’m so in love with you all of a sudden, you
    machine angel. Angel machine. Because I am still learning
        your new smells. Plastic, salt, animal, finally and still

thinking plastic, salt, animal, finally. Because you are letting
    me stand you up in the shower and wash your hair like you are not
        my mother, like I am not your daughter.
—from "Momma, Refracted," Volume 64, Issue 1

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I don’t remember the first time I wrote a poem and took it seriously. I will say, though, that my grandmother used to write letters for me to her...

10 Questions for Lauren Hohle

May 9, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Hannah doesn't get on-campus housing for the summer, but she doesn't want to go back to Missouri, back to her old life, back in time. The summer before, her first summer after starting college, she sat in basements sipping Budweiser as her formerly bookish friends swapped stories about frat parties. She sat through each Sunday's sermon as the pastor built God's army out of straw men, drew conclusions her professors would have docked her points for.
—from "Inland," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I dreamed up a lot of stories when I was young but always kind of froze with the writing-it-down part. I somehow finagled my way into a creative writing independent study...

10 Questions for Asnia Asim

May 2, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Maybe it was a reaction to old age; it could be that
he resented retired life. But the ex-neurologist,
amateur collector of oriental coins, had recently

taken to scolding his poor wife for all that praying
under her breath, Mashallah-this and Inshallah-that.
—from "Mr.Kemal Questions God," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My first poem “The White Petal” startled itself into existence through me. I was a lonely Pakistani kid struggling with overwhelming unrest. As I wrote the poem, the vague aroma of its ambience became significant. I remember feeling transported, less alone, but more importantly, I felt a kind of ecstasy as the image of a soft...