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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...

Nakba Day 74

May 17, 2022 - By Michel S. Moushabeck

Today I am beyond outraged and I can’t breathe. Palestinians the world over are weeping and mourning the loss of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Her brutal murder by Israeli Defense Forces, with a bullet to the face while clearly wearing a PRESS vest, shook me to the core. Dedicating her life to reporting the truth and exposing the horrors of the ongoing Israeli occupation, Shireen represents the best Palestine and humanity has ever produced. But outrage and heartache do not come close to describing what I am feeling right now for what my brothers and sisters in Palestine have been through—and the daily systemic abuse and suffering they continue to endure—at the hands of the evil apartheid regime in Israel.

What happened this past week—...

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...

The Birth of an Author

May 7, 2022 - By Michael Thurston

A Review of Hank Drossel. Item: Regarding the Basilisk. SYOM Press, 2022. ix+187 pp.

Hank Drossel worked for decades as the travel agent and logistics manager for various arts institutions, especially music ensembles. From a perch at Eastern Airlines, he supported Cold War-era “hearts and minds” tours: avant-garde artists and groups performing American freedom for audiences behind the Iron Curtain. When both the Cold War and Eastern fell to the global domination of finance capitalism, Drossel worked freelance for art collectives, small orchestras, and early music ensembles, overseeing travel arrangements, venue bookings, contract riders, and the packing and transportation of priceless instruments. He often traveled with his clients to make sure that musicians...

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...