Category: Interview

FEBRUARY INTERVIEW with ASA DRAKE

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the first of Asa Drake’s two debuts, Maybe the Body from Tin House, is flush with the fruits and flora of a flamboyant garden, given that she lives in rural Florida. Nor perhaps is it a surprise that the book is fecund with cleanly honed commentary of what it’s like to be…
OCTOBER INTERVIEW with EDWARD SALEM

Edward Salem is a poet who hasn’t lost his sense of humor. “Palestinians,” he shares in our interview, “are insanely funny.” It’s this sense of humor that jumps off the page of Salem’s debut poetry collection, Monk Fruit, surprising readers, even as he’s tackling topics like the occupation of Palestine, American imperialism, torture, and genocide.…
SEPTEMBER INTERVIEW with LIZA HUDOCK

Addiction, death, and loss are everywhere in Liza Hudock’s debut collection, Reveille (released by Flood Editions in August), but they are not its actual subject. Instead, the poems wrestle—as near as it can be stated—with the world the speaker inhabits. Whether she turns her attention to a moth, the comparison between a pumpkin and a…
SEPTEMBER INTERVIEW with Julia Thacker

Julia Thacker’s debut collection To Wildness was recently awarded the Anthony Hecht prize by Paul Muldoon. The book makes its way through the wilds of New England, grieving the family born and buried there. To Wildness is enamored with the world of sense, yet lingers close to the realm of the dead. It is elegiac,…
JUNE INTERVIEW WITH STEVEN ESPADA DAWSON

Late to the Search Party is the debut collection of Steven Espada Dawson, exploring the individual and precise depths papered over by common nouns like ‘grief’ and ‘family’. The elegiac collection delves into Dawson’s love and grief for his dying mother, the decades-long absence of his addict brother, and the absence of a father, with…
MAY INTERVIEW WITH SOPHIA TERAZAWA

When readers first meet the narrator of Sophia Terazawa’s novel, Tetra Nova, published by Deep Vellum Publishing in March, they have just been trampled by an elephant, returning to consciousness inside what seems to be the body of a panda. Soon after, the narrator tumbles again, this time awakening as Emi, a young girl with…
FEBRUARY MONTHLY: INTERVIEW with CLAIRE HOPPLE

From the first sentence of Claire Hopple’s latest novel, Take It Personally, you know you’re in for a ride—in this specific case, you’re sidecar to Tori, who has just been hired by a mysterious and unnamed entity to trail a famous diarist. Famous locally, at least. What sort of locality produces a “famous diarist”? One…
JANUARY MONTHLY: INTERVIEW WITH MARIA ZOCCOLA

Any reader with even a cursory understanding of Greek mythology will recognize her name: Helen of Troy—daughter of Zeus, the most beautiful woman in the world, a “face that launched a thousand [war]ships.” Now take that image and fast forward about, oh, 3200 years, and you get Maria Zoccola’s raised fist of a debut, Helen…
DECEMBER MONTHLY: INTERVIEW WITH JIMIN SEO

Jimin Seo is the author of OSSIA, his debut collection of poetry. Winner of the The Changes Press Book prize, judged by Louise Glück, OSSIA blends the voices of the dead with the living, resulting in a symphonic exploration into migration, dislocation, familial bonds, love, and loss. Seo textures his manuscript with poems in both…
OCTOBER MONTHLY: Interview with Salvatore Pane

We’re excited to share a new series of interviews exploring craft. In these conversations, we’ve asked writers to take us behind the scenes of their finished works, showing us the process behind the poem, the scene, and the story. Last month, we spoke with Jessica E. Johnson, on her memoir Mettlework: A Mining Daughter on…
SEPTEMBER MONTHLY: Interview with Jessica E. Johnson

We’re excited to share a new series of interviews exploring craft. In these conversations, we’ve asked writers to take us behind the scenes of their finished works, showing us the process behind the poem, the scene, and the story. First is our conversation with Jessica E. Johnson, on her memoir Mettlework: A Mining Daughter on…
INTERVIEW with Khairani Barokka

FWR: “To enter the indonesian language is a science fictional enterprise,” you write in the first section of amuk. Reading forward, you show readers how Indonesian tenses permit a simultaneity of temporal possibilities not included within the narrower scope of English; traveling through time or existing beyond the limits of time altogether. What does it…