Author: Shyla Shehan

Karla Hernandez Torrijos is a formerly undocumented writer and teaching artist. Beginning at an open mic in 2017, she has since read her work in venues across Nebraska, New Mexico, and California. An award-winning poet, Karla’s work interrogates our understanding of home, displacement, and the liminal space in between. She is currently at work on her second manuscript.

Her poem, Farmworker Dies Fleeing an Immigration Raid in Southern California, was a finalist for the 2026 Honeybee Poetry Prize and appears in Issue #24.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Ironically enough, this was the hardest question for me to answer. In some ways, I like to think of myself as “the man behind the curtain” of a poem, the one pulling the levers of language to create an illusion. 

I am someone who grew up on the steps of the public library of a small Nebraska town, waiting for Laura to open the doors in the summers. I love tea with milk on the mornings when I don’t work, and whatever’s most caffeinated on the mornings when I do. I used to walk the mile home from middle school with a book held in front of me and the year I dropped out of high school, I only attended one class regularly— Language Arts. I love an em dash, I love an Oxford comma, and I still, still don’t know when to use a semicolon correctly. My favorite season is fall, though I often lie and say it’s spring, because I believe spring is the season of poets. I struggle to watch a movie without subtitles, a holdover from when my sister and I were learning English. I think the greatest genre of film is the romantic comedy, and that children make the best storytellers. And that fragments should be considered proper sentences. I talk a lot and I write even more and don’t always know when to stop. Finally, in the fourth grade, my teacher believed in my short story so much that she asked me to read it in front of the class. I never looked back.

What compelled you to write the poem?

I was undocumented from the ages of six to nineteen. The youngest, I was often protected from the harsher realities of immigration by my mother and sisters. While I did harbor some fear around my and my family’s safety, the 2000s and 2010s seemed like an entirely different world than the one we live in now— the rhetoric less vitriolic, the divisions between party lines less defined, and the general sentiment towards immigration, and immigrants themselves, less hateful. While this may simply be the world as seen through the eyes of a child, it seemed as if detentions and deportations were something that happened in other places, to other people. It is only now, within the safety afforded by my legal status, that I realize just how wrong I was, how close my family and I came to becoming another statistic, another headline.

I wrote this poem in July 2025, in the days following the news of Jaime Alanís’ death, caused by injuries he sustained during a fall, attempting to flee or hide from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents. Since this poem was written, I, alongside others, have watched as ICE has continued to rip apart families and communities. Most recently, footage from the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti went viral, with demonstrations and vigíls taking place across the country. While I am, of course, moved to see people mobilized to action (some for the first time), I have often asked myself to what extent legal status plays a role in people’s willingness to empathize. According to the National Immigration Project, thirty-three people died in ICE custody in 2025. As of September 1st of this year, at least twenty-six people have died in ICE custody or within days of their release from custody.

Geraldo Lunas Campos. Luis Gustavo Nuñez Caceres. Luis Beltrán Yañez-Cruz. Parady La. Victor Manuel Díaz. Heber Sánchez Domínguez. Lorth Sim. Jairo García-Hernández. Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes. Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi. Emmanuel Cleeford Damas. Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal. Royer Pérez Jiménez. José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano. Tuan Van Bui. Alejandro Cabrera Clemente. Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt. Denny Adán González. Mamuka Artmeladze. Felix Alcorta-Rodriguez. Adrian Andreas Florian. Jesus Manuel Arenas-Silva. Jose Chajon-Raxon. Priciliano Trejo. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo. Lianyong Wei. 

Perhaps, like me, your eyes moved quickly over the list of names. A list of names is just that, after all, a list. It is nearly impossible to find humanity in a wall of text. When I first read The New York Times article from which this poem takes its title, I was struck most by the indifferent tone of news reporting, the apparent detachment by which facts are presented. In writing this poem, I was forced to confront the limitations, and failure, of all language, including the poetic language I had long sought solace in. 

The poem’s form, a palindrome poem that breaks structure in its final line, was created by writer Nicole Sealey. In my opening line What is the right form / For laying down the dead man’s body? I contend with the central question of writing about Jaime Alanís at all, of trying to process my own pain without appropriating someone else’s grief. As a migrant writer, I have often felt complicit in the erasure of real people in favor of a gripping image or a moving story. A poem, despite whatever intention it begins with, can just as easily create caricatures of the very people it hopes to depict. This poem was my way of grappling with those feelings of complicitness, as well as an attempt to acknowledge the man at the heart of the headline. 

In many ways, all roads led me to that last line. Inspired by the work of Black activists, scholars, and the #SayHerName movement, I chose to end the poem with the simple fact of a name. Unlike a list, a single name forces us to sit in the uncomfortable and painful reality that many of us avoid: He was just like me or perhaps even more importantly, I was just like him. We can debate the sociopolitical and economic contexts surrounding a person’s death, the circumstances that lead to migration in the first place. We can disagree on immigration policy, about whether to build walls or extend pathways to citizenship. We cannot debate, or deny, one another’s humanity. 

Jaime, Mohammad, Tuan— they lived. They laughed, they sang, and in migrating, they dared to dream of a world bigger than the one they had inherited. And each, at one moment or another, was held in the arms of someone that loved them and wished for them a long and happy life. Just as you yourself were. The only difference is which side of the border you were born into. 

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the revision process, and/or the final version of it

I think perhaps the most surprising detail of the revision process is how little changed from the original draft to the final version! In reviewing my old journal, the first and final drafts of this poem look surprisingly similar— whereas the process of editing was more subtractive than additive, which is not usually the case for me. This was one of those rare cases where, once I knew the form I was writing in, the poem arrived nearly “itself”, so to speak. 

One small detail is that the original draft used Jaime Alanís’ full name. During the revision process, I decided to pare it down to just his first. This decision was born out of a desire for familiarity in the piece. A familiarity, that while unearned, allowed me to create a deeper sense of kinship and eventually, loss.

Do you write in other genres, and if so, what?

I do! I write creative nonfiction, using elements from both fiction and poetry to tell stories from my own life. I hid behind poetry for a long time because I feared the confines of memoir and the scope of fiction. I signed up for an introductory course on creative nonfiction in college, not really knowing what it was, and fell in love. 

I recently sent an essay to a journal for the first time and received the kindest, most encouraging rejection letter in return. It was a good reminder that I’m headed in the right direction, and to keep going, despite not always being the most confident in my prose.

What fuels your desire to write (or engage in other creative outlets)?

In considering this question, I began with Joan Didion, who once wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I must admit that I did not know the full quote until recently, in which she expands on the idea that writers impose “a narrative line upon disparate images” in their attempt to create order from the chaos of existence. Truth be told, I had always assumed she meant We tell ourselves stories in order to survive, that stories existed in much the same way the first stone blade must have— a tool in our ancestors’ hands that could change the course of an entire species. Through stories, we could recount our past, and in doing so, shape our future. 

I came to writing from a place of desperation, just as a lonely lifeboat arrives on the edges of shore. For a time, poetry became a refuge. In a moment of my life when I did not believe that the things I said mattered, writing became a way of exerting agency within the sentences of someone else’s narrative. I am not the first to say that writing, that all creativity, is an act of survival; that survival itself demands creativity. However, as I grew older, I began to see writing less as a life raft and more as a practice, perhaps the building of a home—intentional, methodical, labor intensive. 

One of the central pillars of this house I’ve built is my belief that writing must serve a greater purpose than aesthetic beauty, a sentiment best encapsulated by the James Baldwin quote, “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” 

All my writing is an attempt towards what Baldwin is describing. I am pointing out at the world, I am saying ‘Look at that barn swallow, look at that meadow, look at that child in the detention center’ and it is because I love you, and because I love you, I want you to see what I see. Not all

of it is pastoral and not all of it is painful but all of it is important. Palestinian writer Marwan Makhoul said in his now-famous poem, In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political / I must listen to the birds / and in order to hear the birds / the warplanes must be silent. 

You cannot write about the beauty of the meadow if it is engulfed in flames nor the barn swallow’s song if she is choking on smoke. I am not interested in writing as merely an act of witnessing, nor as a weapon by which the traumatized are re-traumatized in perpetuity. My desire to write is fueled by the foundational belief that we cannot face it if we cannot name it, or to say it in the words of Lucillle Clifton, “We cannot create what we can’t imagine.” 

Perhaps yesterday, writing was a lifeboat, today it is the house we are building, and tomorrow it is the front door that we must walk through to see what exists beyond these four walls. The work of writing is also the work of transfiguration. I am writing not simply to reflect, but also to reimagine. What worlds exist within our reach, at the edge of our pens? 

How do you make expression a part of your daily life, or how do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities?

Lately, I have been writing ten minute poems during my breaks at work. There is a kind of spark that ignites when you’re forced into such an inflexible constraint. I have found that this practice has made me a better writer, as the limitations of time demand that I move through the page swiftly and with confidence. I don’t have time to look up a word or to hand-wring over whether a particular image is working. Gone are the days of Walden Pond, a myth created in part due to the unpaid and unacknowledged labor of women. Nearly every writer I know has a day job that pulls them away from the page. 

The reality, somewhat laughable, is that I do not find a balance between writing and other responsibilities. Sometimes, the dishes lay heaped in the kitchen sink while I work on an essay. Other times, the poem lays unfinished as I get ready for that morning’s shift, muttering lines to myself. I remember reading once that famed poet and physician William Carlos Williams favored such short stanzas in part because he wrote poems in between patients at the hospital. Whether this is true or not is besides the point. The point, I suppose, is that all art is a give and take. On a more practical level, I carry a small notebook in my tote bag. I try to write as often as I can, which is still not nearly as often as I would like, and I let the dishes pile up more than I

care to admit. I ask myself what is non-negotiable and go from there. There are some responsibilities that cannot be shirked— morning shifts, doctor’s appointments. Still, in between these, there are brief windows of time. Now and again, I try to look through them.

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

Raised in Nebraska most of my life, I can’t help but think of our state sign when I hear those words. Nebraska… the good life in bold white letters against that specific shade of road-sign green. Home of Arbor Day. I am of the belief that a good life, the good life, is slow, intentional living. Like our sign, the good life is understated. It is not the highlights, although those are there too, but rather the daily work of building and keeping community. 

Another word for this might be family. It is your grandfather’s hands, time-worn as the recipe pages he turns, looking for a beef gravy that smells like a childhood home does. It is your best friend’s laughter, the kind that only emerges from relief, a sunray peeking through clouds, after an especially long year. It is the work of writing, often solitary, always deliberate, as you reach into an opaque river to try and find something glimmering. 

The good life is the small and miraculous occurrences that appear every day but are swept up by routine and responsibility. The perfectly brewed cup of coffee, the commute with only green lights, or the line in the poem that holds your gaze, the way only a reflection can.

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Thank you, Karla, for being generous with your time and your pen and for sharing so openly. The poetry of any age or time period is documentation of the state of the world and your answers and explanations are heartbreaking and also compelling.

We appreciate you being a part of our growing community, our TGLR family and we wish you the best with life and all your writing endeavors!

Mara Lee Grayson’s poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tampa Review, and Nimrod, among other literary journals, and has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. An award-winning scholar of rhetorics of racism and antisemitism, Grayson is the author or editor of five books of nonfiction. She holds an MFA from The City College of New York and a PhD from Columbia University and was previously a tenured professor in the California State University system. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she currently resides in New Jersey.

Her poem, How to Be a Jewish Woman in Amerikkka while Your Friends Sleep Fitfully in War Zones, was the winner of the 2026 Honeybee Poetry Prize and appears in Issue #24.

Tell us a bit about yourself, something more than just what’s in your bio. Perhaps something not a lot of people know. 

I acted before I wrote. (My father was a stage director, and I grew up surrounded by theatre.) In some ways, I came to writing through acting – I wanted to make moments come to life. Also, I have more piercings and tattoos than people expect me to have (which says a lot less about me than it does about people’s expectations).

As far as message and intention, the poem speaks for itself. What more can you tell us about what compelled or inspired you to write it? 

I actually began writing this poem in 2022, set it aside for a while, and came back to it in 2024, after hearing from friends and colleagues who had been running for shelter every night. I juxtaposed that with what I had been trying to make sense of a couple of years earlier.

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the revision process?

Believe it or not, this poem was originally a sonnet that I deconstructed about 20 different times.

What did you learn (about yourself, craft, or life in general) through writing and revising it?

As I returned to this poem, I wondered how much of my own experiences of identity and positionality reflect the experiences of my ancestors. What do we share across space and time? What is universal, so to speak, and what is particular? How do we draw connections without losing what makes us unique?

What do you hope readers take from the poem?

I never presume what readers will take from a poem. Over the years, readers and editors have shared with me interpretations of my work that I never intended, and I’ve come to not only be okay with that but to kind of appreciate it. I won’t say all interpretations are equally valid – they’re not – but we all bring ourselves to the work we read. If my work speaks to you, I’m glad, and I hope it makes you both feel and think about something just a little differently than you did before.

Do you write in other genres, and if so, what?

I do! My MFA thesis was a collection of short stories, a few I’ve since published. I wrote freelance briefly for a couple of newspapers, and I even once worked as a theatre and film critic. A lot of people know me primarily as a scholar.

What fuels your desire to write?

I want to say that I write to make meaning of the world and to feel like myself, and both are true, but, at root, it’s a feeling, a compulsion maybe. I feel driven to write. I don’t feel comfortable or satisfied when I don’t.

How do you balance writing with everyday life?

I have no idea what balance means, and I have yet to meet a writer or artist who does.

Are there any special projects, other pieces, or books you’d like to promote?

Readers can find my books here. 

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

Having time and space to do the things I want to do without feeling like I have to squeeze them in or compartmentalize them. Maybe the good life is really about finding that ever-elusive balance.

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Thank you, Mara, for sharing more about your life and writing with us. We are grateful to you for participating in this Q&A and for being a part of what is becoming a sweet history of Honeybee Prize winners!!

We wish you continued success with writing and that you will someday find that balance!

Ali McLafferty earned her PhD in History at UC Berkeley. Her work combines the historical with the fantastical and has appeared in The Forge, Fractured Lit, Flash Frog, Gone Lawn, and The Belmont Story Review and is forthcoming in Flame Tree Press’s Helen of Troy anthology. Her work has also been shortlisted for prizes, including Fractured Lit, The Manuscript Wishlist, and Unleash Press. She is also a visual artist whose work has been featured in Flash Frog, Centaur Magazine, and Foofaraw Press. More of her publications and artwork can be found on her website, alimclafferty.com.

Her short fiction, Salt and Sand, appears in Issue #24.

Tell us a bit about yourself, something more than just what’s in your bio. Perhaps something not a lot of people know. 

I’m an avid gardener. And when I say “avid,” I mean Texas Gardener avid: wake-up-at-5:30am-in-the-summer-to-water-everything-by-hand-for-an-hour-because-of-water-restrictions avid. My backyard is tiny, but I’ve packed every inch of it with plants. My current harvest includes lemons, oranges, figs, bananas, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, watermelons, honeyrock melons, pumpkins, onions, herbs, and even hops (yes—to make my own beer!). I have no idea how many plants I own at this point. Not enough. NEVER ENOUGH.

What was the inspiration behind “Salt and Sand”?

I was watching The Little Mermaid with my five-year-old daughter and–as I often do when watching Disney movies–entertaining myself by dissecting plot holes. How does Ariel instantly learn to walk? How does she know what things are food and what are not, how to breathe with lungs, or even how to lie in a bed? My own kids took months to figure those things out! The more I thought about it, the more bizarre being human seemed. I started wondering what life would really look like for a mermaid with no knowledge of the terrestrial world—and no voice—who chose to become human.

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the revision process and/or the final version of it?

I began the story with the intention of making Cordelia an actual mermaid. But as it progressed, I realized that I myself had no idea whether she was or not. I still don’t have an answer to that question. So I decided to lean into that ambiguity, even though that makes the ending potentially devastating, because that is how we experience every myth and legend: by balancing the fine line of truth versus fiction.

What did you learn (about yourself, craft, or life in general) through writing and revising it?

It was the first short story I ever wrote. I had no idea how to write them, and the attempt seemed daunting. But I realized that if I began with a general premise, emotional temperature, and characters who were clear in my mind, I didn’t have to have a strict notion of where it had to go. I could just enjoy letting it develop. That was a really wonderful experience, and how I go about writing all my short stories now.

What do you hope readers take from the piece?

That there is no clear, defining line between magic and reality. That the world is a place still full of mystery, and that resting in that space of ambiguity, wonder, and even discomfort can be rewarding.

At what point in your life did you begin writing and working on this story? 

I wrote it in June of 2025, six months after I lost my niece, who inexplicably died 6 hours after she was born. It was such a shocking, devastating occurrence that I spent months in a sort of daze trying to understand what had happened. We live in a world we feel should have answers, especially as our knowledge of science and technology progresses. And yet I kept thinking about the people of the past, who when they suffered the mysterious loss of a child chalked it up to witchcraft, or believed it had been stolen by fairies. So I began writing fiction that blended myth and reality in a way that felt true to my experience, and helped me process the grief.

Do you write in other genres, and if so, what?

My favorite genres are historical fiction and speculative fiction, and my favorite pieces to write are ones that blend the two together. I have a PhD in history, so I really love bringing to life historical time periods, settings, and beliefs. But I also love speculative fiction, so my pieces usually weave in subtle (and sometimes explicit) magical/fabulist/surreal elements.

What fuels your desire to write?

Wow…this is an interesting question, because I don’t really know the answer to it. I’ve always written—first academic, scholarly pieces and now fiction. I guess the most honest answer would be that a sort of compulsion fuels me–it just feels so GOOD to write, in the same way other people say it feels good to go on a run. I don’t understand running, because frankly I am pretty physically lazy. But I can appreciate the way people describe feeling both an intense joy and calm contentment, because that is what writing feels like to me. It’s also a blissful escape–an amazing way to just let time and worries and the outside world dissolve completely. Art and gardening give me the same feeling. If they made a candle that smelled of paint and dirt I would buy it.

What have been the biggest influences in your writing?

I have always been a voracious reader, and my favorite authors of all time are historical fiction writers: Maggie O’Farrell, Hilary Mantel, Geraldine Brooks, James Michener, Henry Wouk, and Isabel Allende. I love the way they bring the past to life, both with incredibly immersive descriptions of place but also by making the interior, emotional lives of their historical characters feel immediate. And Allende’s House of the Spirits revealed this whole new style of writing to me–historical magical realism.

How do you balance writing with everyday life?

I have a career, two kids, a dog, a cat, and an extremely demanding garden that take up a good deal of my time. But I also make sure to prioritize writing these days. This usually means waking up at the crack of dawn while everyone is asleep to hammer things out. I also tend to write piecemeal in time gaps: waiting in line at the grocery store, stirring a pot of dinner, walking the dog, sitting at the DMV….what would I do without iPhone Notes!!

Are there any special projects, other pieces, or books you’d like to promote?

Yes, thank you! My website, alimclafferty.com, has links to my published fiction, artwork, and upcoming projects. I’m also excited to have stories appearing in two forthcoming anthologies: Helen of Troy from Flame Tree Press this September and Missed Fits from Calendar of Fools in 2027.

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

I don’t necessarily think of a “joyful” life. I think a “meaningful” life. One that might have had grief, loss, and trauma but that ultimately finds richness and purpose.

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Thank you, Ali, for participating in this Q&A and for the direct and heartfelt answers. We are grateful to you for being a part of our growing literary community and wish you the best with writing, a bouuntiful harvest, and finding forgotten gems hidden among all the phone notes.

Etya Vaserman Krichmar https://www.etyawrites.com/ is a Kazakhstan-born writer who immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union. She writes literary nonfiction exploring identity, displacement, and belonging. Her work has appeared in Brevity Blog, Narratively, The Orlando Sentinel, Spillwords Press, MasticadoresUSA, White Rose, Write Launch, and international anthologies. She is currently seeking representation for her memoir “Citizens of Nowhere.”

Her short CNF, Love Flows Forward, appears in Issue #24.

Tell us a bit about yourself, something more than just what’s in your bio. Perhaps something not a lot of people know. 

I was born in Kazakhstan, raised in Ukraine, became a wife in Moldova, and came to the United States as a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union. Much of my writing explores memory, identity, and the invisible ways our past shapes the present.

One thing people may not know is that I didn’t begin writing seriously until later in life. A near-death experience changed the course of my life and compelled me to write. Before becoming a writer, I spent decades in the corporate world. I often say that I didn’t find writing—writing found me when I was finally ready to listen.

When I’m away from my desk, I paint with thread through needlepoint and enjoy creating elaborate cakes. I suppose storytelling isn’t the only way I like making something beautiful from scratch. Another little-known fact is that I’m a Reiki Master. That experience taught me to pay attention to silence, intuition, and the stories people carry beneath the surface.

Life is full of moments worthy of writing about. What inspired you to write Love Flows Forward? 

Sunflowers began with a childhood memory. Behind our housing development in the Soviet Union stretched endless sunflower fields. As a child, they became my refuge—the one place where I felt I belonged, and the only place where I could forget, for a little while, that I was different. Years later, that memory collided with another image: sunflowers blooming on land marked by suffering. I couldn’t stop wondering how beauty and tragedy could share the same soil.

As I wrote, I realized the essay wasn’t only about flowers. It became an exploration of memory, resilience, and the responsibility of remembering. Sometimes history returns quietly. Sometimes it blooms.

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the revision process?

The ending changed many times.

At first, I tried to explain everything I wanted readers to understand. Eventually I realized the essay became stronger when I trusted the image itself. The more I removed explanation, the more emotional space I gave the reader.

Revision, for me, is usually an exercise in subtraction rather than addition.

What did you learn through writing and revising it?

I learned that memory is never fixed.

Each time we revisit the past, we bring a different version of ourselves. The facts may remain the same, but our understanding evolves. As children, we experience events without fully grasping their meaning. As adults, we return with perspective, life experience, and, I hope, greater compassion for the people we once were.

As a writer, I also learned to trust restraint. My early drafts explained too much. Revision taught me that readers don’t need every answer. Sometimes what remains unsaid carries the greatest emotional weight.

What do you hope readers take from the piece?

I hope readers leave with a renewed appreciation for memory and for the ordinary people whose lives history often overlooks. We inherit more than family photographs and heirlooms. We inherit stories, and with them comes the responsibility to remember.

If the essay encourages even one reader to ask an older family member about their story—or to pause before allowing history to fade into silence—it has done its job.

At what point in your life did you begin writing nonfiction?

I began writing as a child in the Soviet Union. At first, writing was my escape. It gave me a place where I could imagine a different world and find a freedom that didn’t always exist in everyday life.

I returned to writing seriously much later, after a life-changing medical diagnosis. By then, my purpose had changed. I no longer wrote to escape reality—I wrote to understand it, to give voice to experiences that had shaped me, and to preserve the stories that might otherwise be forgotten.

I eventually realized I wasn’t simply recording memories. I was searching for meaning within them. Today, I write because I hope to leave behind more than my name. I want to leave behind stories that remind others their lives—and mine—matter.

Do you write in other genres, and if so, what?

Yes. In addition to literary nonfiction and memoir, I write historical speculative fiction, romance with speculative elements, and short fiction.

I’ve completed a historical speculative novel, The Watcher’s Testimony: Bearing Witness, and two memoirs, Citizens of Nowhere and A Flight to Freedom. I’m currently writing Accidental Witness, a romance with speculative elements, and another memoir, Awakened by Papa’s Spirit.

At the moment, I’m seeking representation for Citizens of Nowhere, which explores what it was like to grow up Jewish in the Soviet Union and the lasting effects of displacement, antisemitism, and the search for belonging.

Although I write in different genres, they all explore memory, identity, resilience, and the ways the past continues to shape the present.

What fuels your desire to write?

Curiosity fuels my writing, but so does memory. I’m fascinated by ordinary moments that reveal something extraordinary about being human. A single sentence, a photograph, a prompt, or a childhood memory can become the beginning of an essay or a novel.

I write because I don’t want meaningful stories to disappear. Whether I’m writing memoir or fiction, I’m trying to preserve the voices, experiences, and quiet moments that remind us of who we are. I believe every life holds a story worth telling.

What have been the biggest influences in your writing?

Life has been my greatest teacher. Immigration, family, illness, loss, and resilience have all shaped my voice.

I also grew up reading the Russian, European, and American classics. Chekhov taught me to appreciate the quiet moments that reveal character. Tolstoy and Bulgakov showed me the sweep of history and the complexity of human nature. Alexandre Dumas introduced me to adventure, while Émile Zola, John Steinbeck, and Theodore Dreiser revealed the dignity, struggles, and resilience of ordinary people. Nikos Kazantzakis opened a door to spirituality and the search for meaning.

As a writer, I’ve learned just as much from careful revision and generous mentors as I have from the books that shaped my imagination.

How do you balance writing with everyday life?

I don’t wait for inspiration. I write whenever life allows—sometimes for hours, sometimes for only a few minutes. Consistency matters more than perfect conditions.

I’ve learned that writing doesn’t happen only at my desk. It begins by paying attention. Conversations, walks, medical appointments, and ordinary days often become tomorrow’s stories. Living and writing are inseparable.

Are there any special projects, other pieces, or books you’d like to promote?

I’m currently seeking representation for Citizens of Nowhere, a literary memoir about growing up Jewish in the Soviet Union and the lasting effects of displacement, antisemitism, and the search for belonging.

I’m also finishing Accidental Witness, a romance with speculative elements that explores memory, identity, and the unexpected ways the past reaches into the present.

Alongside these longer projects, I continue to write essays and short memoirs because they allow me to capture life’s quieter moments—one story at a time.

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

It’s found in meaningful work, honest relationships, curiosity, and gratitude.

After growing up where some stories could not be spoken, I think the good life is the freedom to tell them—and the privilege of having someone willing to listen.

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Thank you, Etya, for sharing more about your life and writing with us and for being a part of our growing community. We are grateful for the time you spent on this Q&A.

We wish you luck in finding representation for your manuscripts and the best with all your writing projects.

Laura Westby Cannon grew up in Valley City, North Dakota, where it was her job to water the flower garden. Her creative work has appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Revisionist, and Blue Mountain Review, among others. She’s taught creative and academic writing at the College of Charleston since 2018, and her family resides alongside the zinnias in North Charleston, SC.

Her flash CNF, Beauty Like That, appears in Issue #24.

Tell us a bit about yourself, something more than just what’s in your bio. Perhaps a fun fact not a lot of people know. 

Attending Super Asthma Saturday at the FargoDome one Saturday in the late-90s was an emblem of honor to my younger self. During the event, groups of us asthmatic kids were shuffled from station to station to learn about new spacer technology and talk about our feelings. It was all very important to me back then. I told a visual artist friend years later and she designed a Super Asthma Saturday shirt for me — and a matching one for my newborn daughter — which we still have!

Life is full of moments worthy of writing about. What inspired you to write Beauty Like That? 

I was struck by the abundance of the zinnias in our planter last year and equally surprised by how much joy they brought not only me, but my family, our friends, and people walking by the house. As I drafted this piece, I began to consider how much work happens before the final blooms pop, which nicely mirrors human growth—there’s so much unseen work in the daily rhythms of both.

I also thought about how we — often girls —- are taught to quell their strength, talents, and beauty. The zinnias boasted in a way that offered a kind of permission to just exist for the sake of existing that I want my children to embrace in a way I haven’t always done. I was struck by how deeply moving it is simply to pay attention to the natural world for these lessons.

At what point in your life did you begin writing and working on creative nonfiction?

I took a Creative Nonfiction class in college. Before then, I didn’t even know this kind of writing was a possibility. I wrote an essay with a line about my grandmother and I credit that moment with the beginning of realizing my voice. I declared English as a major soon after.

In the States we call this style creative nonfiction, but there’s a beautiful word in Portuguese for capturing these moments: crónica. I like the concept of chronicling our lives; small proofs that we existed.  

Do you write in other genres, and if so, what?

Yes! I finished the first draft of a fiction manuscript this summer, which was an absolute flurry of excitement.

How do you make expression a part of your daily life, or how do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities?

Creative expression is constant. I take a lot of joy from being in the kitchen, especially baking all kinds of bread. I also derive a lot of joy in giving much of it away. The excitement people have!

During these slower summer days, my children and I put on music and paint. Eat popcorn. Do crafts if we absolutely must. Dance.

At the risk of being overly-dramatic, I’ve had to learn to lean into the discomfort, which is a Buddhist principle. What I mean by discomfort is that my time is constantly being disrupted by my kids, my elderly dog, my spouse, the business responsibilities, teaching —- living. One day I’ll again have three hours every morning to write. But now, I’ve learned to write down lines as they arrive. I take time-outs on the back porch for 20-minute “writing sprints” and my family knows not to find me. I’m currently writing this answer with my children sitting in my personal space to watch, but I think it’s important that they see me do these things. I want them to live with joy, too, and I believe creative expression is a big piece of that.

Are there any special projects, other pieces, or books you’d like to promote?

My short story “Momma Had a Mean Streak” was published earlier this year in Blue Mountain Review.”

I’d love to promote a published book, but I’m not there quite yet. I’m looking for an agent (help!).

I’d also be remiss not to also mention the Revisionist Foundation, a new Charleston-area nonprofit that seeks to embolden women in their creative pursuits (art, writing, culinary), which I’m thrilled to help build and watch grow.

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

The posture of gratitude in all circumstances, which I don’t say carelessly.

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Thank you, Laura, for sharing a slice of your life with us and for being a part of our growing community. We appreciate you and the time you spent on this Q&A. If you planted zinnias again this year, I bet they are amazing right now!!

We wish you a peaceful close to the summer season, and the best with all your writing endeavors!