Buzz

Author Q&A with Ali McLafferty

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…

Author Q&A with Etya Vaserman Krichmar

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…

Author Q&A with Laura Westby Cannon

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…

Interview with Carolyn Williams-Noren and Lee Colin Thomas

My dad’s career was with an oil company in Alaska, and I worked for the company myself one summer. My life today is very different from that—I live in Minneapolis, doing work that feels distant from the project of taking oil out of the ground, if not always its opposite. The poems look back at that time “close” to oil with curiosity. I basically asked myself over and over, “When was I closest to oil? What did that do to me? What did I learn?” and wrote the answers…

Author Q&A with Christopher R.A. Adams 

What keeps me coming back to the keyboard is the chance to live beyond myself. Unlike the restrictions of my singular life, writing allows me to step into new modes of being, to see new perspectives, and learn from them. If I want to know if there’s life after love, I can step into being a widow and all its burdens. If I want to confront my mortality, I can become a man in his final days. If I want to be betrayed by God, I can become a prophet. I can’t deny writing, because it…