Tag: interview

Teri Youmans is a fourth-generation Floridian. She received her BFA in poetry at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She’s published two poetry collections. Her first, Dirt Eaters, was chosen for the University of Central Florida’s contemporary poetry series and was published by the University Press of Florida. Her second book, Becoming Lyla Dore, was published by Red Hen Press. Teri is the recipient of a Nebraska Arts Fellowship and has been awarded residencies at Millay Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Hambidge Center. She has taught in Creighton University’s MFA Program, at the University of North Florida, and in the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s low-res MFA program. She is currently at work on a memoir about alligator hunting, generational abuse, and dancing with the devil. Teri lives in Jacksonville, Florida.

Youmans is the non-fiction judge of the 2024 HoneyBee Creative Nonfiction Prize for The Good Life Review.

Tell us about the memoir you’re currently writing. What moved you to tackle this emotional project?

The memoir is titled, A Good Girl from the Deep South, which kind of covers it. I was a “good girl” by birth, earnest as all get out, trusting, sensitive (overly so in my family’s estimation), and obedient. But those qualities made me vulnerable to danger in ways I wasn’t prepared for, particularly growing up in the 1970s and 80s in northeast Florida.

When I was quite young, my daddy put a cigar out in my hand. It was, I guess, supposed to be a trick? But his demeanor, the burn and the blister sure didn’t make it feel like one. My baffled sisters asked me at the time, “Why the heck did you stick your hand out in the first place?” The memoir is essentially recognizing and trying to understand the girl and young adult I was, the one who would willingly stick her hand out time and time again.

As to why I was moved to tackle this project, I was raised in a household in which I wasn’t allowed to use my voice, to have my own opinions, to defend myself, etc., Part of that was generational, regional, religious, and plain old patriarchy. I wanted to unpack all of that — what led to my father being who he was, understanding the terrible things my mother endured and how that led to her own silence and the cumulative effects on my own life as I attempted to navigate the world, particularly the world of men.

How has teaching honed your own writing skills or inspired you?

Having to communicate what I know on a subject makes me more aware of my own strengths and deficiencies and gives me a sense of where I have room for improvement. Also, because I preach authenticity and honoring one’s own unique sensibility, experiences and voice, to not strive toward those beliefs in my own work would be hypocritical. All of which is to say, teaching has helped me to consider the writer I am and why and to embrace that rather than trying to be something I’m not.

Why has intention become your teaching philosophy?

My thoughts on intention rise from that divide that often occurs between our vision for a piece of work and what ends up on the page. It’s something every writer I know wrestles with. It seems to me our intention for something is innately tied with who we are, how we see the world, and what brought us to writing in the first place. If during the writing process, one stops and asks oneself, what do I want my reader to come away knowing or feeling at the end of a page, a story, a poem, etc., we can see if the details, the language, the dialogue, for instance, are contributing to that end or not. It can become a blueprint for revision, hopefully encouraging one to seek creative means of achieving an end. For me, writing close to an understanding of our intention is part of writing authentically.

You have experience in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction/memoir. What is your favorite genre to write in and why?

I think for me it depends on the subject matter and how close to the truth I want to stick to. Right now, memoir and essays are my favorite, but I think that’s because I’m currently neck-deep in that genre.

What is your favorite genre to read and why?

I like to read everything! I usually have several books going at once and I love rereading books that mean a lot to me.

What authors have influenced your writing most and why?

I’m not sure how much they’ve influenced my writing, though I’d be delighted if anyone thought they had! But writers I love are Elizabeth Bishop, CD Wright, Harry Crews, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I’m drawn to work that pays great attention to details and seeks ways to get to an emotional and enduring truth about a moment, an event, or a situation…work that has compassion, gives dignity to people who are often thought of as unimportant for one reason or another.

As a judge of the HoneyBee this year, what positive attributes will you look for in the non-fiction pieces you review?

Attention to language, an authenticity and honesty of voice. The work can be traditional or experimental, humorous or serious, as long as the writer is present on the page, I like all kinds of styles, approaches, and subject matter.

What makes a story or memoir stand out to you?

Richness of details, particularly the kind of details that are so specific and unique to the moment and the writer, that I’m placed smack dab in the experience with them.

What tips do you have for fellow non-fiction/memoir writers?

Everyone has a story to tell. And I find that some writers think compelling subject matter is enough to carry a book. It isn’t. A memoir, for instance, isn’t just an accounting of this happened and then this happened and then this happened… The writer has to go inside those moments sometimes, hold them up to the light, look at them from various angles and make something of them, explore how they’ve been affected or changed by them. And don’t underestimate how important voice is, particularly in memoir. It may take a while to capture your most authentic, thoughtful self on the page, but once you do, the writing flows more easily.

Thank you, Teri, for your willingness to spend time with us on this interview! We love how you encourage people to find and use their own unique voice which is so vital in the writing of creative nonfiction. We are excited to work with you on the contest this year and hope you enjoy reading the essays that are headed your way soon!

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If you want an opportunity to have your creative nonfiction read by Teri, details about the contest and a link to the submission platform are on our 2024 Honeybee Prize page.

Juliana Lamy is a Haitian fiction writer from South Florida. She received her Bachelor’s degree in History & Literature from Harvard University. While there, she was also the recipient of the university’s Le Baron Russell Brigg’s Prize for Undergraduate Fiction, as well as the Gordon Parks Essay Prize for Nonfiction. She is the author of You Were Watching from the Sand (Red Hen Press, 2023). She graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the spring of 2023. She really is 6”2, she swears.

Tell us about yourself.

Hi! My name is Juliana Lamy and I am a Haitian-American fiction writer based in South Florida. I am the author of the short story collection, You Were Watching from the Sand. My family fully immigrated to the U.S. when I was three years old, but I have always had a very strong connection to my Haitian heritage (it’s one of the things that has brought me back to Florida while so many other folks are, understandably, fleeing).

I have a complicated, mostly loving relationship with the films of Pedro Almodovar, and I think that much of his artistic ethos, that bizarre-ness, speaks very well to my own (ever-changing) understanding of the absurdity of the institutions with which people of particular identities must contend, and how those identities are made “strange” by those very same absurd institutions (a switcheroo for the ages). I’m also interested in how that strangeness can be continually spun on its axis to better benefit / comprehend / celebrate the following groups: Haitians, Black folk, immigrants, queer folk, and children. 

Tell us about You Were Watching the Sand and how it felt to go through the publishing process for the first time.

You Were Watching from the Sand is a collection of ten stories, that explores the spiritual and material lives of Haitian folk through lenses of humor, absurdity, mischief, and tragedy. In some ways, this collection was an unexpected development for me. I did not write any of the stories within it with a collection in mind. I think that I always had some passing awareness that the stories had “something to do” with each other, but it wasn’t until I sat back and took a look at the work that I’d produced up to that point in my life that I realized how much they had to do with each other. The Pandemic lockdown helped.

I had plenty of time to sit back and look at things that needed looking at. I think that because the collection itself was partially an unexpected development, its publication was too! After sitting with some of the stories that I’d written, and noticing the way that they resonated with one another, I submitted a group of them to Red Hen Press’s Ann Petry Fiction Prize as a book-length work. I was so, so honored to have my work chosen as the winner of that prize; an aspect of the Ann Petry Fiction Prize is publication by Red Hen, and before I knew it, I was holding the physical accumulation of my own creative work in my hands.

When did you attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop? What did you gain from this experience?

I graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the spring of 2023. I learned a few crucial things during those two years of my life: 

1. In certain parts of the country, and at certain times of the year, it is possible to step outside and feel so cold that you eventually stop feeling cold?! 

2. While I used to believe that I could only write during brief bursts of inspiration and that I had to wait for those moments to come to me, I found that developing a daily structure around my writing, a daily routine, could allow me to write stories that carried the same intensity and soul as my burst-of-inspiration projects. What’s more, developing this daily routine made writing feel like a much more present entity in my life. I no longer had to rely on my weekly or monthly allotment of inspiration to produce (though I still find it super exhilarating to think of a scene while pulling into my driveway and rushing into the house to type it up before I lose it). 

3. I looooooove film. I realized that many of the artistic maneuvers of film – the interaction of long and close shots, the swelling of a musical score, and tangents in a character’s dialogue – were things I loved to see in written fiction. And they were things I wanted to do, skills that I wanted to develop. I remember watching No Country for Old Men (2007), that final scene of Sheriff Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) recounting a dream that he had about his father riding ahead of him on horseback with a horn at his side (pulled from the monologue at the end of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name), and really feeling what literature can do for film and what film can do for literature, and thinking, “Oh my God, oh my God.”

How did your Bachelor’s degree in History and Literature influence your writing? Do you lean towards historical fiction?

I loved my History & Literature major, and I credit many of the instructors that I had with helping me establish a foundation for thinking about and writing about history. Much of my early work, much of which is present in this collection, is not explicitly historical. It is not something that I regret, but I do find it very interesting for what it reveals to me about the way that I begin stories, which is with a now-ness, a present-ness. I sometimes think that I write heart-first with my belly on fire. One of my writing peers in the past said that my writing “feels like a punch in the face,” which is one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten, haha.

I love this method of writing, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve wanted to become – and it is my hope that I have become – more deliberate in hitching my stories to history. What this means is that now, while I’m planning for or writing a story, there is always a concurrent consideration of how that story might be able to speak to history, what might it have to say, and in what voice, and at what octave. One of my favorite stories from this collection is “The Oldest Sensation is Anger,” which rests on the cultural and psychic history of zombies in Haitian culture. I love this story because it constantly reminds me of where my writing can go, where I would like for it to go. 

How does your Haitian heritage shine through in your work?

Each of the stories in this collection, whether they make explicit mention of a character’s Haitian heritage or not, is an exercise in Haitian-Creole voice. I call them a throat-clearing, an attempt to sometimes capture, to sometimes recreate, and to sometimes imagine-into the distinct cadences of the Haitian Creole language. There’s a way that because of Creole’s origin as a subversive undertaking of mass linguistic improvisation – the constructed language of the enslaved, who’d been plucked and tricked and stolen from various regions with their own local languages – I attempt to carry forth, in my own way, this improvisation.

What is your favorite genre to write in and why?

The genre that I most love to write into is actually a smooshing-together of various genres. I can best describe it as a mischievous fantasy-thriller, the bones of which are often an absurd narrative circumstance that hovers at the edge of magical realism or magical realism itself. Writing is most pleasurable to me when it is an act of propulsive joy, and it is those genres (or, often the smooshing of them) that set me off with that kind of wonderful energy. I remember sitting down and writing the first draft of “Eli” until my foot fell asleep. I am also of the opinion that in these genres (and I am speaking broadly here), narrative is at its most flexible, its most bendy. You can follow the logical narrative points of your story into absurdity, and then bring it all back to a profound Coen-brothers-style. These are the genres that seem to most embrace fiction as artifice, as a “made” thing that can be re-made and unmade and made fun.

What is your favorite genre to read and why?

At the risk of giving a non-answer, I truly do not have a preferred genre of fiction to read! I was of the cohort of early 2000s kids who were accustomed to being dropped off at the library for a day and just reading my way through as many aisles as I could before my parents came to retrieve me. I could squeeze narrative out of absolutely anything, and this developed in me an expansiveness of interest. I remember reading The Great Gatsby and Love Medicine in quick succession a couple of years ago and feeling almost just as moved by the one as I was by the other (although Love Medicine certainly has a leg up for me). What this expansiveness of interest has also allowed for is an amassing of influences in my own work; I love jumping from horror to comedy to realism to magical realism in my writing practice as much as I do in my reading practice.

Do you have a favorite book or author? What makes that book or author stand out to you?

I certainly do! Here is the triumvirate I’ve been giving to people whenever I’ve been asked this question: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I always feel a compulsion to name these three works as a trio of favorites, because even as I write this, I still have sense memories of the ways that each of these novels moved me. They’re also each a masterclass in literary vastness and exuberance in terms of lyricism, history, larger-than-life characters, comedy, tragedy… I think I’m due for a triple re-read, actually.

As a judge of the HoneyBee this year, what positive attributes will you look for in the fiction pieces you review?

I am so excited to read through the crop of this year’s submissions! I will be looking for a narrative sound that I can hear clearly, a bit like exploding head syndrome – that phenomenon where you hear a loud, booming sound in the middle of sleep and you have no choice but to sit up ramrod straight in bed and search for the source. This narrative sound can be the voice of the narration itself, the dialogue of characters, or the memorability of characterization. I am not looking for any particular genre, just a fresh, punchy way of telling me what’s what in a period of space and time.

What tips do you have for fellow fiction writers?

Take in narrative wherever you can find it. Imbibe it. Books, movies, TV, videogames, the back of an American girl doll box, anywhere. Try to write as often as you can, but be gracious to yourself when the words don’t come, because they will. Take your art seriously, but do not take yourself too seriously; understand that the roots of creation are some form of delight, some form of satisfaction, some form of joy, some form of mental pliability.

Thank you, Juliana! We’re grateful to you for your willingness to spend extra time with us on this Q&A and for being a part of our contest this year! We are excited about working with you!!

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If you want an opportunity to have your fiction read by Juliana, details about the contest and a link to the submission platform are on our 2024 Honeybee Prize page.

Poet and speaker, Matt Mason, uses his passion for poetry as a platform to educate others on an art form that has been used as a form of storytelling for thousands of years.

For years, Mason has been teaching in one fashion or another. As the former Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective, Mason was integral in the creation of various programs throughout the state of Nebraska with the intent of building and empowering community through creative writing and poetry performance.

His legacy includes the Louder Than A Bomb: Great Plains annual youth poetry festival and competition, now known as All Writes Reserved, and Writer’s Block, a program that offers writing and poetry as a form of expression and therapy for incarcerated people.

“It was just great to see that much of a focus on creative writing in the state,” said Mason. “And to have people see the value of these programs as the kind of thing that grows us as a community and grows us as a state.”

After twelve years, Mason left the Nebraska Writers Collective to pursue a career in writing and public speaking.

In 2019, Mason was nominated as the Nebraska State Poet, with his five-year term beginning in 2019. After a public nomination, a poet must interview, provide a reading, and participate in a panel question and answer session with the Nebraska Arts Council, Humanities Nebraska, and Nebraska Library Commissions. After the three art agencies make their final decision, the Governor of Nebraska signs off on the selected poet.

As the Nebraska State Poet, Mason serves as an advocate for poetry, literacy, and literature in Nebraska. For his platform, Mason took on the challenge of having at least one poetry event in every Nebraska county during his term. Out of the ninety-three counties in Nebraska, Mason has just eleven communities left to visit.

“I love having a position where I get to talk poetry and spread poetry and write poetry with others,” said Mason. “It’s been a lot of fun running writing workshops with anybody from second graders to senior citizens.”

These workshops take place at schools, libraries, museums, coffee shops, or anywhere that works for the county he’s visiting.

Perhaps part of Mason’s passion for sharing poetry comes from his own educational experience in high school where he didn’t connect to the poetry he read in the classroom.

“Poetry is sometimes taught in a way that if you don’t connect with the teacher’s favorite poet, then you don’t get poetry,” said Mason. “There are a bunch of different genres in poetry just like there are in music. You don’t turn on a radio in the car, hear some Mozart and think, ‘I don’t know what this is,’ and then decide you hate music and will never listen to it again.”

In his classrooms, Mason now focuses on teaching his passion for poetry rather than treating it as a formal subject. He shows his students poetry is nothing to be afraid of or uncertain about.

“You need to get across the energy of poetry to the students,” said Mason. “As a teacher of it, even if I don’t have a grasp on every kind of poetry, I’m going to bring in a couple of different poems I’m passionate about and let the students see that passion and that interest and hope it’s infectious.”

Mason has not only taught in his home state of Nebraska, but around the globe in the countries of Botswana, Romania, Nepal, and Belarus for the U.S. State Department. No matter the country, Mason found his students have had a similar experience with poetry.

“Every country was the same. In school, they read poems that were a few hundred years old, usually written by men, and they didn’t really connect with it very much,” said Mason. “And this was my experience too. I also had a hard time connecting with these older poems.”

Mason says to better engage his students he starts with more current poetry so the students can better relate to the language and message of the poems. Then they build up to the classics.

Another similarity was that across the globe, even if students didn’t enjoy what they were reading in their former classrooms, they did love to write poetry.

 “In every country, these students wrote with passion about current events, their lives, their experiences, their societies,” said Mason. “It’s a reminder that poetry is part of every culture on the planet.”

According to Mason, poetry is overlooked in a lot of respects in our current societies but has stood the test of time because it fits a need. It helps people better understand the world and each other.

“We look at poetry as this mystifying art right now when it is the most basic thing,” said Mason.

“It is in every culture and has been for thousands of years. The way we tell stories through poetry, the way we get our experiences across with poetry, is important.”

Mason advises students to challenge themselves to read and write outside of what they are naturally drawn to. He said he loves seeing poets he admires break free from form and branch off into more free verse. He also appreciates crossing the boundaries of form. According to Mason, poetry breaks the rules of writing to be more expressive.

 “It’s why we write things as poems as opposed to writing it as an essay,” said Mason. “It gives a more direct emotional translation.”

Mason often uses his poetry to reflect on the world around him and to better understand his own feelings or experiences. He also carries the tradition of storytelling through his poetry, hoping readers will pull an idea or story from his work without the need to ‘sit and meditate on it for days.’ Ultimately though, Mason wants to make his readers feel the emotion organically written into his poetry.

 “A good poem makes you feel something that someone is trying to express,” said Mason. “A really good poem puts you in someone else’s shoes and helps you understand their experience and their emotional reaction to it.”

As a Good Life Review Honeybee Judge, the elements of poetry important to Mason personally will also be considered as he reads through the many poetry entries. In addition to storytelling and making him feel something emotionally, he also enjoys being surprised by a poem no matter the style or approach to the artform.

Thank you, Matt, for your willingness to spend time with us on this interview! We are grateful for your passion to educate and share and for the effort you put into fostering a stronger community in Nebraska (and beyond!). We wish you well on your mission to bring poetry to every county in the state!!

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If you want an opportunity to have your poems read by Matt, details about the contest and a link to the submission platform are on our 2024 Honeybee Prize page.

Muiz Ọpẹ́yẹmí Àjàyí (Frontier XVIII) is an editor at The Nigeria Review, poetry reader for Adroit Journal, and a 2023 Poetry Translation Centre UNDERTOW cohort. He is the winner of the Lagos-London Poetry Competition 2022, University of Ibadan Law LDS Poetry Prize 2022, shortlisted/longlisted for Ake Poetry Prize, Briefly Write Poetry Prize, Kreative Diadem Poetry Prize, and a Best of The Net nominee. Muiz has features in Frontier Poetry, 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Tab Journal, Olongo, Lolwe, SAND Journal, Poetry Wales, Aké Review, Yabaleft Review, Nigerian News-Direct and elsewhere.

Tell us about yourself.

I feel like I’m different things at different times. At the moment I’m an exhausted Law student. But most of the time I’m a Lagos-born Yoruba boy alternating between the cities of Lagos and Ibadan, and as a dear friend would say, making attempts at beauty. I enjoy poetry, music, football, basketball sometimes, and good conversations.

To me Mosaic was a beautiful poem about putting yourself back together each time life breaks you. What was the story behind Mosaic?

At the time I wrote Mosaic I was thinking a lot about healing. I come from a society where there’s so much hurt—so much tragedy in the papers, on air, in the mouth of your next door neighbour. Somehow though, as a people we’ve always come to traverse these challenges. The societal condition reaches its worst-in-history every few years. And when you think it couldn’t get worse, it just out-does itself and worsens further. Yet each time we grow a thicker skin. We adapt. We pick up our pieces and move on—sometimes almost too fast. The poem also speaks to me too. I’m often very hesitant about cutting myself any slack, allowing myself or anyone to kiss my wounds close. But sometimes in hindsight, I reflect on my small battles, fondling my scars—as my dudie Chinedu Gospel said in a poem—like a trophy.

What message do you hope your reader takes from Mosaic?

A Yoruba proverb goes thus,“ilé ọba t’ójó ẹwà ló bùsi.” This translates to “when a king’s palace gets razed, it becomes more beautiful when rebuilt.” The reader, I hope, reaches the end of this poem with a new definition of healing. I hope the reader begins to see healing beyond the ordinary scabbing of wounds. I hope the reader is able to see healing as a journey towards an unprecedented beauty.

Mosaic suggests a divine presence in our creation. How does faith impact your life and work?

I’m a practising Muslim, and belief in the supreme being is an integral part of my life. In the society I belong to, for many, it’s what keeps us forging forward. The creation story—however believable it is—is one of my favourite stories. I like the idea of God being the first artist so much, that each time I make art I like to believe I do it as the reflection of God. I like to think I’m merely imitating the work of Allah.

How does writing poetry affect how you view the world?

This reminds me of Sylvia Plath saying “I don’t know what it’s like to not have deep emotions.  Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely.” Often, I tend to show very little emotion, but when I feel someway about something, I feel it most intensely.  I think poetry makes everything much more real to me. Say how every single person that dies is a real human being with people who loved them, and not just numbers that make up the stats. Makes me feel and see everything in HD.

What is your favorite form of poetry and why?

At the moment I’m kind of obsessed with ghazals. I won’t say it’s my favourite form, but since reading Agha ShahidAli’s Call Me Ishmael Tonight I’ve been a fan. There’s a musicality that comes with it. And perhaps because I love good music, I do enjoy the symphony in ghazals. Written a couple myself. I hope I do write more in the future.

What subjects do you tend to address in your poetry and why?

Most of my writing revolves around identity. Being a Nigerian boy. Being a Yoruba boy. Being a Muslim boy. My writing often addresses how these identities intersect each other. How they conflict with and complement each other. These days though, my writing has been less personal, and more outward looking. In recent times, I’ve written more poems about places—particularly Lagos—than anything else. Been connecting more with all the historical and contemporary violence and degradation, embedded in these environments, which very few people talk about. And they’re some of the best things I’ve written.

How has being an editor and poetry reader affected your own work as a poet?

The overall experience of judging other people’s work has influenced me significantly, especially as poetry can be very subjective. It’s taught me to write exactly what I want to write. There are probably hundreds of really good poems in the slush pile. Why try so hard to write a good poem? So instead I just write what’s true to me, and see if we can make a good poem out of it. That way, even if it doesn’t get published, I still have a sense of fulfilment from writing what I want and understanding that one rejection doesn’t necessarily speak about the quality of my work. When you see the ratio of accepted to rejected works or have to turn down really good works yourself, you begin to re-evaluate some things.

What do you hope to do with your law undergraduate from the University of Ibadan, in Ibadan, Nigeria? 

Upon gaining admission into the most prestigious university in the country, I had only a vague idea of what to do with my law degree. And even now after a session and half, spanning over two years, it’s still gradually unfurling. I intend to use this undergraduate degree as a medium for getting other law degrees I already have my eyes set on. Only then can I get what I intend to achieve with my legal studies as a whole.

How does your law undergraduate and your passion for poetry and writing benefit each other? How do you carve out time for both?

One way my legal studies has probably impacted my writing is in the sharpening of my logical thinking. Poetry on the other hand has made it easier for me to think and write more creatively when required, especially with the nature of law exams in the Nigerian legal system. I became serious with submitting my poems during the one year compulsory hiatus imposed on my set of undergraduates, as a result of an eight-month strike by university lecturers. Two years later and I do not find it easy carving out time for both. My home of permanent residence is two states away from the city where I go to school, which is ironically my state of origin. The downside is that even if I do—and I rarely ever do—find time to write, I’m unable to do much writing while away from Lagos (my original city of residence). I have even less time to respond to mail or make submissions, while completing school assignments, and extra-curricular tasks. I sometimes have to sacrifice one for the other. In October, for instance, I missed two tests—which I took upon my return—to attend the Lagos poetry festival whose concert I opened alongside my Poetry Translation Centre UNDERTOW cohorts. I was in Jericho Brown’s poetry workshop, knowing my mates were having their NLS test. But I was happy at the moment, totally without regret.

What do you think of when you hear, “The Good Life?”

I think of the philosopher lecturer in my first year, telling us, on that hot afternoon in the musty lecture theatre at the faculty of arts, how Aristotle said the ultimate goal of human life is the pursuit of happiness. And although I never read half of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I couldn’t agree more with that idea of a good life. I tend to think of a life of fulfilment. Fulfilment, for me, is a life where the “red ink”—to quote a Lenrie Peters’ poem—is far less in comparison to the ticked boxes; a life, no matter how simple or ordinary, where the joy outweighs the regrets.

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Muiz’s poem “Mosaic” is available in Issue #13 ~ Autumn 2023.

Thank you, Muiz. We’re grateful to you for your willingness to spend extra time with us on this Q&A and for making life more beautiful with your poem. We wish you the best!

Mrityunjay’s work has been published or is forthcoming in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Indianapolis Review, Oyster River Pages, The Masters Review, and elsewhere. He’s been awarded scholarships by Sundance Institute, The Common, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. He was a semi-finalist for the Copper Canyon Press Publishing Fellowship. He has worked as a guest editor, a reader, and an intern at various literary journals. Currently, he’s an editor for ANMLY, and he’s a reader for the Harvard Review and The Masters Review.

Mohan’s flash fiction, Moon, is featured in Issue #13 of The Good Life Review.

Tell us about yourself

I’m trans. I’m disabled. I’m a writer. There’s so much I think of, but never write down. I take too many classes and have long writing sessions at 2 AM. I have three cats, and they’re often looking at my screen as I write. I’m fluent in two languages, and I can speak, but nowhere near fluent, three more languages. 

How long have you been writing and how has it affected who you are as a person?

I have been writing since I was six. Sitting in class during break, I used to stay hunched over a notebook and write until the next class began. I had made time between classes to write, stories nothing like what I write now, but they shaped much of how I think and perceive my surroundings. There was so much darkness in my work, so much searching for light, and I think my writing still embodies that. Displacement is a theme I like exploring as it deals with such complex emotions and events. At times, I had lived through my writing, through working on things I thought wouldn’t be of much interest to anyone and squirreling them away into thin strips of paper, and old files on my laptop. I live through words, I register the world through words, and I often read any book that piques even a little bit of my interest. Hope is a big part of my work. So is exploring things left unspoken. I am so much of what I write. I am so much of what I never write about. It’s not always easy to separate. 

What inspired Moon? What called you to write it?

When I was still three or four, I was told spirits lived in the sky, between the stars and the moon, and whenever a parent dies, a child is told the parent had gone to the moon. In the moon, they lived. In a child’s head, they sat between grey dust and silver land. They hadn’t known then of craters. They hadn’t known that the person wasn’t in the moon. So much of that built the story. I don’t really think consciously as I write. Words just come to me, and I weave them together into the fabric of a story. It makes itself known to me, and I pen it down. I wrote the story in one sitting, and much of the original word choice stayed throughout the editing process. To a child, in the community I grew up around, their mother lived in the moon, looking over them, awaiting their arrival, and I wanted to depict that. I wanted to see what would happen if the child did go to the moon, and their mother was indeed sitting on the moon. I think water bodies are closely associated with the celestial, at least I did so as a child, and I played into that with the story. It was so much of just me exploring my childhood through the lens of another boy. With only one question in mind. What if he did meet his dead mother in the moon? 

What do you hope your readers will gain from reading Moon?

I want the devastation of the loss of a parent from the eyes of a child to be seen with empathy, especially when there is so much uncertainty in the world and mortality is something we all struggle with every day. There’s only one question. What happens to the people we leave behind and their grief? 

The way you write is so poetic. Do you dabble in poetry as well? What is your favorite form of artistic expression?

I do write poetry. I don’t have a favorite form of artistic expression simply because I do not choose it. I just write in whatever form the story compels me to, and at times it is prose, other times it is poetry, and sometimes it’s something different altogether. I love experimenting with my work, whether visual art or written art. There’s something beautiful about just letting the words reach me on their own. I feel I am mostly a vehicle for their feelings. I think that keeps me alive. 

Which is the favorite of all your published pieces and why?

I don’t have a favorite as I am not too good at choosing what I love the most between my written work. My favorite ones are usually the ones I just finished writing as the story is still fresh in my mind, and I can live in that world a little longer. There’s something magical about reveling in those fading bits of a story when not all words are intact in the mind, but most are. Much of that really makes it my favorite. Between my published written work, they’re all equal to me.  

What piece of literature you’ve read has been most meaningful to you and why?

Beloved by Toni Morrison. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Less by Andrew Sean Greer. The New Testament by Jericho Brown. The Tradition by Jericho Brown. Frank: Sonnets by Diane Seuss. There are so many that were meaningful to me and still hold a place in my life. I read Beloved when I was in middle school, sitting with my knees to my chest, and my head pressed close to the book. I read The God of Small Things and Midnight’s Children in the summer before my first year of high school. I read The New Testament in 2019, and The Tradition by Jericho Brown in 2020, quarantined with my family, and it was so beautiful. I read Frank: Sonnets in 2021. Many authors have influenced my life in many ways. I also have a deep appreciation for visual art, and it has influenced so much of my life as well. Art, in general, is so meaningful to my existence. 

How has your work as editor or reader of various literary magazines benefitted your writing or your view of the literary world?

I think being involved in the literary world enriched my experience of life. There’s so much good work that I am simply blown away by, and being exposed to such great art constantly truly gives me hope for the future. Art is so often neglected, and reading only makes me think it’ll change sometime in the near future. Being an editor itself is an exciting experience, getting to watch work improve through editing, and working with other editors and writers, it’s all so joyful. I truly enjoy doing the work I do. 

How else do you stay an active part of the literary community?

I am always a part of some writing group or workshop. At other times, I spend time with my friends who write as well, and I think that really helps keep me involved in the community. I’m always reading books, new releases, older books, and classics, and I never stop getting curious about new stories and topics. I think that really keeps me alive. 

What do you think of when you hear the term, “The Good Life?”

I think of doing good, of having fun, and genuine joy. There’s so much to look forward to in life. I’m hoping it only gets better from now on. 

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Mrityunjay Mohan’s flash fiction, Moon, is available in Issue #13 ~ Autumn 2023.

Thank you, Mrityunjay, for allowing us to share your story with our readers and for spedning extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best!

Gathondu Mwangi is a Geographer and writer. Born and raised in Kenya, he travels occasionally to the US where he is undertaking his graduate studies. His work has previously appeared in World Literature Today, Worcester Review, The Fourth River and Kwani?

Tell us about yourself.

I am currently a Geography PhD student in Massachusetts, working on my dissertation. My life has been rather nomadic over the past two decades, shifting from one place to another. I am looking forward to returning to Kenya, which is where I’m from, and settling there once I am done with my studies. I am also a cat-dad, and hoping to be a ‘real’ dad soon. 

La Niña addresses guilt behind sorrow. How did writing La Niña help you with the sorrow of losing your grandmother and your guilt over her “aloneness.” 

I don’t know if it did. I still feel the guilt and sadness when I re-read it or think about her. We spoke on the phone the day before she passed away, and I told her that I was going to visit. But the next day when I went, it was too late. I had not really wanted to write La Niña, but felt compelled to, if only to let out that complex mix of emotions that I was feeling, so it helped in that sense. I wish that she were still here. In a spiritual sense, she is still here, in the realm of ancestors who walk among us daily. 

What do you hope readers take away from La Niña?

Hopefully readers will gain some understanding about our inter-connectedness, with each other, with the more-than-human, with those who have gone before us. About the active effort needed to maintain that inter-connectedness. But I don’t want to be prescriptive, I’m grateful for the opportunity to be read and appreciate the people at TGLR for choosing to publish my work.  

As a student of Geography, how did poetry and writing make its way into your life?

My initial encounters with poetry were in school in Kenya, where we read poems almost like puzzles to be deciphered. Later I came across writing by African, Caribbean and African American poets who wrote about their worlds and experiences in forms and registers that I recognized. These writers made poetry a lot more welcoming for someone like me, navigating life in a post-colonial context. I neglected reading and writing poems for a long time though, until the pandemic lockdowns of 2020-21. I was in the US at the time, having started the Geography PhD. Like many other people, I (re)turned to poetry to try make sense of that difficult time. Of course, Geography and poetry or writing in general are closely intertwined. This is obvious when you think about how much has been written on people’s relationships to place. I would say though that I used to compartmentalize the two, treating them as distinct from each other, another carry-over from my schooling. But in the course of my PhD studies, I came across geographers who also dabbled in poetry, and read a lot of writing by geographers that had a poetic sensibility to it. It was liberating to realize their symbiotic potential. 

What are the differences of geography between your home country of Kenya and the state of Massachusetts, where you travel for your graduate studies?

I am currently in Kenya and this question reminded me of my upcoming trip to Massachusetts in December. I am definitely not looking forward to the much colder weather, but you know, sacrifices have to be made. I was talking to a friend recently about how quickly this year has gone by, something that I’d found harder to notice here in Kenya after spending the last few years in Massachusetts where the distinct shift from one season to another made me more conscious about the passage of time. Climate change has only added to the blurring of the seasons here. For instance, it’s supposed to be the rainy season right now, but so far it has been more hot than wet. There’s a lot to be said about the differences in geography between Kenya and Massachusetts, but that unpredictability induced by climate change is something the two places have in common.         

What is your favorite form of written expression and why?

I find writing poems to be deeply satisfying but also very difficult. I wouldn’t really say that it’s enjoyable, but it’s more of a necessity, something that I feel compelled to do. The results have been mixed, a few good poems sprinkled among many that are not. I would really like to be able to write about the intoxicating sensorial excess that is life in Nairobi, I am still feeling my way about that, deciding whether the best genre for that is poetry or prose, we’ll see.

What has writing poetry taught you?

It’s definitely taught me a lot about handling rejection! And about writing to genre. Generally speaking, my academic training has taught me to strive to make my writing as transparent as possible. Meanings should be clear, arguments built up systematically, and the take-aways legible. Writing poetry has taught me to resist that academic impulse to over-explain and to embrace the truths that lie beyond the rational. Also to follow the sound of words, not necessarily their meaning. More broadly, poetry has taught me to approach life with a spirit of openness and generosity which I hope I can live up to. 

What do you think of when you hear the phrase, “The Good Life?”

I’ve associated “The Good Life” with the future, something yet to come. But the events of the past year, with Cũcũ’s passing, have shown me that the good life should be lived in the present. Right now, I am also thinking about the people in Palestine who have been denied the opportunity to make a life for themselves, let alone a good life. Can we claim a good life for ourselves given all the pain in Palestine?

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Gathondu’s poem, La Niña, is available in Issue #13 ~ Autumn 2023.

Thank you, Gathondu. We’re grateful to you for your willingness to spend extra time with us on this Q&A and for trusting us with your poem. We wish you the best!

Born in Busan, South Korea, and adopted by Jewish parents, Cynthia Landesberg grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where she still resides. She is a mother, lawyer, and writer. You can find her writing in The Washington Post, Witness, and on her website, www.adoptionsquared.com.

Tell us about yourself. 

I am the product of an unknown Korean birth mother and birth father, a legacy that is lost to me, and has left me without roots. I was raised in a Jewish American home in Maryland, and carry their love and their best intentions with me. I am a wife and mother of three children and one dog. I left my career in law to homeschool my children and create a homeschool community that is diverse and intentional. I am a struggling perfectionist, who dreams of spending more time writing, watercoloring, and reading, and less time agonizing over the last conversation I had or re-reading the emails I send. 

What inspired you to write Life Must Go On over other life experiences you’ve had? 

I carry deep regret for not traveling to see my grandfather before he passed and for not attending his funeral. Finding a way to honor his memory and my relationship with him in those last years seemed impossible for a long time. However, after beginning to write and publish, I finally saw a way towards a proper goodbye.

How did corresponding with your grandfather through letters change you and/or your outlook? 

My primary memories of my grandfather prior to our correspondence are his worn leather slippers padding around his condo, and the smell of his aftershave. I only saw him once or twice a year and he mostly talked about sports, stocks, and the good deals he got at a restaurant or store. He was kind and warm, but I did not know him. 

Writing to each other allowed us to say things that were either too important or too trivial to say in person, like feelings and fears and annoyances and the daily triumphs that are often forgotten. Through writing, my grandfather became a fully formed human being, with humor, flaws, and a whole lot of resilience. I learned the power of writing as a unique and irreplaceable form of communication. 

How, as a nonfiction writer, do you filter out a story to share over all of your many life experiences? 

I focus on whatever is emotionally resonant to me, trusting that if I write from there, the piece will carry that feeling to the reader. I look for universal themes and give the most salient examples of it in my life to carry the story. 

How do you hope these stories will help others or perhaps help you? 

I have spent most of my life feeling pretty out of place and lonely. Being Korean in a Jewish family, I never fit in. I can name the first Asian person I saw on TV (Connie Chung) and the first book that featured Asian characters (The Good Earth), and neither of them were Korean or adopted or raised in Jewish families. I try to imagine my life with mirrors of Korean Americans and adoptees, and I believe it would have been so much more full. I hope these stories will give a mirror to someone who needs to feel a little less alone. 

Of all your published pieces, which ones makes you feel the most proud and why? 

This feels like asking “which of your children is your favorite?” I am proud of all my writing, both published and unpublished. It all feels necessary to where I am now. I feel particularly warm towards the op-ed in The Washington Post because I had the guts to press submit, towards “Seven Weeks” in Grace in Love because I did my first reading of that piece in person and it has been nominated for a Pushcart, and towards “Extinction” in the Lumiere Review because it was my first fiction piece published. 

Tell us about Adoption Squared. 

I am much too anxious to have any regular or significant social media presence. When I started publishing, I decided a website and blog would be the best way for me to present my work and interact with readers. I named it Adoption Squared because I write at the intersection of being an adoptee and an adoptive parent. I am not a regular blogger, but I am regularly comforted by its presence as a place where I can experiment, engage with readers, and have a place where no one can say “no” to publishing my work. I find it an empowering and hopeful space. 

How has writing about various aspects of your life as an adopted child benefitted your parenting of adopted children? Or yourself? 

Adoptees use the common phrase of “coming out of the fog” when it comes to facing the difficult aspects about being adopted. It’s the process of challenging the popular adoption narrative of saviorism and gratitude, and digging in deeper as to how adoption affected so much of an adoptee’s life. Writing about my adoption was a huge step in coming out of that fog for me. It forced me to explore, feel, and articulate how adoption affected my life. And the more I can find that honesty, the more I can walk with my kids as they figure out their relationship with adoption. 

What do you think when you hear the term “The Good Life”? 

My dad used to say, “This is the life!” whenever we were enjoying the simple things like a bowl of Breyers vanilla ice cream or a Orioles game at Camden Yards, and so I grew up thinking that a good life was one with ease, leisure, and simplicity. There’s a nostalgia to that definition. It is a cousin to “the good old days.” I spent many years striving for that version of life. To do that, I had to ignore the complexity of my identity, my lost country, culture, and family, and try to fit into this Norman Rockwell version of contentedness. 

The irony of course is that once I let go of that dream, and embraced the messiness and complexity of life, I began enjoying the simple pleasures much more. A good life is not something you can strive for, but instead comes whenever you are at peace with all the complexity of yourself. 

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Cynthia’s nonfiction piece, Life Must Go On, is featured in Issue #13 of The Good Life Review.

Thank you, Cynthia, for trusting us with your story and for the sincere and direct answers to our questions. We wish you the best!

Chelsea Yates is originally from northeast Nebraska. She now lives in the Pacific Northwest and is a writer for the University of Washington. Her essays have appeared in HerStry, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Hear Nebraska, and more.

Tell us about yourself. 

As a teenager in Nebraska in the early 1990s, my dream was to sneak onto Pearl Jam’s tour bus, charm Eddie Vedder, and move with him to the Pacific Northwest, living out our days in a cabin in the woods when we weren’t touring the world. Things didn’t work out that way, but I did end up moving to Seattle 12 years ago, and my husband and I have been here ever since. I have a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Nebraska and a master’s in American Studies from the University of Kansas. By day, I’m a content director at the University of Washington. 

I began writing personal essays shortly after relocating to Seattle. A lot of my writing explores my Nebraska upbringing and my connection to music. I will forever be indebted to Hear Nebraska, a platform celebrating Nebraska’s arts and music, for giving me a chance to share my early essays with readers and get comfortable telling my stories.

Each piece of nonfiction calls to the writer for one reason or another. What made the story Radio feel important to tell? 

My dad died of a stroke in 2008. It was sudden and shocking, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. He often shows up in my storytelling. My dad wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, but he always supported me in my writing. In grade school, he took my sister and me to a statewide Young Authors contest, and he’d help me with writing assignments. He would drive me to his office after dinner so I could type my stories on his computer. Sometimes he’d chime in with suggestions. We co-wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure-type story this way. It’s still in a box at my mom’s house.

Our last conversation was a phone call a few days before his stroke. I was interviewing for a job at a Houston art museum and was waiting at the airport to fly back home. The interview had gone really well, and my dad was so excited for me. He made me feel on top of the world that day. I am grateful to have that memory to hold on to. 

How did your experience with Hurricane Ike change you? 

Looking back, the initial fear and loneliness I felt during the hurricane mirrored the grief I was grappling with. I had relocated to Houston shortly after my dad’s passing, and I didn’t know anyone there. I thought that the change would make the sadness go away, but it didn’t.   

Once the hurricane passed, I witnessed so much generosity in my small circle and across the city. New colleagues checked in with me regularly, I got to know my neighbors, and I started making new friends. In this way, Ike helped alleviate my loneliness at a time when I really needed it. I eventually started talking about my depression with a friend, which led me to seek help from a grief counselor—one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. 

What do you hope your readers take from Radio? 

I hope Radio reminds us of the inevitability of sudden change and life’s fragility, but also of the power of love. And maybe it will inspire a few readers to call their parents to say, “I love you.” That would make me smile.

How do you incorporate writing into your daily life? 

I do a lot of writing and editing for my day job, which is great but can make it difficult to have the energy to write for myself later at home. I try to remind myself that work writing is writing—it allows me to practice writing and build skills pretty much daily. As for personal writing, I used to pressure myself to write daily, but these days I try to give myself grace. Some days even ten minutes of freewriting feels like an achievement. When I’m feeling really burnt out, I’ll try to do “writing-adjacent” activities—reading, exploring new literary magazines, reviewing calls for submissions, organizing drafts, or cleaning up my online portfolio—anything to keep me in orbit if I’m not feeling particularly creative.

What words of advice can you give to anyone interested in writing nonfiction? 

Make time for writing and writing-adjacent activities as much as you are able. If you wait to find time, you never will. There’s something magical in the action of pen on paper, so if you can, practice freewriting by hand. Lynda Barry’s techniques from her book What It Is are my personal favorites for freewriting about memories. The idea for Radio stemmed from one of her creative exercises.

And find a writing partner or group—someone (or people) you trust who also writes, who understands the thrill of rushing from the shower to jot down the perfect opening sentence for a new story, and who knows how humbling it feels to send out submission after submission in the hopes of getting published. Offer feedback on each other’s work. Take walks and talk about writing. Get together to sit at the kitchen table and write. Celebrate each other’s successes. Once a year my writing partner and I rent a cabin (not unlike the one I imagined Eddie Vedder and I would share), and we write. Neither of us can really explain why, but we both know that writing is something we need to do to feel complete. 

What do you think of when you hear the term, “The Good Life?”

Pulling over somewhere between Omaha and Norfolk on Highway 275 to watch a Nebraska sunset. They are my favorite sunsets: they remind me of family and home. 

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Chelsea’s creative nonfiction “Radio” is available in Issue #13 ~ Autumn 2023.

Thank you, Chelsea, for allowing us to share your story with our readers and for taking the time to answer our questions. We wish you the best!

With each piece of prose, there is a story beneath the story. For Rock, Shore, Thunder, Maria Picone drew on her own experiences and curiosities to form a story of strength and hope and self-preservation.

As with much of Picone’s creative writing, Rock, Shore, Thunder, grew from an idea or something essential that then needed to be explored. A collection of lines and ideas formed in a state of flow, she creates a narrative mosaic with each piece. In this case, a juxtaposition of the wider world with mini flashbacks in the form of flash fiction.

“The exploration is really my favorite part,” said Picone. “Figuring out how best to communicate the idea to others and how best to express that. It is really a pleasure every single time.” 

Rock, Shore, Thunder’s inspiration came from Picone’s love of the ocean. Growing up in New England, she spent much of her time on the water, whether it was lakes or seashores. But it was more than her love of the culture of the sea that caused this story to surface. Picone was also exploring questions about sustainability, what to do in the face of the climate crisis, and how that intersects with the economy, capitalism, and the corporate and private pressure to make money.

Now living in South Carolina, Picone has also experienced first-hand the dramatic effects of hurricanes.

“There is a huge push/pull between our mental and physical well-being and the state of the planet and the state of the climate,” said Picone.

Picone is no stranger to research and digs in for the benefit of her stories. Having never been a lighthouse keeper like her protagonist, Picone inserted her own experiences in the story as well as the information gleaned from her research.

“I tried to take that research and translate it into physical and sensory experiences,” said Picone. “I think that’s really important because if you just stick your research in there like facts, it doesn’t feel like an integrated part of the narrative.”

Throughout her life, Picone had been to lighthouses on tours and learned about their conservation. Still, with her research, she dug into the portrayal in the media and the significance of lighthouses today.  

“I was really interested in exploring the lighthouse subculture and the stereotypes about lighthouse keepers as commonly portrayed in the media,” said Picone. She thumbed her nose at lighthouse stereotypes by inserting a female protagonist of color. Her character was younger than most lighthouse keepers and was not raised in that culture.

Picone also found out many lighthouses aren’t being kept up and a lot of them are donated to people or non-profits with the hope of keeping them as historic buildings. The upkeep can be overwhelming and expensive. This made her curious about what would happen if a defunct lighthouse was taken on by a well-meaning person. What would have drawn her female protagonist to this mission to save a lighthouse?

“I hope that I was able to portray the feeling of a non-profit or some sort of noble mission as a sinking ship that formed a vehicle for what was going on in her life but also with what is going on on our planet and in our economy today,” said Picone.

In Rock, Shore, Thunder, Picone is masterful at telling a story within a story. We have the surface story of our protagonist fighting a hurricane, but also the story of her fighting a painful past. At one point her protagonist relates her efforts to fight the storm of a vengeful God to her marriage to a “vengeful human who thinks he’s God.”

Picone uses this story to explore toxic masculinity and patriarchy. After an abusive relationship, the protagonist gave up what we think of as normal life to live in survival mode in a lighthouse.

“I think there is a parallel between living inside a relationship where there’s a significant asymmetry and fear of a partner and living inside a situation like we are now where we’re just worried that God or nature or whatever you want to call it is going to come and just blow it all away,” said Picone. “That inevitability matches the inevitability that one might feel when they’re in a relationship where the power is held and everything in their life is controlled by the moods and whims that they can’t predict of the partner.”

During the story, the protagonist’s family reaches out to her through text. For years she was isolated through a violent relationship, cut off from family and friends. She is isolated once again but for an entirely different reason.

“The protagonist chose to isolate herself in the lighthouse and forge her own way that was maybe not understood by her loved ones,” said Picone.  “It was something that she needed to do for herself and something that, unlike the relationship she is escaping from, she has chosen because she wants to be on her own and she wants to not be beholden to what other people think.”

Picone hopes the interaction with the protagonist’s parents is a source of light and warmth in the story, but also a representation that we don’t always make decisions that the people we love agree with. We sometimes need to make those hard decisions for our own mental and physical well-being.

Through Rock, Shore, Thunder Picone’s message to her readers is one of resilience.

“I wanted to end in a moment of ambiguity because I don’t want this to be a piece that is just about experiencing trauma,” said Picone. “I want it to be a piece about resilience through trauma and what we can do after our paradigm shift. In this case, the physical lighthouse and the life the protagonist has built for herself is physically shattered.”

Picone has several projects in the works including three forthcoming chapbooks, Anti Asian Bias, Adoptee Song and This Tenuous Atmosphere. She will also be releasing an echapbook, Water Gwisin Saves the Earth, within the month.

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Maria’s story, Rock, Shore, Thunder, can be found in issue #13 of The Good Life Review.

Thank you, Maria, for the extra time you spent with us for this interview. We appreciate you and wish you the best!

Jason Arias lives in the Pacific Northwest and is the author of the short story collection Momentary Illumination of Objects In Motion (Black Bomb Books, 2018). Arias’ writing has appeared in multiple magazines and anthologies. His debut poetry collection nostraDAMus 2032 is forthcoming from Broadstone Books in the summer of 2024.

Arias’ fiction piece, Clam!, is featured in Issue #13 of The Good Life Review.

Tell me about yourself.

Well, let’s see. I’m in my mid-forties, have two grown sons, and I live on the Oregon coast with my wife of 25 years. I love all kinds of music and prefer listening to it on vinyl. I’ll stop here before people start falling asleep. 

What inspired your short story, Clam!?

I guess a couple things. Most obviously was our recent move to the coast. I’d never really dug for razor clams, at least not successfully, until then. Part of the process of learning how to catch anything is learning how to read the signs they leave behind. Until moving here, I’d never been so consistently close to clams, wild deer, elk, heron, otters, etc. I’m not a hunter or angler. I realized how many subtle signs of other life that I was, and still am, missing all around me. That got me thinking about what kind of lifeforms could be sharing this planet with us that we haven’t discovered.

Around this same time, I was also trying to resolve a lot of grief around my grandfather’s passing. 

Clam! was probably the byproduct of the two.  

Clam! was filled with vivid interiority and backstory. How did you get to know your character before writing this story? Do you outline or use character bios as a part of your writing process?

I’ve never really used outlining or character bios. Though, they’re probably the best paths to a more consistent voice and tighter storyline. I’m just too lazy. And I prefer the process of being led by, instead of leading, the voices on the page. I’d rather let the characters flesh themselves out as the story evolves. A lot of the time there are aspects of the characters that end up being personifications of something my conscious or subconscious has already been tumbling around. And I’m a pretty selfish writer. I like bringing these things to light. I like the process of discovery. If I already knew everything about my characters, I’m not sure there’d be a point in writing the story.

I loved the foreshadowing of Harrison’s father’s viewpoint of the world. “A hungry orb ruled by ghosts and happenstance and creatures waiting for you in the deep.” Was it ghosts, happenstance and creatures that drew Harrison to the deep that day, or was it his strong sense of guilt and grief that caused him to risk his life and his son’s on that fateful March clam dig? How do you hope your readers interpret this passage?

I think that Harrison is afraid of inheriting his father’s paranoia and superstitions. That he feels this kind of thinking made his father oblivious to some of the more practical aspects of life. So, like most people trying to avoid becoming something, Harrison overcorrects. He wants to view the world as concrete, to believe in only what he can see or tactilely sense, in order to protect himself from his fears of the unknown. In this way he can sometimes fool himself into thinking he has control. But by doing this, he also strips away all the magic of the unknown.

In the story there are two months known for having sneaker waves. A sneaker wave took Harrison’s wife’s life. We do have these sneaker waves on the coast. Sometimes they do claim lives. In the story, Harrison still takes his son down to clam on one of the months known for the waves, just not the month that his wife died in. I think this is his way of thumbing his nose at death, but not wanting to push his luck too far. As much as he doesn’t like it there are parts of him that are, like his father, still superstitious.   

“There’s something about getting sand on your hands, under your nails, sometimes all the way up to your armpits. A feeling. A finesse and an understanding of your place in all of this. The clams place in all of this. The vague sense that there is more, somewhere you can’t see, that you are earning.” To me this passage from Clam! felt symbolic of earning your place in the world or your place in the afterlife. Was that your intention? Are there other pieces of symbolism you incorporated or that developed organically in your story? If so, what?

I think that Harrison views self-efficiency as a kind of talisman that protects you from death. I’m not sure he’s sold on the idea of an afterlife. The catharsis of clamming, for Harrison (whether he knows it or not) comes from the idea that anything unknown or unseen (say, a clam under feet of sand) can be acquired and fully explained if you just understand the steps needed to uncover it. 

What do you hope your readers take from Clam!?

Like all my work, I secretly hope the reader will get a similar thing from the story that I get from writing it: a little more clarification or new perspective for whatever’s tumbling around in their heads. 

I think, like a lot of stories I’ve been writing lately, Clam! has this undercurrent asking us to not mistake our perceived omnipotence on this planet for omniscience. To remain humble as humans. That despite all the knowledge we’ve acquired (and our species-centric nature) there’s still so much we don’t understand about ourselves, let alone the rest of the life on this planet, let alone most of the space outside of our planet. I know that’s asking a lot from a story about a giant clam, but it would be cool if readers had that takeaway.    

According to your website you’ve had various careers throughout your life. How have those experiences enriched your writing?

I’d say I’ve had a number of jobs and very few careers. A lot of them make their ways into my writing in small ways. It’s helpful to have specific knowledge about the seemingly uncool minutia of uncool jobs. I learned about driving a forklift, tying a trucker’s knot, and lovingly talking all kinds of shit to coworkers as a form of connection-building from working in a windows factory in my early twenties. If I ever write about a windows distribution center in the late 90s, I’ll nail the authenticity factor. 

For the last twenty years, my main gig has been paramedicine, the last sixteen years of that time I’ve been working for the fire service. Probably because of this career choice themes around the absurdity of life and death tend to make their way into my writing a lot. A couple months ago I helped to deliver a baby in the back of an ambulance for the first time. (To be fair, I didn’t do much. That was all on the mother who, despite the pain, did amazing.) The other day we went on a call where a small plane fell 5,000 feet from the sky and crashed through the roof of a suburban home. A horrible thing. But somehow one of the three passengers of that plane survived. Experiences like this have opened me up to the idea that pain and beauty often occupy the same space. I’m also constantly reminded of the fragility and unbelievable resilience of human beings. There’s no way some of that doesn’t leak into my writing.    

What is your favorite published piece to date?

That’s a hard one. It’s like asking which child is your favorite. I mean, we all internally know, but nobody’s going to say. No, I’m just joking. Some people say.

Honestly, my favorite published piece is an ever-changing thing. Sometimes it’s my newest piece, but not always. I’d say right now, I’m still really proud of an essay that is still up on The Corvalis Advocate website called Majestic, and Unimpressed with Us about current cohabitation issues surrounding the local Roosevelt elk herds.

What are your writing routines? What keeps you motivated to keep writing in your daily life?

I try to write for an hour or two in the afternoon on most days I’m not working. My motivation has always been to stay sane.

How does writing help you make sense of the world?

My wife thinks in pictures. She creates whole homes in her head and remembers the specifics of each. At night she’ll revisit some of those homes or make changes to them as a way to relax and transition from waking life to sleep. I tend to think in words. So, my internal homes look more like stories.   

What do you think of when you hear, “The Good Life?”

Sitting back, watching the waves while talking with the people I love, interspersed with road trips to places I’ve never been.  

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Jason’s story “Clam!” is available in Issue #13 ~ Autumn 2023.

For more about Jason, links to online stories, and upcoming events please visit JasonAriasAuthor.com.

Thank you, Jason. We’re grateful to you for your willingness to spend extra time with us on this Q&A and for trusting us with your story. We wish you the best!