Adam Durso received his M.F.A. in Fiction from Temple University, in Philadelphia. Like Donald Hall before him, he was born in Hamden, Connecticut; like Thornton Wilder, he prefers to spend his time in New Haven. His poetry has appeared in The Common Ground Review, Chiron Review, Bird’s Thumb, Stoneboat, The Tishman Review, and elsewhere.
Chainmail and Pharmacy Music, Volume 4, Issue 2
Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, Gargoyle, Pinyon, Little Patuxent Review, Spillway, Midwestern Gothic, and others. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 20 books including Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press, which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and Ribcage from Glass Lyre Press, which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Three of her poems have been featured on Verse Daily and another is among the winners of the 2016 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. Her newest books are Carnival from FutureCycle Press, The Seven Heavenly Virtues from Kelsay Books and Her Heartsongs just out from Presa Press. Colby is a senior editor of FutureCycle Press and an associate editor of Good Works Review. Website: www.joancolby.com. Facebook: Joan Colby. Twitter: @poetjm.
Me as Terrorist, Volume 4, Issue 2
Aria Callaham lives in Silverdale where she enjoys acting and writing.
I wish, Volume 4, Issue 2
Pushcart Prize nominated poet, Charles W. Brice, Ph.D., is a retired psychoanalyst and is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (WordTech Editions, 2016) and of Mnemosyne’s Hand (WordTech Editions, 2018). His poetry, short stories, reviews, and nonfiction pieces have appeared in over seventy publications including Literal Latte, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Atlanta Review, Hawaii Review, The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, The Paterson Literary Review, Plainsongs and elsewhere. His poem, “Identification,” was anthologized along with poems by W.H. Auden, Hilda Doolittle, Philip Larkin, Stephen Dobyns, Louise Gluck, Anne Sexton, and others in, Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry, Irene Willis (Ed.), (International Psychoanalytic Books, 2017).
Sis, Volume 4, Issue 2
Review, Mnemosyne’s Hand: Poems, Volume 4, Issue 2
Interview
Mela Blust is a writer residing in rural Pennsylvania. She is an active member of many online publications, including medium.com. Her work has appeared in Little Rose Magazine, and is forthcoming in Califragile, as well as Abstract Magazine.
as heavy as water, how to: make a mistake, and trespass, Volume 4, Issue 2
Interview
Gershon Ben-Avraham earned an MA in Philosophy (Aesthetics) from Temple University where he studied with the American philosopher of art Monroe Beardsley. He and his wife live in Be’er Sheva, Israel, where he writes short stories and poetry.
Stone Soup, Volume 4, Issue 2
5 artists submitted 5 comics, 2 creative nonfiction writers submitted 2 creative nonfiction pieces, 30 writers submitted 33 pieces of fiction, and 34 poets submitted 136 poems.
Volume 4, Issue 2 will be available soon.
Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?
Although it sounds fun to have an office, shack or cave set up deliberately to facilitate writing, I don’t have one. So I write wherever I am, whenever I can. Which can be inconvenient.
What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?
Everything starts out on paper, in a notebook. Not too fussy about pens. Anything will do—pencils too. I’m better at having a notebook always to hand than I used to be, and rarely have to rely on old envelopes or margins of newspapers any more. A few redrafts and manglings usually take place in the pages of the notebook before it’s in a reasonable enough shape to be either written up on the computer or trashed. There’s always plenty of redrafting to be done from then on.
What is your routine for writing?
I don’t really have one. It just happens. Or doesn’t. Which is one of my greatest creative faults. Discipline, whilst not very cool, is indispensable. It helps to stir the soup regularly.
How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?
I’ve been trying to write creatively—poetry especially—ever since I can remember.
Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?
It may sound harsh, but I write for me. I’m happy to share, to put things out there, to see what people think. And to get feedback, which I usually try and take on board. But there’s no specific readership in mind.
What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?
What inspires me the most is that human life never ceases to be both inherently fascinating and ridiculous. We can be so beautiful, so cruel, so stupid. I suppose I feel the need to somehow reflect what I observe, and poetry has always seemed the most natural, obvious way. Photography too sometimes—although I’d also love to paint.
What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?
Mostly I walk, preferably by the ocean or in the mountains. It helps with the creative process, with the unblocking, but then so does taking the train through a city.
What is your favorite part of the creative process?
That if it works properly—if you let it and don’t overthink things—then it just happens. Whether you want it to or not.
What is your advice to aspiring writers?
Just enjoy yourself. Be yourself. Don’t worry about being good.
Check out Robert’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.
Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?
The space I dedicate to writing is a spare bedroom in my house that has had the bed replaced with a desk and a comfortable chair. I do, however, keep pencil and paper at hand when I’m out for recording snippets that I might use later.
What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?
I do all of my fiction writing on my Mac. I find that I can work much more quickly this way to get first drafts down, especially when the ideas are flowing. Editing is easier this was as well. Nonetheless, I’ve kept a handwritten journal for more than three decades, and I have a favorite mechanical pencil that I reserve for this work.
What is your routine for writing?
I rise at an unholy hour on the weekends when the house is quiet so that I can enter the creative part of my mind undisturbed and let the work flow. I also always have a tall pitcher of iced tea— unsweetened, of course—beside me and I will usually finish it as I’m working. Generally, I can expect to get about three hours of work done before either the household wakes or my creativity is exhausted. I rarely try to do any creative writing during the week, though I often make copious notes then about whatever project I’m working on at the time.
How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?
I knew from an early age that I wanted to write, and I’ve been dedicated to it for my whole adult life. There were many years of apprentice work, and more than a decade passed between my first published short story and my second. But I seem to have found my voice through all of that effort and can reliably spin a tale that has a fair chance of being acceptable to an editor and finding its way into print.
Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?
I try to write what would be termed literary fiction, so discerning adults willing to put some thought, patience, and effort into appreciating a piece of fiction would be my likely audience. I don’t know these people, though. I let myself be my audience; I write the kinds of things I want to read.
What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?
I had several good mentors early in my writing life; that steered me onto the right course. And I’ve always loved to read, so the words seem to come easily to me. Of course, they still need polishing. I don’t tend to be blocked, or if I am, I don’t see it that way. I’m always thinking about stories and characters and how to develop them. In recent years my greatest inspiration is having found my great subject: the relationships between fathers and sons. I’ve written several dozen stories about this. I haven’t exhausted the subject yet.
What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?
For many years I could only squeeze my writing in between raising a family, earning a wage, and going to night school. But now that the children are gone and the debts are paid, I find myself bouncing grandchildren on my knee. I’ve also done a lot of running, a sport I only took up recently. No one was more amazed than I when I found myself crossing finish lines, including four marathons. Running has made several appearances in my stories. Other than that, you can generally find me in bookstores, libraries, or art museums.
What is your favorite part of the creative process?
When it all comes together, when the words are flowing into the ideas that get it all exactly right. Those moments are infrequent; generally I have to struggle over every word and sentence, but sometimes I fall into that perfect place.
What is your advice to aspiring writers?
Read widely and write ceaselessly. Don’t worry too much about things like grammar and punctuation. Find writers you like and read their stuff. Keep at it until you find your own voice, and never apologize. Only you can tell your stories.
Check out Paul’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.
Describe your creative space. Do you work at home, in public spaces, etc.?
I try to have a keyboard with me at all times, not just a smart phone, but a real keyboard. With that said, in a pinch I have written poems on my smartphone, and I have handwritten poems or fragments on paper, and then typed them in to a computer later. An idea for a poem can hit me anywhere, usually when my brain is not procedurally active in a way that needs intense focus, such as while driving and listening to music, or while taking a shower.
What kind of materials do you use? Do you write by hand or type? What is your favorite writing utensil?
When I was in college, 45 years ago, I did keep a writing journal on my night stand and did find it useful, when I first woke up. Often, those poems would have something to do with dreams that I tried to remember upon waking. Now, I keep a laptop at my bedside and another one in my car, in addition to the computer at my desk. I keep everything in DropBox so I can get at it anytime, and all my machines always have the same stuff on them, because of the synchronization. Plus, it is all backed up all the time, as it is in the cloud.
What is your routine for writing?
I have to be “in the zone” to write poetry. Something has to strike me or be on my mind. Now, I have dozens of poems that were simply started, so I can “edit and revise” almost any time, and most of my “writing” time is spent doing that, sometimes changing poems quite a bit.
How long have you been writing? When did you start writing?
I started writing poetry when I was a freshman in college, in 1973. I was young and in love and many of my poems today come from notes I wrote back then. When the break up came a year or two later, I, coincidentally, had been diagnosed with Stage IIIB Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and then I had plenty to write about, faced with those two pieces of emotional adversity. Later, oddly, I went on to a successful career running software companies for four decades, some of them very successful, which was a completely different, but still intense, slice of life. Now that I have more time I am able to draw upon those experiences and the feelings I had to ignore at the time.
Who is your intended, or ideal, audience? Who do you write for?
I think that is always a good question. A sideways way of answering it is to think about whose acceptance gives me the biggest thrill, when that acceptance comes. Often it is when a poem is accepted for publication, which is a big deal for me, since that means that someone who probably knows what they are talking about, poetry-wise, liked it. On the other hand, if someone I really like, who was perhaps an English major or an art major, thoughtfully likes a poem, that might be an ever better feeling—especially if it is someone who thought that I was not of interest to them before that reading my work, and after they want to hear what I think, about anything. But, of course, I have to like the poem myself. There are poems that I love that I have submitted over and over again, all to see rejection in return, but I love them anyway.
What inspires you to write? If you are blocked, what do you do?
I don’t sit down to write if I have nothing to write about (i.e. am blocked), so one might say that “I don’t suffer from writer’s block.” I just have other things to do, including revising other poems that are in progress, an activity, which by its nature, is not blocked, because I am starting with something that at least at one time excited me. I start new poems only when an idea comes into my mind. I suppose it could be from a formal prompt, but I don’t think that often happens for me, other than being “prompted” by a billboard, the name of a city, the sound of rain on the roof or remembering a flight I took, and how I felt flying the plane (I am an amateur pilot.)
What other things do you do besides writing? Do you dance or play golf, etc.?
I currently sit on boards of directors for a living, and that interaction of people often starts a creative process. But I have flooded my life with experiences, intentionally, and I think more ideas come from times that I have put myself into a position where I might not have a unique point of view, but a rare one. I fly airplanes as an instrument-rated pilot. I have been a diver since I was thirteen, and have done over 2,000 dives, all over the world, swimming with just about every amazing sea creature man knows about. This includes rebreather diving and deep diving, where the deeper you go the darker it gets, and the more intense the narcotic of breathing compressed nitrogen takes effect. I also have played a great deal of high-stakes poker, and indeed I have been to Burning Man.
What is your favorite part of the creative process?
The high I get when I get a great idea and then am able to express it in an effective way.
What is your advice to aspiring writers?
I advise writers to write. I don’t know much about writer’s block, because I am too busy to spend any time with it, but to those who have trouble with it I would suggest writing anyway. When I was in college and did have to write every day in that journal, I think it was not only productive, but it trained my mind to be always thinking of a creative way to look at whatever was happening, or whatever memory or thought I might be having. If you can dream and then write, or alter your consciousness, not necessarily with drugs, but just with experiences and doing different things or doing things differently, then I think you are more likely to be always busy writing or revising, and you’ll never be looking at a screen with nothing to do. Do things that get you “into the zone” which is when your best work will come—engage that right half of your brain that controls your left hand, and is more in touch with your subconscious, and let what is in there come out.
Check out Roger’s work in Volume 4, Issue 1.
The Magnolia Review 