Gift Poems
Years ago, I heard a poet talk about "gift poems." Poems you barely remember writing because they seemed to have arrived from elsewhere,...
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- Sep 12, 2022
- 1 min
Interview w/Nick Cave
"But the thing about it is, you write a line, and it is overwhelming sometimes. It means something. There’s other lines that you write...
- Aug 1, 2022
- 1 min
Gwen E. Kirby: Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories
Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories, by Gwen E. Kirby Come on. This story was published in 2017 and I can't...
- Feb 1, 2022
- 1 min
Charles Yu: Standard Loneliness Package
Incredible. "Standard Loneliness Package" is the most genuinely breathtaking story I've read in a long time. Can't stop thinking about...
- Mar 25, 2019
- 1 min
Interview with Didi Wood (author of my editor's selection for SmokeLong Quarterly)
I was so honored to be invited to be a guest editor for SmokeLong Quarterly, to my eye one of the best literary journals publishing...
- Dec 1, 2018
- 1 min
Anne Rasmussen: Instructions for Losing Your Mind
"When you moved away for college he started scouring thrift stores on weekends for hidden treasures, selling them back to the bookstores...
- Nov 19, 2018
- 1 min
Nandini Godara: Roseburn Sleeps at Night
"After Sara left, I considered the matter settled. The crowd was unanimously against the unbearable living conditions and no one could...
- Nov 1, 2016
- 1 min
Kaveh Akbar/Max Ritvo interview
"That’s really interesting. I actually never noticed how Zen the line 'I come from a place where the water’s emptiness' is. You’re...
- Oct 12, 2016
- 1 min
Jill Talbot: Lonely Things--a Series
"A defunct drive-in (its overgrown weeds, missing letter marquees), the thud of landing gear on late night flights, the vacant...
- Oct 1, 2016
- 1 min
Lidia Yuknavitch: The Lenny Interview
"If there's one phrase that I should probably tattoo on my forehead it is this: 'I'm not the story you made of me.' The more people I can...
- Sep 1, 2016
- 1 min
Lisa McInerney: My Writing Day
"That said, a lot of writing work is done when you’re not writing, it’s done when you’re thinking, or when you look like you’re doing...
- Aug 1, 2016
- 1 min
Seema Reza: The Partnership Compulsion
"I am most comfortable alone, sleeping on my king-sized bed half-covered with books and clothes. To wake to the reliable heat my own body...
- Jul 1, 2016
- 1 min
Sharon Telfer: Terra Incognita
"They spill their stories before the solid ground can make them fast. They tell of days when the sun never sets or never rises, birds...
- Jun 24, 2016
- 1 min
Katy Simpson Smith: The Occasional Ardent Hug
"But that evening I rewatched Roman Holiday — particularly noticing the Peck-Hepburn hugs, arguably more passionate than their two chaste...
- Jun 6, 2016
- 1 min
Louise Erdrich / Rebecca Makkai Interview: "You Are the Book You're Writing"
"I think you’re supposed to work in the dark, that the search and the writing itself is the reward. I don’t know if you agree with this,...
- Jun 4, 2016
- 1 min
Maia Morgan: Unrecognized Brownie circa 1978
"Sometimes I imagine myself in the family photos of people I used to know. I picture families lingering over albums in the faraway...
- May 31, 2016
- 1 min
Eiren Caffall: Through the Vitrine
"There isn’t a story. Not for the way a wave of loss will move through your loved ones. Not for the way you will pull a stranger into...
- May 24, 2016
- 1 min
Jacqui Shine: How to Wake the Dead
"It’s the historian’s job to wake the dead. But we can’t make them stay. I think that’s partly the point. In coming to understand our...
- Apr 3, 2016
- 1 min
Steve Edwards: Sometimes My Father Comes Back from the Dead
"My wife doesn’t notice because she’s at the sink washing a coffee mug and the faucet’s running full blast. Our son, who’s five—a grizzly...
- Feb 1, 2016
- 1 min
Brigit Pegeen Kelly: Song
"The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks. The head called to the body. The body to the head. They missed each other. The...
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