Oliver Bendorf’s Four Poems appeared in the May Issue. Below Oliver responds to our questions about Excel, fucking, and locomotion.

1. What have you used Excel for lately?

I use Excel to track my “life list,” which is a list of all the bird species I’ve seen in my life. Earlier this summer, when I was visiting my parents’ farm in Iowa, my dad and I woke up one morning at 3AM to volunteer for the annual breeding bird census. We drove along a 25-mile route of country roads, stopping for one minute at each half-mile (is that right, Dad?) and recording all the birds we saw or heard. The sun was coming up over the cornfields in a gorgeous way. I added a good handful of birds to my life list that night in Excel.

2. What is the most creative way you’ve said “fucking” lately?

A few weeks ago I got the paperwork for my legal name change notarized, which is only one step of about a billion, but I think afterward I texted someone “I’m so fucking happy” and I was. It’s not a creative way but it was one of those moments where I felt so inarticulate…I was just sort of bowled over with excitement on the sidewalk.

3. How are limbs locomotive?

Mine keep me moving forward. One time, after a breakup, I went to the drugstore and bought myself a pedometer. And I wore it every day for weeks, trying to reach ten thousand steps a day. I walked all over town, miles and miles, I walked the stairs up to my campus office on the 6th floor, and- I just remembered this- I recorded my daily steps in a spreadsheet for about two weeks. I looked up my personal record: 14,301 steps on May 9. Continue reading →

The amazing “Eureka, California” was published in the June Issue. Below, author Hillary Walker discusses why “things of quality have no fear of time.”

1. What fictional character would you climb on your honeymoon?

I think I’d like to get married at the drive-thru chapel in Las Vegas and then climb one of the giant light-up Arby’s hats after spilling an extra-large diet coke in the lobby. But I guess a neon sign isn’t really a fictional character.

2. What does ‘forever’ mean to you?

I’m still figuring this one out. Sometimes forever is forever, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes forever is right-this-very-minute. Things of quality have no fear of time.

3. Where did “Eureka, California” come from?

I don’t think this story has California residency, if that’s what you’re asking.

Really though, “Eureka, California” came from the summer after my college graduation. Continue reading →

D Gilson’s “Call & Response” was a part of our June Issue. D Gilson responds to our calls below in regards to life blood, truck stops, and trust.

1. Why does no one ever ask when did someone know they were straight?

Heteronormativity. It’s like our law system, everyone is guilty of being straight unless proven otherwise. I’m thinking of Raymond’s barber shop, where my dad and I would go every other Saturday when I was a wee lad. The regulars there, older men with their Missouri Farm Association coffee mugs at hand and Marlboro cigarettes at lips, loved to ask me, “you gotta girlfriend yet?” Did I know I wanted a boyfriend then? No. But if I would have, and they had asked who my boyfriend was, I probably would have said Patrick Swayze or LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow. Alas…

But there is a key point here. Heteronormativity is dangerous because it reinforces, within children from a very young age, the notion that being straight is good and being otherwise is bad. Hopefully this ideal will continue to change, but it’s a huge paradigm shift that’s going to take time and effort from every single one of us.

2. Should we ever trust men?

Hell yes. Especially men in glasses. See also: Ryan Gosling.

3. Why did you chose couplets for “Call & Response”?

Couplets are good formally for exploring intimacies between two people. In “Call & Response” those two people shift from beginning to end, but I hope it still works. At the time of writing it, I had been re-reading D.A. Powell’s Cocktails, so that surely had an influence, too.

4. How much of your life bleeds into your poetry?

84.7% of it. With many liberties, of course.

5. In an arm wrestling match between Lucifer and God, who would you side with? What would you wager?

God. Partially because I’m a virgo blessed with eternal optimism. Partially because I’m still too scared of saying otherwise. And partially because God is played by Ryan Gosling in my head. Or sometimes Anderson Cooper. Either one works. And I’ll wager my eternal services as a live-in houseboy-poet. God I hope God wins.

6. What is the best food one can buy at a truck stop?

Doritos and Diet Coke. I am my mother’s child.

“Giddy Up Hannah Montana” from Anderson Holderness was a part of our May Issue. Alter egos, animal sounds, and titles are all discussed below.

1. What would you build and then bury in the backyard?

Nothing comes to mind immediately. I heard of some guy building a trebuchet and thought that was interesting, but I’m not much of a carpenter. I’d probably end up building one of those birdhouses kids make at camp, one that birds wouldn’t ever live in with bright primary colors smeared all over and that would fall apart in a couple months. I’d like to dig a hole to bury that, but then find a tiny pyramid at the bottom of the hole. Then keep digging and brushing dirt away from the pyramid, making the pyramid large and the hole deep enough to attract neighbors so that they come out of their homes with shovels and come dig the hole too. We’d dig night and day and put all the houses up on stilts until finally the pyramid was uncovered. Then I suppose we would put the birdhouse at the front door and then fill the hole back up.

2. Who are you most ashamed of admitting that you like musically?

Cyndi Lauper. When Girls Just Want to Have Fun comes on the radio, I’m hooked. It’s so happy and catchy. I can’t help but imagine a group of girls zipping around in a red convertible, smiling, pumping their fists, flipping their hair, laughing, and then getting out and doing horrible horrible things. These girls beat up a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume, or burn down a bowling alley, or kill endangered animals, like cutting the flippers off a sea turtle and throwing it back into the ocean. All of this has Girls Just Want to Have Fun blaring somewhere off in the background. I’m pretty embarrassed by all of it. It’s not something I admit when I first meet people.

3. Which high school archetype best resembles you?

The foreign exchange student. Continue reading →

From the May Issue, Keith Dunlap’s “The Clepsydra.” Below, Keith answers our questions, we especially like number 3.

1. What would you like your soul to be made of?

Something communicable. Sometimes I am sitting in a room with a bunch of other people, and I have the feeling that there is all this stuff going on that I have no suspicion of, much less knowledge of, not in a paranoid way, more like a little kid at a state fair kind of way, and I get the sinking feeling that all that stuff felt obliquely but not known is what my soul is made of, which is a disappointment.

2. How much non-fiction do you allow in your poetry?

None. Of course, I steal from non-fiction sources all the time. See below.

3. What do you like to have on in the background when getting it on?

Rain. Continue reading →

Dana Diehl’s lovely piece, “When The Water Leaves Us,” is a great read for your Wednesday, for any day. Below Dana provides all the answers.

1. How would you improve Kevin Costner’s Waterworld?

More releasing of Krakens. Put Alan Rickman in it, playing himself. Oh, and make it 3D. I’ve never actually seen Waterworld, so I’m basing my answer on the trailer and a Youtube clip of Kevin Costner’s character avenging a tiny fruit tree (Is that right? That’s really what it looks like he was doing).

2. What’s with all this cancer in literary fiction?

Cancer is mysterious. It’s part of us, but at the same time it’s not-us. Sometimes doctors can map it- its source, its destination, its boundaries- but sometimes they can’t. I believe we write toward that mystery, to fill that unmapped, invisible space.

Also, cancer is a fear that everyone can relate to. Even if we don’t experience it directly, we know it in some sense. I think the familiarity of cancer coupled with the mystery makes it attractive to writers. It gives them a question, and it provides their characters with a catalyst.

3. What boundaries would you cross if you knew your time left was limited?

Probably oceans, rivers, mountains. All of the geographical boundaries. I’d find a way to visit the moon. I’d eat fugu, that lethally poisonous pufferfish served in Japanese restaurants. In museums, I’d cross the yellow tape to touch the dinosaur bones. Continue reading →

Ashley Inguanta’s “It’s End Of The World Karaoke” appeared in the May Issue. Below, Ashley speaks about how the world turns certain, fiction vs. non-fiction, and songs for the end of the world.

1. Being also in Orlando, I noticed you set “It’s End of the World Karaoke” at Big Daddy’s. How much of this is fiction versus non-fiction?

This piece is mostly fiction.

The Big Daddy’s (in the story) is the same Big Daddy’s in (for lack of a better term) real life. Only in real life, you have to order nachos from somewhere else and bring them in. Santa Claus sings; he’s a regular. And I haven’t tried a White Russian from Big Daddy’s, but if I did, it would be excellent- I guarantee it. A lot less milky than expected.

Everything else is fiction. Javier, Jonah, Lara. Cat Woman, Maryann. Those men. The DJ who can’t keep his shit straight. The smoke outside. Javier’s choice to open the door.

But really- fiction exists somewhere, someplace. Fiction exists somewhere in our world, and sometimes I just don’t know what to do with that placement of things imagined and made. Sometimes our power to create people and tell stories about them terrifies me. These stories, these people — they’re extraordinary because of the way they were born and because of the way they live: On the page, somewhere else, but (at the same time) here.

2. What would you sing at the end of the world?

“Ironic” by Alanis Morissette. Hands down.

3. Why do Russians always have to be white?

They don’t have to be. Years ago, my friend David and I imagined the Pink Russian: Pepto Bismol, Vodka, Kahlua. I’m a bit embarrassed (but also proud) to say we didn’t try it. Continue reading →

Georgia Bellas’ beautiful, “Recipe for a Winter’s Day in Three Courses,” was a part of the May Issue. Here Georgia speaks on summer meals, Goodwill glasses, and endless vacations.

1. How many courses would you prepare for a summer meal?

Four, all with fresh ingredients from a farmers’ market. First course, cocktails using muddled herbs or fruits paired with French bread and local cheeses and mustard; second course, more cocktails along with stuffed zucchini blossoms; third, locally made wine with locally made ravioli and freshly grated cheese; fourth, more wine and dessert, such as orange sherbet (see below for directions).

2. How would you instruct me to eat orange sherbet?

In a chilled martini glass, topped with champagne, and slowly, with a baby spoon. Also preferably outside while spying on the moon and trying to pick out constellations.

3. What does wine taste like in a Goodwill glass?

Sweeter (or dryer, depending on what type of wine you’re drinking).

4. Where did this poem come from?

From a winter’s afternoon on my sister’s couch mixing memories in my head like ingredients.

5. Who would you like to trap in a snow globe?

Robert Mitchum

6. What vacation would you like to last forever?

The next one I take.

These Two Poems written by Neal Kitterlin appeared in the May Issue. Below Neal discusses sneaking in writing, the skin of prose poems, and the best songs to listen to while cutting one’s ear off.

1. How do you sneak in writing while at work?

Very carefully. Seriously, though, most of the time I am working in a word processing document, and its pretty easy to toggle over to a new tab and jot things down.

2. Why did you choose to use the skin of prose to shape these poems?

I have a very intuitive relationship with line breaks. Sometimes I put them in as I write, sometimes I write in big text chunks and add line breaks later, and sometimes those chunks tell me that no line breaks are needed at all. These poems fit into the last category.

3. What moment of your life would you like to flash forward to?

The moment the Cubs win the World Series. Or the moment when I win the inaugural season of the surprise breakout hit television show, “America’s Got Poems”. Continue reading →

From the May Issue, Kristi DeMeester’s “The Beautiful Nature of Venom.”

1. What’s with literary fiction’s fascination regarding collarbones? Is it the sound that word makes?

I’ve always found a strange beauty in that which is fragile. The physical collarbone has always struck me as incredibly delicate, easily breakable; a thing that houses the heart, and what I love about the word itself is that the sound of it rolling off the tongue mimics this fragility. There is eroticism in not only seeing the collarbone exposed but also in the round curvature of the syllables.

2. What animal is inside you?

A raven. All sleek feathered and contemplative. Possibly perched on some bust of Pallas after tapping on some chamber door.

3. How do you define “dark fiction”?

As reading and writing that must be done in the dark. For me, there have always been dark, strange ideas lurking in every corner of my brain. Too often, we hesitate to discuss these strange parts of ourselves out of embarrassment or fear that others will find us odd or mentally touched. Dark fiction is where our secrets and demons lie. It’s what we see when we close our eyes. It’s what haunts us. Dark fiction, for me, is the outlet for all of these things. Continue reading →