interview

The Lightning Room With Anis Shivani

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In his expansive arm, Anis Shivani gathers you a great lament. The presence of no ftl drives. Let him take you to bed. (poem in the Jan. Issue) [Bonus Exclusive! Read the worst question he’s ever been asked and his answer.]

1) How do you feel about your older writing? Do you ever go back to try to change those pieces or do they belong to a different, younger you?

No I never try to do that. Recently I was tempted to change my book The Fifth Lash and Other Stories, which i wrote almost a decade ago, though the book has only recently been published. I changed things stylistically a bit, but left the content alone. Once something is published, I want to forget I ever wrote it, let alone go back and obsess over it. I’m fine with accepting that older pieces belong to a younger, less sophisticated me.

2) Do you start with a voice, an idea, or do you just start? 

In fiction I probably start with a character in a situation–usually a difficult situation. Then I have to build a story around that. It’s easy to visualize and create a whole world once I’ve got a grip on a single character in a concrete situation. I think the (philosophical) idea is what prompts imagining the initial character, but it’s best to forget the idea, whatever it is, as soon as the material circumstances of the story start to become apparent.

In poetry, I may have a feeling or a tone, often hard to capture precisely, which I start with and just run with, to see what happens. It’s not easy to decipher quite how things come together in poetry but the unified tone is probably the glue.  Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With M. R. Sheffield

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Stay awhile and listen to M. R. Sheffield (story in the Nov. issue) describe herself on a beach surrounded by strange men, running from swords, and what follows her heart in quotes. Maybe forgiveness?

1) Imagine a sunrise. You are a child surrounded by strange men. Describe the sunrise.

For some reason we’re on this beach and it’s beautiful, of course: it’s a sunrise – it’s yellow and red and pink; it’s purple and it’s blue and it’s gold, but the men are shuffling their feet in the sand, dirtying their nice shoes, and I’m worried when they get to work they will look scuffed – scuffed and faded as a sunrise – but something about them wearing suits on a beach in their nice shoes watching the sunrise makes them less threatening than maybe they would be otherwise, say if we were on a boat in the middle of the ocean, say if we were locked inside a mall together fighting zombies; they are more vulnerable for their finery, like peacocks bent nearly double by the weight of double breasted suit.

2) At the end of a long hallway you see a beautiful figure holding a long, delicate sword. What do you do?

First things first – any time weaponry is brandished, you run. You run run run run run. I don’t care how beautiful the creature is. The figure is. I don’t care how smooth skinned or lustrous haired. Maybe the figure is a being is a creature is beyond-human or subhuman nonhuman monstrous-human human-human or inhumane. Run. It doesn’t matter if the voice calling you is as bird song. Run when she or when he or when it slides the sword, so delicate, from its sheath. Long hallways are bullshit meant to hypnotize. Don’t fall for it, run for it, dummy, lest your body be torn asunder. Lest your heart in all its power falter. Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Karen Eileen Sisk

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Won’t you join Karen Eileen Sisk (five poems in nov. issue) as she tells us why preserving a room full of a bunch of dead people and Judy Blume while unleashing the concentrated blabbermouth of anger at the lush from a living room couch is the only way to live.

1) If you could create a room with any 3 people who’ve ever existed in there. Would you make a room you’d want to visit or destroy? and why?

I would create a room I would visit. I think because my instinct is always to preserve rather than destroy. I love museums, antiques, collections that have been carefully collected and preserved. So it seems natural to build collections of good and/or important people. My room would sort of be a museum preserving say Jim Henson, Mr. Rogers, and Judy Blume. Or I’d have one with Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, and H.D. It would be a museum to people that I’d want to visit regularly. Poor Judy Blume, I lumped her in with a bunch of dead people.

2) Name a poet no one reads but should?

Even though I’ve spent the last 7 years in graduate school, I never feel like I have a good sense of who people read and who they don’t. I guess I would recommend Lynn Emanuel because I get the sense that not enough people read her books. She really crafts a book. Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With David Romanda

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David Romanda talks from 13 hours in the future about the combo of pickles, gin, and speed in “My Wife & William.”

1. Do a lot of people eat pickles with gin? Is this a common thing?

Pickles with gin? Yes, please.

2. Have you decided whether the wife is cheating or this is some agreeable cuckold situation?

I figure she’s cheating.
Continue reading →