Author: Cass Murphy

SR Pod/Vod Series: Writer Saramanda Swigart

Cass Murphy

Saramanda SwigartToday we’re proud to feature Saramanda Swigart as our seventh Authors Talk series contributor, discussing her story “Axiom of the Empty Set” in her vodcast “Love and Math.”

As the vodcast title suggests, Saramanda’s creation of “Axiom of the Empty Set” involved linking together seeming opposites. Themes of failed romances and lost children are a recurring presence in the story, alongside formulaic elements like roman numeral-headed paragraphs and “X” and “Y” as placeholder character names.

Behind the scenes, the same combination of opposites is true of Saramanda’s writing process. As she explains in her vodcast, this consists of two components: nerdy inspiration, and the deeply personal.

“I don’t really like the character me, much,” she says, cringing at the thought of memoir writing. Despite this, she discusses with candid feeling the incorporation of personal challenges into her story, a process that resulted in a dream come true for many writers: the piece coming out “almost entirely whole.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Saramanda Swigart’s “Axiom of the Empty Set” in Issue 15 of Superstition Review.

 

More About the Author:

Saramanda Swigart is thrilled to be writing fiction [almost] full time after years of writing ad copy and corporate literature. She has lived and worked in Italy, New York, San Francisco and Dubai. She has an MFA from Columbia University, with a supplementary degree in literary translation. Her short work has appeared in Superstition Review, Fogged Clarity, Caveat Lector, The Literati Quarterly, Ragazine, The Penmen Review and Thin Air, and she’s received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train. She is working on a collection of interlocking stories; a novel, Meaning Machine, about a family’s incompatible coping strategies in the face of loss; and a modern translation of the more salacious stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at City College of San Francisco.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Writer Pablo Piñero Stillmann

Cass Murphy

Pablo PineroToday we’re proud to feature Pablo Piñero Stillmann as our sixth Authors Talk series contributor, discussing his story “The Worst Thing about Having Sex with Me” with SR Issue 15 Fiction Editor Stephanie Funk.

The story is set in Mexico City against a backdrop of unrest, and as Pablo says, “lives go on in the middle of all this chaos.” This podcast, titled “This Sense of Place,” explores how he incorporated the subtleties of Mexico into his story. Pablo explains that geography, social class, and other explanations of place had to occur naturally within the story’s framework. And more challenging still, these subtleties had to be understandable to an American audience.

“I have to trust myself to portray the subtleties of my world,” Pablo says, also referencing the challenges he encountered when he began writing in English eight years ago.

Even with its glimpses into the editorial process, perhaps the most interesting thing about “This Sense of Place” is how a discussion on writing for a foreign audience lends itself to writers considering the challenges of creating any world, within any story.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Pablo Piñero Stillmann’s “The Worst Thing about Having Sex with Me” in Issue 15 of Superstition Review.

 

More About the Author:

Pablo Piñero Stillmann’s first novel was published in the summer of 2015 by Tierra Adentro. His work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, The Normal School, and other journals. Follow him on Twitter @O1O111OO.

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Writer Hannah Brown

Cass Murphy

Hannah Brown_0Today we’re proud to feature Hannah Brown as our fifth Authors Talk series contributor, discussing her story “On Any Windy Day” in her podcast “Nail Salon Grants PhD.”

Inspired by conversations in nail salons, “On Any Windy Day” is a deep examination of life. As Hannah says in her podcast, “somehow when someone is handling our bodies, we feel inclined to let them handle our hearts as well.”

The story exemplifies this by segueing from casual conversation to progressively more complicated topics, and back again. In one section, a character waits for laundry to dry by reading a tome of social criticism, then offers detailed step-by-step ironing instructions and muses about what ironing a man’s shirts means to her.

With the cheerful sincerity of its author, “Nail Salon Grants PhD” uses similar brain and heart to dig into the writing of “On Any Windy Day.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Hannah Brown’s “On Any Windy Day” in Superstition Review.

 

More About the Author:

Born in Hastings County, and currently living in Toronto, Hannah Brown has two degrees in Film from York University and taught English and film at the college and collegiate levels. She wrote screenplays for anyone who’d pay, and won first prize from the National Film Board for her screenplay, How to Call Cows. Her brief memoir about her brother, “The Education of a Class A Mechanic” was published in This Magazine. More recently, in June, two of her poems appeared in Lynn Crosbie’s Hood, two poems were published in the Untethered Magazine’s July issue, and The Harpoon Review published her short story, “Bangande” in October. Her story “The Happiness” will appear in the upcoming November issue of (parenthetical) Magazine.

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Poet Deborah Bogen

Cass Murphy

Deborah Bogen_portrait 11_for internet copy-2

Today we’re proud to feature Deborah Bogen as our fourth Authors Talk series contributor, discussing “what it’s like to be a writer while you are not in school” in her podcast “Try This At Home.”

Writing courses and MFA programs provide much-desired support and resources for writers. But for people who have left these things behind, Deborah offers advice on how to create a different kind of structure. With topics like forming writing groups and partnerships, immersing yourself in the broader world so that it still benefits your writing, and achieving financial survival, she works through them all with a level of specificity and detail that’s all the more admirable for a 7.5 minute talk.

This is a tightly focused how-to that doesn’t disappoint. Flecked with alternating bits of humor and poignancy, Deborah takes advice you may have heard before and adds new insight and depth. The most resonating example for me came towards the end of the talk: “In the end, one person is responsible for your work.” Somehow, she makes this daunting statement sound like the most wonderful thing in the world.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Deborah Bogen’s poetry in Superstition Review, Issues 12 and 10.

 

More About the Author:

Deborah Bogen’s three books of poems are Let Me Open You a Swan, winner of the Elixir Press Antivenom Prize 2009, Landscape With Silos, National Poetry Series Finalist and XJ Kennedy Poetry Prize winner 2005, and Living by the Children’s Cemetery, ByLine Press Chapbook winner 2002. Her poems and reviews appear widely.

In addition to writing poems, Bogen is currently at work on a trio of novels set in 13th century. Book One, The Witch of Leper Cove, explores traditional herbal medicine, blind ambition and the early Inquisition in England. Book Two, The Hounds of God, is set in Paris where Church politics, the strict structure of the noble classes and the power of art collide.

She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, teaching occasionally, playing ukulele in the Highland Park Mini Band and writing lots of prose poems for a new manuscript, Prayer Flags.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Writer Devoney Looser

Cass Murphy

Devoney Looser

Today we’re proud to feature Devoney Looser as our third Authors Talk series contributor, sharing her thoughts on the “Top 10 Ways That Being A Writer Is Like Playing Roller Derby.”

Devoney is an English professor at Arizona State University and, as her author bio below reveals, an accomplished scholar. She’s also probably one of the first roller derby scholars, penning multiple articles on the sport’s potential to impact our culture. Given this, it’s not that surprising that Devoney should analyze the similarities between writing and roller derby in her vodcast. What is surprising is that she chooses to do this in full derby bout gear, casually reading her essay while rolling around her kitchen wearing pads and fishnet stockings. Perhaps it shouldn’t be. Among other things, Devoney’s vodcast is a fresh reminder of what it means to be a modern scholar.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

 

More About the Author:

Devoney Looser is the author of two books, Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 (2008) and British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820 (2000). She has published essays in Slate, the Chronicle of Higher Education, The London Magazine, and The Independent. Now at work on a study of Jane Austen’s afterlife, The Making of Jane Austen, for Johns Hopkins University Press, Looser has also played roller derby as Stone Cold Jane Austen. She is is professor of English at Arizona State University and faculty adviser to ASU’s collegiate team, the Derby Devils.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Poet John A. Nieves

Cass Murphy

John A Nieves

Today we’re proud to feature John A. Nieves as our second Authors Talk series contributor, discussing his poem “Honing the Edge (Acquisitio).”

According to John in the opening of his discussion, this is “a poem that deals with the fundamental question of what do we ask when we don’t expect the traditional sort of answer, maybe any answer at all?”

The poem’s stanzas are planned to resemble the geomantic figure Acquisito (gain), but an endless number of interpretations and circularities within its lines balance out this structural rigidity. The resulting open-endedness seems a major factor in John’s stated theme of exploration. It might make us, the readers, wonder what we’re ‘supposed’ to gain from the poem. That’s a difficult question to answer, when the answer is up to us. As John hints at the beginning of his discussion, it may not be a question with a traditional answer, or any at all.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can follow along with “Honing the Edge (Acquisitio)” in Superstition Review.

 

More About the Author:

John A. Nieves has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, and Minnesota Review. He won the 2011 Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio (2014), won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University. He received his M.A. from University of South Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Writer Lee Martin

Cass Murphy

 

leemartinWe’re proud to feature Lee Martin as our first Authors Talk series contributor, with his podcast “Here in the Heartland.”

“Here in the Heartland” is the very phrase that opens this short and poignant talk, and the “Heartland” here refers to the Midwest. It’s a bold descriptor that counters an all-too-familiar perception of the region as flyover country, while simultaneously positioning the Midwest as the crucial element in a discussion about the complexities of character. As a Michigan native myself, it’s refreshing – and pleasantly surprising – to consider home as a crucial element of anything.

The podcast seems almost a reflective microcosm of its author: Lee grew up in rural Illinois, his novel River of Heaven is set in Illinois, The Bright Forever in Indiana, and his thoughtfulness towards the hues of character recall any one of his published work; the fictional novel Break the Skin is even dedicated to one of its main characters.

In the podcast, Lee likens teasing out the beauty of the perpetually-unappreciated Midwest to finding the same subtle texture in a writer’s characters. It’s interesting, useful – and also quite beautiful. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can also read Lee’s past work in Superstition Review.

 

More About the Author:

Lee Martin is the author of the novels The Bright Forever, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; River of Heaven; Quakertown; and Break the Skin. He has also published three memoirs, From Our House, Turning Bones, and Such a Life. His first book was the short story collection, The Least You Need To Know. He is the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. He teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’re now establishing a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.