Authors Talk

Authors Talk: Laura Esther Wolfson

Superstition Review

Laura WolfsonToday we are pleased to feature author Laura Esther Wolfson as our Authors Talk series contributor. In “Notes for My Swedish Translator,” Laura discusses her piece, “For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors,” published in issue 14, with a focus on her communications with her Swedish translator. “For Single Mothers” is being translated for an anthology of literary travel writing coming out from Sandnejlika Förlag, a publisher based in Stockholm.

Herself a translator (though not of Swedish), and therefore familiar with the very close reading that translation requires, Laura notes some of the conscious literary choices she made in this piece, as well as her request that the translator maintain these same devices in the Swedish version, to the extent possible.  Laura depicts the exchange as beneficial to both author and translator.

You can read Laura’s essay in Superstition Review Issue 14. You can also visit her website.

(Laura apologizes for the scratchy, breathy vocal quality of this podcast. It is caused by a chronic lung disease.)

Authors Talk: J Malcolm Garcia

Superstition Review

J Malcolm GarciaToday we are pleased to feature author J. Malcolm Garcia as our Authors Talk series contributor. J Malcolm discusses how he finds inspiration for his writing from the people he encounters during his travels.

Like his nonfiction work, “Security District 4,” J Malcolm reflects that much of his writing is about the people he meets. An individual will say something and he will “write it down.”

He reminds us that inspiration can be found anywhere and that the moments that change a person’s life are worth telling even when their life is no longer news-worthy.

You can read J Malcolm’s nonfiction story in Superstition Review Issue 9. You can also visit his website to learn more about him and his writing.

J. Malcolm Garcia is a freelance writer and author of The Khaarijee: A Chronicle of Friendship and War in Kabul and What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and the Forgotten. He is a recipient of the Studs Terkel Prize for writing about the working classes and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism. His work has been anthologized in Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing and Best American Nonrequired Reading.

Authors Talk: Eugene Gloria

Superstition Review

Eugene GloriaToday we are pleased to feature author Eugene Gloria as our Authors Talk series contributor. Eugene discusses failure and its role in creating successful poems or stories.

He focuses particularly on how failure led to the successful publication of My Favorite Warlord in 2012. “Apricot Trees,” a poem that was published in Issue 3 of SR, is included in this collection of poems.

We are also privileged to hear a reading of “Allegory of the Laundromat,” and to learn the story behind this poem.

Eugene expresses that he needs to be “willingly ignorant” or “willing to embrace failure” when writing poetry.  He mentions this is also an important strategy to utilize in light of the recent political change.

You can read Eugene’s poetry in Superstition Review Issue 3.

#ArtLitPhx: Friday Poetry with Jeredith Merrin at Changing Hands

Superstition Review

jeredith-merrinJeredith Merrin will be reading from her new book Owling this Friday, October 14 at 7 p.m. at Changing Hands Tempe. Her latest poetry collection won the 2016 Grayson Books Chapbook competition.

Merrin, brought up in the Pacific Northwest, took her MA in English (specializing in Chaucer), and a PhD from UC Berkeley in Anglo-American Poetry and Poetics. Cup, a special honoree in the 2013 Able Muse Book Award, is her third collection; her previous books are Shift and Bat Ode (University of Chicago Press Phoenix Poets series). She’s authored an influential book of criticism on Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop. Her reviews and essays (on Moore, Bishop, Clare, Mew, Amichai, and others), and poems have appeared in Paris Review, Slate, Ploughshares, Southwest Review, Yale Review and elsewhere. A retired Professor of English (The Ohio State University), Merrin lives near Phoenix.

For more information, please visit Changing Hands website.

#ArtLitPhx: Reading for Crossing the Horizon – Laurie Notaro

Superstition Review

Crossing-the-horizon-Laurie-NotaroNew York Times bestselling novelist, Laurie Notaro, presents her debut historical novel, Crossing the Horizon. She will be presenting her book at Changing Hands Phoenix on Thursday, October 6th at 7:00 p.m. The presentation will include a short reading, a film, a short talk from an experienced aviatrix from the Phoenix chapter of the 99s, and book signing. Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013.

Laurie Notaro was a reporter and columnist for The Arizona Republic. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies, We Thought You Would Be Prettier, Idiot Girls’ Christmas, There’s a Slight Chance I Might Be Going to Hell, The Idiot Girls and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, Spooky Little Girl, It Looked Different on the Model, and The Potty Mouth at the Table. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

For more information, please visit Changing Hands website or the Facebook event.

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Author Shawna Ervin

Cass Murphy

Shawna Ervin headshotToday we are pleased to feature author Shawna Ervin as our 35th Authors Talk series contributor. Shawna discusses her writing process, which she says is defined by what it is not. It is not a formula and it is not easy. Though she doesn’t have the answer on how to have a successful writing process, she knows things to avoid.

She notes that “the problem with aiming for perfection is that failure looms around every corner.” She values freedom when writing, the ability to take time off and write when and how she wants. This can even be something like taking notes on her phone while grocery shopping. She finds it difficult to write “when I believe that only by my merit does an essay have merit,” and the piece “quickly falls apart.” Sometimes she finds it easiest to start with a blank page if she is really struggling on a piece. Though she doesn’t have the answer of how to have a successful writing process, she calls upon James Baldwin urging you to “go and question and make art.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #229.

You can read Shawna’s essay in Superstition Review Issue 17, and hear her read it aloud in last week’s podcast, #228.

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Author Jonathan Louis Duckworth

Cass Murphy

Jonathan Louis DuckworthToday we are pleased to feature author Jonathan Louis Duckworth as our thirty fourth Authors Talk series contributor. Jonathan gives a brief history of his family which inspired him to write “Chanson de Louis.” Then he talks about his writing process and his choice of form. He notes that his essay is mainly about celebrating turn arounds, as his grandfather was buried in a cellar for three days because of a wartime rocket strike, but survived to live a long, wonderful life.

For a long time, Jonathan wanted to write this family story. First he thought of writing it as a poem, but then he decided it would work better as a lyrical essay. He interviewed his mother to get the facts for his essay. He calls his essay a fable because “fables are a matter of identity” that are so important to people, that it doesn’t matter if it is entirely true of not. At the end of his essay, he writes fiction when his grandfather meets von Braun.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #227.

You can read Jonathan’s essay in Superstition Review Issue 17, and hear him read it aloud in last week’s podcast, #226.

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Poet Patricia Clark

Cass Murphy

Patricia Clark pictureToday we are pleased to feature poet Patricia Clark as our thirty third Authors Talk series contributor. Patricia titles her Authors Talk “Lessons in Composition and Freedom.” She has five points which she hopes will serve as pieces of advice to writers. Three points relate directly to her three poems in issue 17.

Her first point is that there is more than one way to write a poem; be open to new ways of preceding. Her second piece of advice is to not think too much, or don’t plan out the poem; she used this method when she composed her poem, “Treatise on the Double Self.” Thirdly, Patricia suggests trying new things, something you haven’t used before, perhaps rhyme. This relates to “Rowing American Lake,” where she used rhyme in the terza rima form. Trying new forms is Patricia’s fourth point. She recommends trying poetic forms as exercises, such as the ghazal form for her poem “Infidelities.” Lastly, she recommends to “write often, read even more.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #225.

You can read Patricia’s poems in Superstition Review Issue 17, and hear her read them aloud in last week’s podcast, #224.

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Poet and novelist Deborah Bogen

Cass Murphy

Deborah BogenToday we are pleased to feature poet, novelist, and SR contributor Deborah Bogen as our thirty second Authors Talk series contributor. Deborah addresses two points in her Authors Talk. The first point she explores is “some of the problems people are going to have when they enter a field that is, quite frankly, flooded.” The second point is “How do you connect with other writers?”

When MFA programs started, it seemed possible to have a teaching job in academia and also a be a writer. But so many people are graduating from MFA programs every year that it is no longer realistic to assume one can get a good academic job. Trying to help you “stay sane and stable during your writing career,” Deborah has three alternatives to having an academic job: take a day job, teach at a (private) high school, and find a job that needs good writers.

She says though “it’s hard to give up the desire – I can’t be the only one who has this – it’s hard to give up the desire for big time recognition,” it just isn’t going to happen for everyone. (Although she has some tips to help you find that coveted big time recognition.) Since every writer cannot be famous, she suggests investing in your local reading/writing community. Being part of a local writing community gives you the chance to meet other talented writers and get inspiration and new ideas.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #223.

Deborah has contributed to Superstition Review Issue 12, 10, and 4.

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Poet Hannah Lee Jones

Cass Murphy

Hannah Lee JonesToday we are pleased to feature poet Hannah Lee Jones as our thirty first Authors Talk series contributor.

Hannah discusses her poems in Issue 16 and the role of intuition in her writing; the goal that all her poems should surprise in some way. She defines the poem as an entity far more powerful than the reasoning mind, and which demands that the writer surrender to whatever larger thing the poem wants to become. The persistent hazard then in writing, she says, is to search for clarity or to pin a poem down into meaning something instead of regarding it as a creature separate from the self, with “a will of its own.” Drawing on Keats’ negative capability and Robert Bly’s “black side of the intelligence,” she embraces the innate hiddenness of a poem’s making, adding that what matters most to her is not how authors write, but why. She shares her own reasons – pain and love – universal emotions she tries to approach from “a space just beyond this world,” to offer the reader a bridge from the physical world to the unconscious.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #222.

You can read Hannah’s poems in Superstition Review Issue 16, and hear her read them aloud in podcast #213.