Authors Talk

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Author Megan Harlan

Cass Murphy

Megan HarlanToday we are pleased to feature author Megan Harlan as our thirtieth Authors Talk series contributor. Megan discusses the difference between creative nonfiction and fiction, and why she is drawn to writing creative nonfiction – despite it being a “poorly named genre.”

Creative nonfiction is narrative writing based on reality, on facts. Due to the genre’s name, it seems that the creative part might be lying. This isn’t the case, Megan argues, as she says “With creative nonfiction, once you get past your own personal fact checking department, the truth becomes the grounding element for any structure you want to build.” The process of building a structure from the truth is the creative part.

Fiction, on the other hand, is often largely built around a made-up hero’s journey. Creative nonfiction doesn’t have to be causal, based on a hero, or have an arc – unlike classically structured fiction. Calling to mind Oscar Wilde, “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Like reality, creative nonfiction is not simple or straightforward, but filled with the challenges and possibilities of expressing the truth as we experience it.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #221.

You can read Megan’s nonfiction essay in Superstition Review Issue 17, and hear her read it aloud in last week’s podcast, #220.

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Poet Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Cass Murphy

Luiza Flynn-GoodlettToday we are pleased to feature poet Luiza Flynn-Goodlett as our twenty-ninth Authors Talk series contributor. Luiza mentions how her poems – including the three poems in Issue 17 – are a way for her to interact with existing, dominant narratives. She realizes she changes as a person, and her poems exist in an eternal state of becoming. She goes into detail about each of the three poems in Issue 17.

Luiza sees poetry as a way to talk back to supposed ‘fact’ and complicate assumptions around history, scientific thought, and individual experience. While some of her poems are confessional, others focus on experiences that are not hers, noting that “writers are all thieves.” Poetry is important because it makes the poet “able to speak into a fraught void.” After discussing her poems and who she is at the moment, Luiza provides a reading list of books that have shaped her and her poetry.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, # 219.

You can read Luiza’s poems in Superstition Review Issue 17, or hear her read them aloud in last week’s podcast, # 218.

 

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Poet Stevie Edwards

Cass Murphy

Stevie EdwardsToday we are pleased to feature poet Stevie Edwards as our twenty-eighth Authors Talk series contributor. Stevie mentions how her four poems in Issue 17 all have distinct voices, noting that it has often been remarked that her poems are “very voice driven.”

Stevie discusses what voice is in a poem, and how voice is achieved. Vision is inextricably bound to voice, she observes, as she says “In many ways, our speakers are what they notice.”

Throughout this podcast, Stevie gives invaluable advice to poets. “You don’t have to do much of anything other than be present and mindful for a moment to create a poem that might change someone’s life,” she says. Giving your unique point of view is the best way to create voice in a poem; as she encourages us to say “I am a fucking special snowflake – nobody knows the full shape of my voice.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #217.

You can read Stevie’s poems in Superstition Review Issue 17, and hear her read them aloud in last week’s podcast, #216.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Poet Lucinda Roy

Cass Murphy

Lucinda RoyToday, we continue to celebrate the launch of Issue 17. We’re proud to feature Lucinda Roy as our twenty-seventh Authors Talk series contributor and our second from Issue 17, discussing her poem “Narrative Arcs in Hindsight.”

In the podcast, she speaks about the genesis of the poem; the content, such as having worked with the Virginia Tech shooter, and “what we do with art in the face of tragedy.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #214.

You can read Lucinda’s “Narrative Arcs in Hindsight” in Superstition Review Issue 17.

 

More About the Author:
Lucinda Roy’s publications include the poetry collections The Humming Birds (winner of the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize), and Wailing the Dead to Sleep; the novels Lady Moses and The Hotel Alleluia; and a memoir-critique, No Right to Remain Silent: What We’ve Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including North American Review, American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Callaloo, Measure, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and River Styx. She is an Alumni Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at Virginia Tech, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry in the MFA program.

SR Pod/Vod Series: Author Lee Upton

Cass Murphy

Lee UptonToday we’re celebrating the launch of Issue 17 with our first Issue 17 Authors Talk. We’re proud to feature Lee Upton as our twenty-sixth series contributor, discussing her story “After the Party.”

It’s a concise and insight-packed podcast covering the dialogue and “language games” of the characters, the subtext of the story’s dialogue, and the composition and revision of the story itself.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #213.

You can read Lee’s story in Superstition Review, Issue 17.

More About the Author:
Lee Upton is the author of books of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism. Her most recent books are Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center (2015), and The Tao of Humiliation: Stories from BOA Editions (2014).

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established 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 – Authors Talk: Author Sue William Silverman

Cass Murphy

Sue William SilvermanToday we’re proud to feature Sue Silverman as our twenty-fifth Authors Talk series contributor, discussing how she crafted the narrative voices in her Issue 16 nonfiction piece “Death Comes for the Poet” and in her three memoirs.

Sue begins by explaining not only “the importance of choosing the right voice for any given piece of writing,” but how voice is “central to its conception.”

“The challenge for any writer is to discover the voice of the piece at hand, depending upon whatever it is that needs to be conveyed,” she says. It’s just one of many illustrations of an insight-packed podcast that pulls together formative life experiences with craft, firmly positioning the latter as a dynamic vehicle of art.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #212.

You can read Sue’s nonfiction piece “Death Comes for the Poet” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and see her read it aloud in SR vodcast #211.

 

More About the Author:

Sue William Silverman is the author of three memoirs: The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew was a finalist in Foreword Reviews’ 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Award; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You won the AWP Award in Creative Nonfiction; and Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction is also a Lifetime TV original movie. Her craft book is Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir, and her poetry collection is Hieroglyphics in Neon. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. www.SueWilliamSilverman.com.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established 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 – Authors Talk: Author James McAdams

Cass Murphy

James McAdamsToday we’re proud to feature James McAdams as our twenty-fourth Authors Talk series contributor.
As James so succinctly puts it, this Talk encompasses “a few things I find very promising and distressing about writing and publishing in the year 2016.”

These things include:
–the steadily decreasing word count max on internet publications, and how this shifts stories and their aesthetics;
–flashy lead sentences vs starting out slow, and the challenges of getting published while keeping artistic vision;
–and how art impacts technology generally – which, as James so rightly notes, is the way it’s always been.

His is a smart, necessary conversation, and especially interesting to consider through the lens of online literary magazines like SR. As one illustration of the depth of this Talk, there were more quotes than usual that couldn’t fit in this introduction, all of them articulate, clever, and representative of the flavor of the whole podcast. As another illustration, the following lines describe some of the issues James speaks about with typical thoughtful consideration:

“There’s literally so much amazing writing being published out there that we can’t read it all; we literally don’t have the time, and it’s anxiety-inducing to think about all the great stories and magazines and multimedia installations on the web that I’d love to know about…. And this makes me feel guilty about saying, ‘you should, out of this vast library, select my story to spend your precious time on.’”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #210.

You can read James’s story “Nobody’s Children” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to him read it aloud in SR podcast #209.

 

More About the Author:
James McAdams has published fiction in decomP, Literary Orphans, One Throne Magazine, TINGE Magazine, Carbon Culture Review, per contra, and B.O.A.A.T. Press, among others. Before attending college, he worked as a social worker in the mental health industry near Philadelphia. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Lehigh University, where he also teaches and edits the university’s literary journal, Amaranth.

 

About the Authors Talk series:
For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established 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 – Authors Talk: Author Rena Lesué-Smithey

Cass Murphy

Today we’re proud to feature Rena Lesué-Smithey as our twenty-third Authors Talk series contributor, taking viewers behind-the-scenes of her own writing process in her vodcast “Keep Calm and Chew Gum.”

The vodcast opens with an examination of nonfiction writing, which Rena says incorporates “the moments in your life that haven’t faded,” and which may benefit both the writer and the reader. She then runs the gamut of situations that she and other writers often face while writing, exploring each methodically yet lightheartedly. She talks about regular “brain dumping” into a journal, the importance of tuning out distractions, and her dog Spike. She covers the stage she finds herself in her own writing career, an MFA program from which she gathers valuable feedback about her work, and jokes about stress gum-chewing: “I didn’t even realize that was a part of my process until I started making this podcast.”

Rena’s vodcast is a thoughtful exploration of the world in which a writer works, a topic that becomes richer with every participant.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #208.

You can read Rena’s nonfiction piece “The Passenger” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in SR podcast #207.

 

More About the Author:
Rena Lesué-Smithey teaches high school English and youth writing camps at BYU. In 2011, she was a Central Utah Writing Project fellow and editor for the Utah English Journal. She has five years of experience as a journalist, including three as a correspondent for The Daily Herald, and this summer she’ll finish her MFA in Creative Nonfiction through Cedar Crest College’s pan-European program. Her prose has appeared in Touchstones, Warp & Weave, Segullah, Ruminate, and Gris-Gris. Rena was a semi-finalist for the 2016 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and a finalist in the 2015 Heather Campbell Prose Contest. Rena grew up in Texas, Nevada, Missouri, and Mississippi and now resides in Utah with her husband, two kids, and their dog, Spike.

About the Authors Talk series:
For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established 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 – Authors Talk: Author Darrin Doyle

Cass Murphy

Darrin DoyleToday we’re proud to feature Darrin Doyle as our twenty-second Authors Talk series contributor, discussing his story “Big Winner” in his podcast “Better in a Character.”

It’s a detailed and thoughtful discussion from start to finish, kicking off with a smart deviation of a recognizable concept – “This story began as a lot of my pieces do, with an opening line…and that opening line now is deleted forever, but it was enough to get me into the story.” – and concluding by twisting writers’ perception of what makes an interesting character: “in some ways, a character not changing can be as compelling as a character undergoing a change.”

In between, Darrin explores the other elements of his story that stayed in, including “characters who aren’t warm and fuzzy” and the writing techniques and influences he used to create, as he puts it, a believable fairy tale. Then there’s the humorous, true, and frightening premise that the story hinges on, that “an older woman who is set in her ways can create some conflict.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #206.

You can read “Big Winner” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to Darrin read it aloud in SR podcast #204 or #205 (to play #204, ‘get’ and access in My iTunes U).

 

More About the Author:
Darrin Doyle’s most recent book is the story collection, The Dark Will End the Dark (Tortoise Books). He is the author of the novels The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo (St. Martin’s Press) and Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet: A Love Story (LSU Press). He lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan and teaches at Central Michigan University.

 

About the Authors Talk series:
For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established 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 – Authors Talk: Author Brianna Bjarnson

Cass Murphy

Brianna BjarnsonToday we’re proud to feature SR contributor Brianna Bjarnson as our twenty-first Authors Talk series contributor with her podcast “Writing the Human.” In it, she discusses her non-fiction piece “Gone” and touches on writing “as a process, craft, and compulsion.”

Brianna’s Authors Talk covers these things with great breadth and purpose. She begins by addressing the importance of being read to as a child, through which she herself “discovered the world of stories.”

She then discusses her process behind writing “Gone,” and shares her philosophies on writing to discover and getting “at the heart of what it is to be human.”
“I think that any writing you do no matter the genre – even if you come to it with a plan – it should change somehow and end up surprising you, or it probably isn’t any good.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #203.

 

You can read Brianna Bjarnson’s nonfiction piece “Gone” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in SR podcast #202.

 

More About the Author:
Brianna Bjarnson is a multi-genre writer whose childhood daydreaming once caused a frustrated, second-grade teacher to bite her. Since then, she has better learned how to positively channel her overactive imagination. Brianna teaches and tutors writing in the alluring San Francisco North Bay, where she enjoys getting lost in the woods with her dog.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established 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.