Authors Talk

SR Pod/Vod Series – Author Talk: Poet Laurie Filipelli

Cass Murphy

laurie-filipelli-bw-600Laurie SToday we’re proud to feature SR poetry contributor Laurie Filipelli and poet Laurie Saurborn in the twentieth installment of our Authors Talk series.

Fittingly, their podcast “’Potalk’ with Lauries: Memory and Nostalgia in Poetry” returns again and again to the idea of using memories as building blocks to create something new. This includes what, why, and how we remember, and also how these can be used to create art. In one instance, the Lauries laugh about the potential of getting confused by the embellished bedtime stories parents tell their children.  In another, Laurie Filipelli talks about her poem “Warrior” and the emotional connection to her father, a former POW – simultaneously recalling an earlier conversational thread about how “whether the memory is factual or imagined, it’s the emotional resonance of whatever our earlier experiences were” that influence us today.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #201.

You can read Laurie Filipelli’s poem “Warrior” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in podcast #200.

 

More About the Authors:

Laurie Filipelli is the author of a collection of poems, Elseplace, released by BrooklynArts Press in 2013. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming at apt, BOAAT, Coldfront, The Pinch, Redheaded Stepchild, The Rumpus, Salamander, So and So, and Xavier Review. She is the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship, and lives in Austin where she works as a writer, editor, and writing coach.

Laurie Saurborn is the author of two poetry collections, Industry of Brief Distraction (Saturnalia Books, 2015) and Carnavoria (H_NGM_N BKS, 2012), and a limited-edition chapbook, Patriot (Forklift, Ink.). A 2015 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship recipient, she is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her poetry, fiction, essays, photographs, and reviews have appeared in publications such as American Microreviews & Interviews, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Mississippi Review, Narrative Magazine, The American Reader, The Rumpus, and Tupelo Quarterly. She has been awarded residencies at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and Madroño Ranch: A Center for Writing, Art, and the Environment. Laurie teaches creative writing at the University of Texas, Austin, where she also directs the undergraduate creative writing program. (Pictured right. Photo credit Patti James.)

 

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: Poet Trina Young

Cass Murphy

Trina Young2Today, we’re proud to feature SR contributor Trina Young as our nineteenth Authors Talk series contributor with her podcast “Never Forget the Basics.”

‘The basics,’ those ever-elusive things about which creative writing students are accustomed to hearing, encouraged to practice, and – speaking from personal experience – eager to upgrade. They’re something Trina wants to remind us of as we aspire to new sets of skills, leave the classroom, and strike out on our own.

Trina explains, “I was speaking to young writers like myself who may have hit a rough patch in their process, and many of the tips I had were the things you seem to learn early on in writing and are essential, but perhaps can be forgotten or not practiced enough.”

She hopes the truth of the titular sentiment will resonate with listeners, and speaking from personal experience (again), I’ll say it definitely does.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #199.

You can read “The Body” in Superstition Review Issue 15, and listen to Trina Young read it aloud in podcast #155.

 

More About the Author:

Trina Young is a graduate from DePaul University with a passion for many kinds of writing. She was one of the winners of the Pegasus Young Playwrights competition in 2010, and has had one poem published by Afterimage Online’s Inklight gallery. She recently received the honor of placing third as a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award Winner in the Illinois Emerging Writers Competition. She continues to submit to journals in order to build her credits and be included among many other talented people. She currently writes for Blavity, a site for black millennials to fight the stereotypes against them, and is pursuing a career in television writing as well. She lives in Chicago, IL.

 

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 Luke Muyskens

Cass Murphy

Luke MuyskensToday, we’re proud to feature SR contributor Luke Muyskens as our eighteenth Authors Talk series contributor with his interview-style podcast “Discussing Knock-Out Drum.”

“When my friend told me this story, I thought immediately, ‘that’s something that needs to be told; that’s something that I need to write about, because if I don’t, it’s just another story that’s going to disappear into the ether,’” Luke says in his podcast regarding the origins of his fictional story.

Unfortunately, the premise is real: An oil rig hand in North Dakota actually faced harassment at the hand of his co-workers for being gay. It’s a fact that makes “Knock-Out Drum” even more haunting. Luke’s discussion on its writing is similarly grounded, touching on the need to fictionalize events and characters as well as the responsibility he felt to the true story and the real people who became his characters.

But as Luke notes, his story is about more than a character’s sexual orientation. It’s about the challenge of not fitting it, the “clashes between who we were – who we’re going to be – as individuals, and as a collective whole.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read “Knock-Out Drum” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to Luke read it aloud in SR podcast #197.

 

More About the Author:

Luke Muyskens’ fiction, poetry, and humor has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Digital Americana, and One Throne Magazine. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, though he now resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is pursuing an MFA through Queens University of Charlotte, and earned a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s 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 Jon Pearson

Cass Murphy

Jon PearsonToday we’re proud to feature Jon Pearson as our seventeenth Authors Talk series contributor, sharing his thoughts on harnessing creativity in his podcast, “Our Minds All Have Giant Backyards.”

Nothing kills creativity more than the desire to do well, Jon says in his Authors Talk podcast, adding “talent wants to know what the rules are so it can succeed. Genius wants to know what the rules are so it can break them and shoot for the stars.” But his advice is more complex than ‘throw all the rules away and start over:’ he’s fond of imagery in particular, and encourages writers to be polishers rather than editors.

The repeated idea of an “eternal Saturday that is at the heart of powerful writing” conjures up a number of situations common to artists of any medium. It’s representative of an Authors Talk that examines what it means to be a creative person, and the mindset in which art flourishes.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #196.

You can read Jon’s story “Saturday” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to him read it aloud in SR podcast #195.

 

More About the Author:

Jon Pearson is a writer, speaker, artist, and creative thinking consultant. He was nominated for a 2014 Pushcart Prize and a 2014 Million Writers Award and his work has appeared in Barely South Review, Barnstorm, Carve, The Citron Review, Crack the Spine, Critical Pass Review, Cultural Weekly, Existere, Faultline, Fiction Fix, Lake Effect, Penmen Review, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Reed Magazine, Shark Reef, Sou’wester, Tower Journal, West Wind Review, and Wild Violet. Jon writes now for the same reason he played with his food as a kid: to make the world a better place. Feel free to contact Jon at jonstuartpearson@gmail.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 Adrianne Kalfopoulou

Cass Murphy

Today we’re proud to feature Adrianne Kalfopoulou as our sixteenth Authors Talk series contributor, sharing the process behind writing her nonfiction essay “The Journey Where” in her podcast “Travelers.”

The search for belonging is a major theme that Adrianne discusses in her work, as well as being mindful of its greater context. “What I’m working on becomes a part of something outside of the space of the text itself,” she says, tying themes of travel and the open sea to Homer’s Odysseus and the current Middle Eastern refugee crisis.

The “kind of clash between world views and points of reference has often fascinated me, both personally in terms of my own kind of microcosm, but also how that connects with larger, more existentialist questions having to do with what people are willing to risk for greater freedoms that are never guaranteed.”

Adrianne’s podcast is a thoughtful discussion on the ideas present in a writer’s work and the world. 
You can listen to it on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Adrianne’s essay “The Journey Where” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in SR podcast #193. She has also been published in Issue 9.

 

More About the Author:

Adrianne Kalfopoulou lives and teaches in Athens, Greece. Her most recent publication is Ruin, Essays in Exilic Living (Red Hen Press 2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in online and print journals including Hotel Amerika, The Harvard Review, WORDPEACE, and Superstition Review. She occasionally blogs on Greece, and is the Writing Program Director at Deree College in Athens.  adrianne kalfopoulou’s website

 

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 Cathy Krizik

Cass Murphy

CathyKrizikHeadshot_BW_SquareToday we’re proud to feature Cathy Krizik as our fifteenth Authors Talk series contributor, sharing her thoughts on her writing process in her vodcast “Writing is Easy. Writing Well is Hard.”

“First Drafts are an Embarrassment” is the secondary title for this vodcast because, according to Cathy, “just because you can type doesn’t mean you can write.” Indeed, one of the topics she addresses is the role of the writer as editor, and it’s not just a nod to the importance of fine-tuning. Rather it’s a celebration of its “joy.”

Take, for example, the fluidity of paragraphs; how it really takes until the ending of a paragraph to even know what you’re saying, and that this ending frequently becomes the top (incidentally, exactly what happened to this much-shuffled blog post). And writing isn’t without its sadnesses, one of which Cathy summarizes as “falling in love with sentences, and oh, they’re so brilliant, but you gotta let them go in service to the story. Just put them in that word cemetery that is the most beautiful, saddest place on the planet.”

A kind of writer’s video blog about best practices and personal challenges, Cathy’s vodcast juxtaposes advice with personal examples to cover most of the ins and outs of a writer’s life. 
You can watch it on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Cathy’s essay “Prairie of the Mind” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in podcast #191, also on the SR iTunes Channel.

 

More About the Author:

Cathy Krizik has been published in The Penmen Review and The Prague Post. When she’s not making a living as a magazine art director and career counselor, she’s writing—an adventure she wishes had begun before menopause. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA with her wife and two cats because you can’t be a lesbian without owning cats.  cathy krizik’s website

 

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: Author Lori Jakiela

Cass Murphy

Lori JakielaToday we’re proud to feature Lori Jakiela as our fourteenth Authors Talk series contributor, reading her essay “Vox Humana” for her podcast episode entitled, “No Such Thing as an Ordinary Life: What Studs Terkel Taught Me About Being a Writer.”

“I believed that my life was too ordinary, too small to be worthy of art,” Lori explains in reference to an eighteen-year-old self and much-younger worldview. It would soon be challenged by an encounter with the famous historian Studs Terkel, whose abilities as a writer Lori seamlessly links to his genuine interest in people’s lives. Listening to her speak about the influence Studs had on her development – both as a writer and as a person – brings to mind the importance of having mentors and idols, and of allowing them to change you. Perhaps most importantly, it reminds us of the importance of having curiosity about all people, and appreciating their varied roles in art.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Lori Jakiela’s work in Superstition Review, Issue 12 and Issue 6.

 

More About the Author:

Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoirs Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Atticus Books), Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette) and The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious (C&R Press), as well as the poetry collection Spot the Terrorist (Turning Point) and several limited-edition poetry chapbooks. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Rumpus, Brevity, Superstition Review and more. Her essays have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize many times, and she received the 2015 City of Asylum Pittsburgh Prize, which sent her to Brussels, Belgium on a month-long writing residency. She has also received a Golden Quill Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, was a working-scholar at The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.

She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, the writer Dave Newman, and their children. A former flight attendant and journalist, she now teaches in the writing programs at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and Chatham University, and is a co-director of Chautauqua Institution’s Summer Writing Festival. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net.

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: Author Jonathan Danielson

Cass Murphy

Jonathan Danielson_headshot1.jpg_0Today we’re proud to feature Jonathan Danielson as our thirteenth Authors Talk series contributor, discussing the writing of his essay “iTunes Playlist to Get You Through a Miscarriage.”

A scholarly approach to this craft talk “would be a disservice to the process of this essay’s construction,” Jonathan says early in his podcast. This idea perfectly mirrors the theme of the writer organically discovering his/her own answers that occurs both throughout Jonathan’s craft talk and in the emotionally-charged “iTunes Playlist to Get You Through a Miscarriage.”Both are reminders and illustrations of the potential of allowing writing to naturally reflect the experiences one has had.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Jonathan Danielson’s essay in Superstition Review, Issue 15.

 

More About the Author:

Jonathan Danielson is a frequent contributor to the Feathertale Review, and his work has been published by The Saturday Evening Post, Juked, Superstition Review, Southern California Review, Five Quarterly, Monday Night, and others. He teaches writing for Arizona State University, fiction for The Eckleburg Workshops, and serves as Assistant Fiction Editor for Able Muse. You can follow Jonathan on Twitter at JonathanIn2k.

 

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: Deborah Bogen

Cass Murphy

Deborah-Bogen_portrait-11_for-internet-copy-21Today we’re proud to feature Deborah Bogen as our twelfth Authors Talk series contributor, discussing common misconceptions about writing in her podcast “The Writing Project.”

What it takes to write is something that might torment the minds of many an aspiring writer, or even established writers who ought to know better. In SR’s first podcast of the new year, Deborah Bogen talks about the ideas that she used to have in the beginning of her own writing career, and smartly counters them with a blend of reality and humor. Flimsy excuses such as being too old, young, or broke; mandatory time commitment thresholds one must reach; and what “real” writing entails are just some examples. As Deborah says, it’s about “what has worked or hasn’t worked for our own making of word art.”

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’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: Writer Daisy Hernandez

Leah Newsom

Today we’re proud to feature Daisy Hernandez as our eleventh Authors Talk series contributor.

This interview with Daisy Hernandez was conducted in person at the Nonfiction Now conference in Flagstaff, Arizona by Interview Editor Leah Newsom. Of the process she said, “Daisy’s memoir, A Cup of Water Under My Bed is engaging and intelligent. I am so fortunate to have had to opportunity to talk to her about it, as it is a very necessary piece of writing.” In this interview, Daisy talks about the role of memory in nonfiction, the role of sharing stories via social media, and the potential concern of writing about other people.

You can download the video on our iTunes Channel.

You can read Daisy Hernandez’s interview in Superstition Review, Issue 16.

 

More About the Author:

Daisy Hernández is the author of A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir and coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. She has written for The Atlantic, ColorLines, The New York Times, and NPR’s All Things Considered and CodeSwitch, and her essays have been published in the Bellingham Review, Dogwood, Fourth Genre, Gulf Coast, and Hunger Mountain. She teaches creative writing at Miami University in Ohio. To see more of her work, visit www.daisyhernandez.com.

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.