journalism

Meet the Interns: Heidi Nielson, Fiction Editor

Superstition Review

heidinielson_0Heidi Nielson is pursuing concurrent degrees in English (Creative Writing) and Journalism (Digital Journalism), as well as a minor in Music.

Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?

Heidi Nielson: As a fiction editor, I send solicitations to authors for work, as well as for interviews, read, discuss, and decide on submissions along with Riki, and conduct at least one interview with an author.

SR: How did you hear about SR?

HN: I first heard about the internship while I was interning at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, working with Hayden’s Ferry Review. Shortly thereafter, I volunteered at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers’ Conference at ASU and was able to attend a class on literary journals that Patricia Murphy was teaching, and met with her after the class ended. During the last issue, I helped with the blog, though I wasn’t officially an intern. I’m very excited to be an intern this semester.

SR: What is your favorite section of SR and why?

HN: As a fiction writer, I tend to gravitate toward the fiction section of any journal first. I am an avid reader, as well as a writer. I feel like I learn the most about writing fiction from reading the work of more experienced and talented writers, like those in Superstition Review.

SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal?

HN: My dream contributor would probably be Jhumpa Lahiri. Her prose is beautiful, and I admire the way that she is able to immerse her readers in Bengali culture.

SR: What job would you like to try out?

HN: Probably blogger. I really enjoy social media and had a lot of fun when I helped with the blog during the last issue.

SR: What are you most excited for?

HN: I would say that I am most excited to just read submissions. We are writing to so many amazing writers this semester to request work.

SR: What is the first book you remember falling in love with?

HN: I think the first book I fell in love with was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. What made that book so compelling to me as a child, I think, was that their family felt so similar to my own. I come from a family of six girls, and one boy, and the personalities of myself and the three sisters closest to me in age, always seemed so similar to the four sisters in Little Women.

SR: What are you currently reading?

HN: I’m currently reading a compilation of T.C. Boyle’s short stories, entitled simply, Stories.

SR: What are your favorite websites to distract you from homework?

HN: I noticed that most people were saying Facebook, and I can’t deny that I do check it more than once a day, but I think the website that usually distracts me from homework the most is etsy.com. It’s a website of handmade or vintage items, and I can just spend hours browsing through the thousands of items. I also get distracted by my Google Reader. I subscribe to about 50 blogs, and so I’m almost constantly reading posts.

SR: Do you write? Tell us about a project you are working on.

HN: I write fiction, mainly short stories. I have been working on revisions of two stories I wrote for my fiction class last year since the last ended, and I’m on my sixth drafts of both.

Meet the Interns: Sean Carstensen, Prose Team Manager

Superstition Review

seancarstensen_0Senior English Literature Major Sean Carstensen is the Prose Team Manager for Superstition Review.

Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?

Sean Carstensen: It’s my responsibility to function as a liaison between the prose editors and management of SR. The Prose team as a whole is responsible for selecting the works to be published in the upcoming issue; my role in the team is to keep sight of the larger picture and assist the prose editors in any way I can while simultaneously working to streamline communication within the SR team.

SR: How did you hear about or get involved with Superstition Review?

SC: I found out about Superstition Review through an English Department email encouraging students to apply for the internship. It sounded like something I would be interested in, so I applied and decided to take a summer course which would prepare me for a management position in the Fall 2009 issue. Being involved in publishing a literary journal was more appealing to me than the traditional types of internships.

SR: What is your favorite section of SR? Why?

SC: My favorite section of SR would have to be the poetry. The density of meaning and ambiguity of the poems is what separates them from prose: I can read a fiction/nonfiction piece once through and feel as though I have a solid idea of the message; poems are completely different. The first read through a poem familiarizes me with the meter and structure, but the meaning often remains uncertain and ambiguous even after several reads.

SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal? Talk about him/her.

SC: I feel like Stephen King would be an extremely interesting interview. After reading previous interviews, I would want to ask him about his writing process because it sounds different from traditional methods which emphasis planning and structure; King incorporates a degree of spontaneity and oftentimes does not know how his main plot conflicts will be resolved.

SR: What job, other than your own, would you like to try out in the journal?

SC: Blogging has always been something I’d like to try out and I think that it would be exciting to be responsible for an ongoing blog about Superstition Review. I think that a lot of potential readers will first find out about SR through the blog, and I believe that maintaining the page would be an intriguing combination of journalism and marketing.

SR: What are you most excited for in the upcoming issue?

SC: I’m really hoping to discover some new writers through the open submissions. I know that we’ll receive quality work from the solicited submissions, but I would be thrilled to see some unsolicited work make its way into the final issue as well.

SR: What was the first book you remember falling in love with and what made it so special?

SC: One day my fourth grade teacher started reading us a book called The Phantom Tollbooth and I was absolutely transfixed. Later that day I happened to see the same book in my older brother’s room, so I stole it and proceeded to finish the entire thing. The mash up of wordplay, riddles and rhymes in the story of a boy named Milo were completely overwhelming and unlike anything I had seen before.

SR: What artist have you really connected with, either in subject matter, work, or motto?

SC: I would have to say Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray was an eye opening read, but it’s really Wilde’s criticism that I connect with: the notion that an observer deduces meaning from art by contributing part of their self to the work was new to me.

SR: What would be your dream class to take at ASU? What would the title be and what would it cover?

SC: A class on Aleister Crowley–I’ve read some less than complementary things about him, but have never actually read any of his work. I believe someone once called him “the wickedest man in the world” and I would be interested to see what a writer has to say to earn such harsh criticism.

SR: Do you write? Tell us about a project you’re working on.

SC: I have recently reconnected with three of my old friends from high school and we’re trying to start mailing a journal between the four of us; we’ll be able to reflect on how much has changed in four years while staying touch with one another in a unique fashion.

Meet the Interns: Kellie Parisek, Poetry & Art Manager

Superstition Review

kellieparisek_0Poetry and Art team manager, Kellie Parisek, is a senior at Arizona State University majoring in English Literature.

Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?

Kellie Parisek: I help plan tasks for the art and poetry editors and set deadlines.

SR: How did you hear about or get involved with Superstition Review?

KP: A professor told the class about it and I wrote an article for The State Press about the magazine before applying for the internship.

SR: What is your favorite section of SR? Why?

KP: I like the poetry section because I love reading new expressions of thought from so many different people who have so many different points of view.

SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal?

KP: I think Nicole Dunlap does an amazing job.

SR: What job, other than your own, would you like to try out in the journal?

KP: I think it would be an wonderful opportunity to give editing a try.

SR: What are you most excited for in the upcoming issue?

KP: I am most excited to see the intern’s work who I am working with pay off.

SR: What was the first book you remember falling in love with and what made it so special?

KP: I remember reading the book, Star Girl as a child. I loved that book because I felt like I kind of related to the main character and it became personable to me.

SR: What are you currently reading?

KP: My text books.

SR: What are some of your favorite websites to waste time on or distract you from homework?

KP: My blog and my friend’s blogs.

SR: What would be your dream class to take at ASU? What would the title be and what would it cover?

KP: I would love to take a journalism class at ASU. I took one at another school but I would like to see how different ASU was versus my other school and what new insights I would gain from taking it at ASU.