Contributor Update, Paisley Rekdal

Join Superstition Review in congratulating past contributor Paisley Rekdal on her forthcoming book, Appropriate A Provocation, which will be released on February 16th. The book explores the concept of appropriation, as well as, the questions: “How do we properly define cultural appropriation, and is it always wrong? If we can write in the voice of another, should we? And if so, what questions do we need to consider first?” Paisley, in the novel, “addresses a young writer to delineate how the idea of cultural appropriation has evolved—and perhaps calcified—in our political climate. What follows is a penetrating exploration of fluctuating literary power and authorial privilege, of whiteness and what we really mean by the term empathy, that examines writers from William Styron to Peter Ho Davies to Jeanine Cummins.”

“Anyone who wishes to understand appropriation, and not just react to it, should read this book. Paisley Rekdal brings years of teaching, writing, and critical thinking to this subject, with literary analyses, historical and theoretical frameworks, and practical advice. Appropriate is a book of immense wisdom and clarity, sure to become required reading for writers everywhere.”

—Beth Bich Minh Nguyen, author of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner

Click here to pre-order Appropriate A Provocation. Be sure to also check out Paisley’s website and Twitter, as well as, our interview with her from Issue 19 and her past Authors Talk.

Authors Talk: Meriwether Clarke

Meriwether ClarkeToday we are pleased to feature author Meriwether Clarke as our Authors Talk series contributor. Meriwether discusses the way that all three of her poems from Issue 18 focus on female shame. She reveals that she likes to think about her poems “as something that can potentially help a reader question the dominant narrative our society tells.”

Meriwether also discusses our current political climate, and she explains how she has been “looking for solace in books more than she has in quite some time.”  She then shares the words of both James Baldwin and Robert Hass to convey the responsibility of a writer. She notes how poetry asks questions and exposes us to discomfort, which is crucial at this time in history. Meriwether ends by saying that literature is “a means to ask the seemingly un-askable and learn the seemingly un-learnable.”

You can access Meriwether’s poetry in Issue 18 of Superstition Review.