by WaterStone Review | May 5, 2020 | blog: all
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Jeremy Griffin Tell us about your fiction piece “Where Strays Might Find Comfort” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? My wife and son and I live in South Carolina. Behind our house is a small duck pond, and...
by WaterStone Review | Apr 21, 2020 | blog: all
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Michelle Bonczek Evory Tell us about your poem “Becoming American” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I was lucky to grow up less than a mile away from both sets of my grandparents. I saw them all the time;...
by WaterStone Review | Apr 6, 2020 | blog: all
In the Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–April Gibson Tell us about your poem “Coldwater” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I wrote the first draft of this poem in 2014 during my time in the Loft Mentor Series. We were having a workshop with one of...
by WaterStone Review | Mar 23, 2020 | blog: all
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Marlin Barton Tell us about your fiction piece “Reading Aloud” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? Just as the character in the story does, I read to my mother when she was in a nursing home for the better part...
by WaterStone Review | Mar 9, 2020 | blog: all
In the Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Bernard Ferguson Tell us about your poem “The Weekend” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? It came, firstly, as a response to SZA’s song “The Weekend,” leaking like syrup into my ear, on repeat, for what felt...
by WaterStone Review | Mar 1, 2020 | blog: all
AWP 2020: Giddy Up, San Antonio! It’s that time of year again when we all start to prep and plan out the most important thing about AWP—our conference clothes! I’m kidding of course, but it’s no secret that the stakes can feel high about what to wear at the biggest...
by WaterStone Review | Feb 10, 2020 | blog: all
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Laura Theobald Benda Tell us about your CNF piece “The Coward” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? This piece actually began 10 years ago, during the Hamline summer writing workshop. The visiting professor asked...
by WaterStone Review | Jan 27, 2020 | blog: all
In the Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Alexander Zitzner Tell us about your poem “Some Exorcisms That Lead Away from Forgetting” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I have two memories of this poem in its early stages. One being that I was able to...
by WaterStone Review | Jan 13, 2020 | blog: all
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–G.Bernhard Smith Tell us about your fiction piece “Bliss” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I have friends who own a boat. It is docked near the Raspberry Island Bandshell, a spot where many outdoor weddings...
by WaterStone Review | Dec 30, 2019 | blog: all
Tell us about your poem “My Black Boy Dead” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? “My Black Boy Dead” emerged from a kind of haunting. Although the poem resonates with recent anti-black violence, it came from a state of emergency in my youth. I grew up in Detroit...
by WaterStone Review | Dec 16, 2019 | blog: all
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Cherene Sherrard Tell us about your CNF piece “Isle of Refuge” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? A few years ago, I was in Bermuda over spring break researching the life of Mary Prince, an abolitionist from...
by WaterStone Review | Dec 3, 2019 | blog: all
1. Tell us about your fiction piece “Jim” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I had a short story collection that was evolving for years and finally it evolved into a cesspool of a novel. I knew it was, and so I ended up revising it, but that’s one of the pieces...
by WaterStone Review | Nov 18, 2019 | blog: all
Tell us about your poem “Mother” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I came across Warsan Shire’s epigraph from her poem “The House” that I used in my poem “Mother” via an AFREADA x Africa Writes Competition in which we were asked to use her line “Mother says there...
by WaterStone Review | Nov 7, 2019 | blog: all
Tell us about your poem “Run the Jewels” in Volume 22. How did it come to be? I had read, several times, of the horrific lynching of Chinese in Los Angeles in 1871, but was surprised that there was so little awareness of it in the American consciousness. In a way,...
by WaterStone Review | Oct 22, 2019 | blog: all
In The Field is a blog series devoted to highlighting the writing life and artistic process of our contributors. This week we continue with our series now featuring contributors from our most recent issue, Vo. 22 “Tending to Fires”. Vol. 22 is now available for...
by WaterStone Review | Sep 30, 2019 | blog: all
For twenty two years, Water~Stone Review has been a collaborative passion project of students, faculty, and staff. For our next issue, we are bringing a new team member to the process with hope of expanding our chorus of voices in our pages as well as our reach and...
by WaterStone Review | Sep 19, 2019 | blog: all
Reviewed by ROBYN EARHART (Much gratitude to Milkweed Editions for sending me an early copy of Su’s work to review.) Su Hwang is a bit of a legend in the Twin Cities literary community. Poetry Asylum cofounder, recipient of the inaugural Jerome Hill Fellowship in...
by WaterStone Review | Sep 9, 2019 | blog: all
1. Tell us about your poem in Volume 21, “The Price of Rice.” How did it come to be? Back when I was putting my manuscript together, I wanted to write a poem honoring my mother’s sacrifices and hardships to balance out (tonally) the other poems highlighting our...
by WaterStone Review | Aug 27, 2019 | blog: all
1. Tell us about your poem in Volume 21, “Closing Time.” How did it come to be? My mother was Jewish, my father was a WASP, and neither was religious. I find ethnicity confusing, and my ethnicity in particular. Since most of our social life came about through my...
by WaterStone Review | Aug 12, 2019 | blog: all
With the last month of summer upon us, it seems like the right time to check into the production of Volume 22. In May, after the editorial board and their faculty editors made their final selections, production began in earnest with an initial Design + Concept...