In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Libby Flores
In “Safe”, your first of two flash fiction stories in Volume 23, there’s a palpable amount of tension simmering as the unnamed narrator unveils a fractured relationship with their partner. Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind the story? I think at...
Older Posts:
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Marjorie Stelmach
Your poem “The Late Accommodations” from Volume 23 is an account of driving down a highway at dusk and witnessing a mare “moving through gauzy grasses.” Did you have some ‘aha’ moment to write a poem when you saw this? How did King Lear come into this poem? Are you a...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Jackie Trytten
Your creative nonfiction piece “Taking Each Other In” from Volume 23 is a flash essay that our editorial board members said “really earned its place” in this issue due to its lyricism and economy of space. Can you tell us the inspiration behind this essay? This flash...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Krischan Stotz
Your creative nonfiction piece “The Jellyfish Tide” from Volume 23 is a philosophical lyric essay that explores simultaneities and fate. Our board members who read and voted on including it in Volume 23 said it has “strategic imagery and language, with strong...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Amy Bagan
Your poem “Primate” in Volume 23 explores traits and knowledge, things we learn from each other, from our ancestors. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind this poem? Yes, exactly. “Primate” sits atop a mantle of Maker stories, starting from time immemorial. One...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—John Wall Barger
Your poem “We Came to Dinner” in Volume 23 fuses modern and contemporary poetic styles. Can you talk through the inspiration behind this poem? This poem started, as many of mine do, very literally, in this case describing a visit to my parents’ house. My struggle was...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Halee Kirkwood
“Haibun for Early Autumn, Haibun for Buses & Sobriety” from Volume 23 follows the speaker along their bus route—images and sounds, thoughts and memories, included. I also ride the bus and every time I read this poem, I feel that distinction of it having a long...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Sam Stokley
Your poem “Theories and Postulates” in Volume 23 is, as you wrote in your epigraph is, “an rdeb love poem”. You describe this painful scene in which you purposefully hot glue a skin wound shut in an art studio. What did it mean to you to write a love poem to your...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Denton Loving
Your short story “Renunciation” in Volume 23 includes a scene that depicts Giotto di Bondone’s famous painting Renunciation of Worldly Goods. What was your inspiration for incorporating di Bondone’s work? Just prior to writing this story, I read Thomas Cahill’s...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Jason Tandon
Welcome back to Water~Stone Review, Jason! Your poem “I Came Here” in Volume 23 pays homage to Chinese poet Du Fu. What was the inspiration behind this? The inspiration was primarily the natural setting at the time I wrote the poem. I was visiting my parents in New...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Chris Arthur
Your essay “Listening to the Music of a Vulture’s Egg” from Volume 23 takes the reader on a philosophical journey through time and space, and it begins with this griffon vulture’s egg that you bought as a child. Starting an essay from unlikely objects seems to be a...