In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Victoria Blanco
I love the storytelling in your nonfiction piece "Corn-Yellow Light." You did a lot of research for this piece. How did you sift through everything to create a narrative? What was the process like to piece together your research into something that flowed? I sifted...
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In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Rob Arnold
Your pair of poems, “Chimera” and "Chimera" speak to growing up, terror, and a cycle of life and death. What was the impetus for these poems? How did they evolve from single poems into a pair? These two “Chimera” poems are, in fact, part of a longer sequence...
In the Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—April Darcy
Your fiction piece, “The Bright World,” is about a daughter losing her father to cancer, and how she’s trying to balance her own life, a complicated friendship, and caretaking. How did this story come about? First, thank you for reading and for asking such...
In The Field—Conversations With Our Contributors: Anne Piper
Your poem, “Already all the ghosts,” is a beautiful and haunting look at pre-grief. The speaker compares their past to the present, and looks ahead into the future. What made you write this poem at this time? I wrote this poem in February of 2023, when old age and...
In The Field—Conversations With Our Contributors: Christopher Gaumer
It’s always wonderful to have a graduate of our MFA program in Water~Stone! What sparked the creation of your poem, “On a Farm in Iowa?” Hi, Jenn! It’s wonderful to be close to Hamline again through Water~Stone! My family lived in Perry, Iowa until I was nine. My mom...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Davi Gray
Your poem, “Caravan of Wounds,” crafts a dramatic setting and builds a world where pain and injury are clearly visible. Where did the inspiration for this piece come from? I have consumed a lot of dread-inspiring media, more written words than anything else, but it...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Samantha M. Sorenson
Your work, “How to Eat an Elephant” creatively blends the idea of consuming both information and food. Can you talk about what sparked you to write this piece? The journey of writing “How to Eat an Elephant” began when I started working toward recovery for my eating...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Albert Abonado
Your two poems, “Romance” and “Beatitude for an Inventory of Roadkill,” are beautiful works of reclamation and loss. Where did the creation of “Romance” start? I spend my summers helping out at my family’s blueberry farm. Each morning, a hummingbird would visit me at...
In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—MICHAEL CHANG
Your poem, “Orchestra Maneuvers in the Dark,” creates an overlapping conversation and giving of information. Where did the inspiration for this poem come from? The starting point for all of my work is vibes. I wanted a poem that felt tropical, but not in a...