Welcome Managing Editor Elizabeth Carls
Welcome Elizabeth Carls, the new Managing Editor of Water~Stone! Elizabeth has published creative nonfiction and poetry in Split Rock Review, River Teeth, and Under the Sun, among other journals. She has served on the editorial board of CRAFT Literary and Runestone Journal
You write both nonfiction and poetry. What do you find draws you to write in these genres?
With poetry I’m attracted to concision. The idea that poems have the ability to capture small moments in small packages. With nonfiction it’s the truth telling that appeals to me. I’m interested in language and what it can do. Most of my CNF tends to read lyrically. With both I strive to always say something true about what it means to be in this world.
Over the last few years, you’ve been a reviewer and editor for several other journals. What attracts you to a piece of writing? What do you look for in work that you read?
First and foremost empathy. Always empathy. I’m looking for pieces that are engaged with larger cultural conversations and for a diversity of voices. Pieces that keep their promises to the readers and pieces that feel necessary. It’s always such a thrill when you happen upon that gem–that piece just shines.
I’ve had the pleasure of hearing you read some of your poetry. What inspires your poetry? Do you sit down to intentionally write a poem or do you glean inspiration through your daily life?
Thank you! Much of my poetry is inspired by the natural world. I have a background in plant science and conservation biology. So I spend a lot of time thinking about place, how we affect the places we dwell, and how we carry place within us. I’m concerned on a daily basis with the environmental crisis we are currently living through. I also consider myself a poet of the everyday, in the way that Jim Moore and Ada Limon are poets of the ordinary. I definitely glean inspiration from my daily life. My poetry tends towards plain-spoken. I really believe that a poet’s job is to pay attention.
Are there other topics that you find your work returns to?
Home–how we define it, what it means to have one. Community–ecological communities and how we live and interact with each other as humans. Marriage. Those are a few.
Who are some of your favorite authors? Favorite books?
Brian Doyle! I adore his essays and his novel, Mink River is a favorite. Patti Ann Rogers, Jim Moore, and Ada Limon are among my favorite poets. I think Terry Tempest Williams is a genius, I cherish Refuge and am currently savoring The Glorians. Favorite fiction includes Tommy Orange’s There, There and Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow. Oh, and I just read Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, such a gentle, beautifully told story.
What are you working on now?
I’m in my thesis year at Hamline. My thesis is a poetry collection, mostly about place and concerned with ecopoetics. I may throw in an essay or two. 🙂
Elizabeth Carls is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wildness, Slag Glass City, River Teeth, Split Rock Review, Great River Review, Under the Sun Literary Magazine, and The Water~Stone Review. Her poetry has been anthologized by St. Paul Almanac and she is the recipient of the Deborah Keenan Poetry Prize. In the editorial space, she serves as the Managing Editor and Assistant Editor of Creative Nonfiction for Water~Stone Review, as well as Editor of Creative Nonfiction for Redbird Chapbooks. She reads and writes in St. Paul, MN.
