1. Tell us about your poems in Volume 21, “That Far North” and “Drought.” How did they come to be?

Both “That Far North” and “Drought” are typical and not-typical for me. Many of my poems arise from particular and beloved landscapes, and these two definitely do: the Catskill Mountains (the woods in “That Far North”) and the San Francisco Bay Area (the trail in “Drought”). But the poems are quirky/unusual in the sense that the others who inhabit them are actual, real people. So often when I write, a poem’s “you” or other is an imagined person, or a combination/hybrid of loved people, or an aspect of myself, or not actually a person at all.

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

When I read, I think I most want what a poet friend of mine once called “old-fashioned”: I want to be moved, to feel. She wasn’t being critical when she said that! But it surprised me, and I’ve never forgotten it. I hope that feeling deeply, in response to art, never goes out of fashion. I don’t need to receive or be moved to any particular kind of feeling when I read. I just (just!) want to have a sense of an individual soul illuminating the poem. (That doesn’t mean I only want poems that feel explicitly autobiographical or narrative or confessional, though I love many poems that are members of those particular families.)

3. What was an early experience that led to you becoming a writer?

Living near the Everglades in south Florida as a child. We visited the park all the time when I was little; I remember sawgrass, alligators, anhingas, and water and water and water. I think even then I wanted to respond, somehow, to this place I felt bonded to in a mostly wordless way. I keep feeling that desire, though it’s harder and harder for me to write about Florida. Partly because it is so far away in distance and time. But partly too because it’s a place where the effects of climate change and human habitation are especially terrifying and visible and present. There’s so much grief I don’t know how or where to begin.

4. What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?

It feels like a rich, deep time for poetry, for people practicing as poets. I love that there are so many of us. I get inspired and heartened by all the people writing and making and creating, particularly people making poems, even now, especially now. We don’t know what it’s doing or how it is helping – at least most of the time we don’t – but on good days I feel a sureness that it is helping – all of us pouring energy into art – even in ways so small and subtle we can barely register them.

5. What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

Slowly, on a second manuscript of poems.

Visit Kasey’s website and follow her on Twitter.

1. Tell us about your poems in Volume 21, “My Boss Tells Me She Prays for Me” and “When I Say There Is Desire.” How did they come to be?

“My Boss Tells Me She Prayers for Me” is actually a true story. I worked in her office as an assistant and spent most of my time at the receiving end of her rantings. At one point, she asked me to swear that our current president was the only person who can save the country. I got fired after two weeks. I’ve never been happier to lose a job.

I wrote “When I Say There Is Desire” as a way to describe – I hesitate to say “define,” as I don’t quite think that’s possible – how I experience desire as an asexual woman. It’s also a poem about extending the idea of desire to include a positive, passionate, intimate connection to the world outside of the bedroom and the home.

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

I find myself most excited when form and function meld to open up new possibilities on the page. I’m thinking of Tyehimba Jess’ Olio, a book that struck with a lightning so brilliant it made me understand the word “awe” in a way I never have before. I find myself least excited when a piece of writing feels insincere, or when it feels as though the writer is holding back, afraid to take risks.

3. How does the current political climate influence your art or creative process?

It is impossible for me to write a poem that is not political now. When I was younger, the idea that poets shouldn’t write about current events if they want to get publish seemed ubiquitous. This is an incredibly dangerous idea. Whenever I write, I remember that silence is acquiescence. I approach the page with an intention to speak out, to resist, and to fight. The work I do seems small, but small actions put together can, I hope, make change.

4. Do you practice any other art forms? If so, do these influence your writing and/or creative process?

I started crocheting six years ago. It started out as a way to deal with severe chronic pain, but it’s developed into a meditative practice for me. It’s also helped me when it comes to problem solving; it’s as if working with my hands in this way has re-trained the way my brain approaches problems and mistakes.

5. What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

The truth is that I never quite know exactly what I’m working on – I tend to follow my instincts and interests and then, after I’ve been doing that for a few months, I try to lean back and take the long view in the hopes of learning more about what I’ve been doing for all that time. I do have (I think I have?!) that long view of two things I’m working on: a memoir about my hysterectomy and a collection of poems about my love/hate/bless-your-heart relationship with the Deep South.

Visit Emma’s website and follow her on Twitter.

1. Tell us about your fiction piece, “The Man from Lowville,” in Volume 21. How did it come to be?

“The Man from Lowville” is one of those stories you decide to abandon only to return to years later. In fact, so much time has passed since the initial drafts that it’s difficult for me to recall what the impetus of the story exactly was. And I suppose, for me at least, it doesn’t really matter—all of my stories come about in different ways, and I’m not interested in making a routine around it. With that said, I do remember wanting to create a narrative that examined the perpetuation of toxic masculinity, and although historical fiction is not something I tend to write, at the time it seemed WWII-era America added a unique dimension to the piece, when some of the men—those who were 4-F’ed, unfit for military service—often struggled with feelings of inadequacy and unmanliness while at the same time women were stepping up and taking over roles in the workforce. But the truth is, unfortunately, this story could have just as easily taken place today as it did seventy-odd years ago.  

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

At the moment, what excites me most as a reader and writer is narrative voice. I’m more than happy to read a 500-page novel where nothing happens as long as I find the narrator captivating. Falling in love with a voice, becoming hypnotized by language and cadence, can be one of the most powerful experiences for a reader to encounter. It’s also something I’m attempting to achieve within my own work. The other thing that excites me, and always has, is the bizarre. I simply feed off strange.

As for the second part of the question—it’s difficult to say. If I’m not struck by the voice or the characters or the prose of a novel, then I’ll simply move on. Sometimes this has nothing to do with the strength of the work itself, but with my own taste, or perhaps where I’m at emotionally or mentally at the time of the reading. Either way, I no longer feel guilty about giving up on a book—there’s merely not enough time in one’s life to read stories that don’t move us.  

3. How does the current political climate influence your art or creative process?

It permeates everything I write whether I want it to or not. At times I attempt to tune down the political part of my mind because I can sense my work becoming didactic, and that’s not what readers want. Because of that I constantly remind myself to balance my politics with my love of characters, to make them real, fully fleshed, and not mere pawns. But in the back of my mind I often find myself asking: Why is this story important to tell right now? And I always make sure to have an answer.  

4. Do you practice any other art forms? If so, do these influence your writing and/or creative process?

I owe being a writer largely to my early love of film. That’s really where my interest in storytelling began. I have just as much passion for filmmaking than I do for writing stories and essays. The thing is, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to write a story than to make a movie. Although it’s a bit difficult fluctuating between the two mediums, it also has its perks. I both love and hate the collaboration of filmmaking. I also both love and hate the solitude of writing. When I tire of being stuck by myself writing stories, when I start to feel that incessant need to work with others, I usually take a break in order to do some sort of visual project—as little as it may be—and once that project is completed, after dealing with all of the particular struggles of filmmaking (funding, equipment, egos, etc.) I’m excited to once again hide out in my apartment to write some fiction. It’s a strange pattern, but overall beneficial to my creative output.

5. What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

For the past few months I’ve been working on a feature-length screenplay. It’s something I wrote around the parameters of a micro-budget so that, possibly, I can assemble a crew and make it myself. We’ll see what happens. But I’m looking forward to returning to some short fiction for the time being.

Zachary F. Gerberick received his MFA in Creative Writing at Florida State University. His short stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in River Teeth,New South, Water-Stone Review, among other journals. Recently, his short story “Adirondack Express” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by New Limestone Review.

1. Tell us about your poem in Volume 21, “Sunrise Village.” How did it come to be?

It came into being the way most of my poems do: over time, various images lodge themselves in my mind and coalesce into something like a seed. When I feel it sprouting, I try to coax it into a full-grown poem. The germinating images for “Sunrise Village” were sunlit snowmen and geese in flight.

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

The act of writing is what most excites me as a writer. As for reading, I try not to be turned off—or, at the very least, to reflect on why something turns me off. Often, I discover that the obstacle isn’t in what I’m reading, but in me – impatience, close-mindedness, jealousy, or whatever.

The poet, Owen McLeod

3. Do you practice any other art forms? If so, do these influence your writing and/or creative process?

I was an experienced potter before I got serious about poetry, and these two art forms turn out to have much common – not only the transformation of amorphous blob into structured object, but also a bunch of lessons: don’t suck the life out of the piece by overworking it; avoid gratuitous ornamentation; listen to the material; pay special attention to beginnings and endings; strive to make something beautiful but also useful; be suspicious of your standards; try to keep your ego out of it. I suspect these lessons apply to almost every art, but I first learned them as a potter.

4. What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?

For me, there are two sorts of inspiration. One comes from exposure to art, which motivates me to make my own. Lots of artwork inspires me that way. The other is the arrival of an idea, image, or a line – something with content and direction, not merely the blind urge to write. Inspiration of this second sort generally comes not from art, but from what I’ve felt, seen, or heard outside the libraries and galleries.

I don’t have a poetry mentor, probably because I haven’t been through a writing program or even to any writing workshops. But I did get a PhD in philosophy, and my dissertation director taught me how to write philosophy in a style that would be comprehensible to folks outside the discipline. I think this lesson influences my poetry – most of which, I hope, is fairly accessible.

5. What does your creative process look like? How does the environment you are in shape your work or where do you like to write?

I wish I had a process. Instead, I just wait around, often months, for an idea to show up. That said, my writing environment is important to me. I need to be in my study at home, preferably with no one else in the house, between breakfast and lunch. I’ve tried writing in libraries, cafés, and pubs, but I always feel self-conscious – and I can’t write that way.

Visit Owen’s website, and pre-order his award-winning forthcoming poetry collection “Dream Kitchen” here.