Story Behind the Story

Today’s post is written by Nana K. Adjei-Brenyah, whose story “In Retail” we published in our Fall 2014 issue. “Hi, how are you? What are we looking for today?” The customer grunts, vaguely angrier than they were the moment before. They are telling you to leave but not bothering to spend language on you. This…

Today’s post is written by Jed Myers. You can read his two poems “That Beaten Eye” and “Let’s Go In” in our Spring 2014 issue. “That Beaten Eye” and “Let’s Go In,” while manifestly quite different in theme and subject, are both among my many meditations on, or explorations of, the uncanny inseparability of beauty and violence, life and…

Today’s post is written by Jessica Barksdale. We published her creative nonfiction piece “Boots” in our Spring 2014 issue.  From 1987 to 1993, I took a long writing hiatus. After finishing my Master’s thesis and giving birth to my second son in the summer of 1987, I just stopped scribbling poems and taking notes about stories.…

Please welcome Julie Paul with the story behind her short story “Instant Family,” which we published in our Spring 2014 issue.  I’ve been practicing a daily writing ritual for years now, with a few different writers from across Canada: we call this practice Writamins. It’s very simple; we send each other words via email, one per day, and…

Today’s post is written by Aileen Hunt; her piece “Small Lives” appears in our Spring 2014 issue. Why do some scenes burn their way into our consciousness while others barely register? When a fox walked down my street one snowy December morning, I did what most writers do: stood still and paid attention. Later, I sat down…

Today’s post is by Mitchell Welch, whose short story “Pale Ale” appears in our Spring 2014 issue. ‘Pale Ale‘ is an experimental marriage of two different styles: surrealism and social realism. Readers will notice, of course, that the product of this experiment is nothing like the fiction of the ‘magical realist’ school, which blends these two forms…

Please welcome Elizabeth Kate Switaj, whose poetry we published in our Fall 2013 issue. The Story Behind “Alma” and “Fritz” by Elizabeth Kate Switaj “Alma” and “Fritz” belong to a longer project of mine that takes on the stories of Aktion T4, the Nazi “euthanasia” of disabled people that preceded—and in many ways laid the…

Please welcome today’s guest, Caitlin Thomson. We published two of her poems in our Fall 2013 issue. The Story Behind “Preoccupation” by Caitlin Thomson I wrote this poem after having a Skype conversation with my writing group. That sounds very distant and technological, but in fact this conversation was transformative. My writing group had been…

Today’s post is written by Katrina Kenison, whose personal essay “Mean Mail” we published as a feature in our Fall 2013 issue. The Story Behind “Mean Mail” by Katrina Kenison It didn’t really occur to me four years ago, when my son Henry helped me set up a simple website just before my memoir The…