FEATURED
Ten Scenes From A Movie Called Mercy by Matt Bell
White Horse, Dark Rider by Nels Hanson
Waltzing Birds by John Minichillo & Katrina Gray
The Lobbers Share Thanksgiving Dinner as an Asteroid Hurtles Toward Earth by Sal Pane
The Dead Center of The Sun by Brad Green
It Made Him Stronger by Kevin Catalano
Author Archives: Carol Reid
Featured Writer: Matt Dennison
Reading a Matt Dennison poem is often like seeing a new star appear in the sky—so much energy and light, even in the darkest pieces. Tell us about the creative process from your point of view.
“I write a little every day, without hope, without despair..”
—Isak Dinesen
One way to begin is to stick your hands in the memory lake, feel around until you touch something gliding past, feel for it again, wait until you have some kind of a grip, then start pulling—some pieces pull straight out, close to being fully formed; others will need a huge amount of straightening once on dry land. Either way, if it’s covered with music it’s the real thing and a place to begin. Continue reading
Interview: Andrew Kozma
The critical event that generated this collection was the death of your father. Were you and he able to share language and poetry in your childhood and/or as adults together?
Both my parents are big readers, but my tastes run closer to my mom’s than my dad’s. As he grew older, his reading turned more and more towards religious philosophy, the mystics of various religions that, in the most basic way, all seem to be saying the same thing about the greater force that we call God. In short, a subject that I find almost inherently uninteresting.
But he had a chance to read my poetry and fiction before he died. Though I assume he must have read some of my writing, the only proof of his exposure to what I’d written comes from his attending plays I’d written. A year and a half before he died, my parents attended my undergraduate senior thesis, a series of four interlinked plays. Afterwards, they said that they realized, while watching them, that writing was actually something I could successfully create my life around. Which, I guess, meant that they could see how people who weren’t my parents could be moved by what I wrote. Continue reading
Interview: Wendy Brown
Your work goes from one extreme to the other, from the sprawling, color-soaked Blue Chair series to the scrappy pen and ink cartoons which have brought you fame and fortune, or at least a few medals and rent money. Which came first?
I’ve been drawing, painting all my life – since before kindergarten. So I don’t know – I’ve always cartooned, always painted and drawn in some form or other. But it wasn’t till I moved to Powell River that I had the financial freedom (deliberate poverty) to devote most of my time to painting. I worked in advertising and publishing in Toronto as art director, cartoonist and illustrator for decades. So I guess, professionally at least, cartooning came first. Actually, when I started painting full time, it was difficult keeping the glib line of cartooning out of the painting while still doing kind of impressionist work.
Continue reading
Interview: Christina Varga
When you begin a new work, are you contemplative or compulsive? Do you need to start in right now with whatever materials are at hand or let an idea take shape in your imagination?
Both. I will contemplate ideas or series for long stretches of time, then compulsively begin them with whatever materials I have at hand. I’ll buy things as I need them for projects and the leftovers are used for future impulses. Continue reading
