Interviews With Poets and Writers
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An Interview with Meg Medina
Meg Medina is a Cuban-American author who writes picture books, as well as middle-grade, and YA fiction. The first American citizen in her family, Medina was raised in Queens, New York, by her mother and a clan of tios, primos, and abuelos (aunts/uncles, cousins, and grandparents) who arrived from Cuba over the years. In her…
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An Interview with Sheryl Louise Rivett
So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art Sheryl Louise Rivett is the blog editor at So to Speak, a George Mason University literary journal. She is also a fiction candidate in the MFA program at Mason, where she is working with two members of the Mason Health Administration and Policy faculty…
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An Interview with Teresa Burns Murphy
Teresa Burns Murphy is a talented writer and (happily for me) a dear friend. Her debut YA novel, The Secret to Flying, published by TigerEye Publications in 2011, is told from the perspective of an adolescent girl named Donita Tosh and explores the intricacies of the mother-daughter bond. For Donita, growing up poor in a small Arkansas town…
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An Interview with Tim Wendel
When One More Page Books, a local indie book store in Arlington, Virginia, invited me to do a reading in tandem with Tim Wendel, who also writes about Cuba, I don’t mind admitting I felt a little intimidated. Wendel, after all, is the author of 10 books, including Summer of ’68, Castro’s Curveball, High Heat and Habana Libre. His writing has…
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An Interview with Raquel Cepeda
I had the pleasure of meeting Raquel Cepeda—not in person, but over the telephone, in an interview conducted by Nora de Hoyos Comstock, founding member, president and CEO of Las Comadres Para Las Americas, an international group of comadres (“godmothers”) who work to unite us all through literature written by Latinas/os. So the first thing…
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An Interview with Eamonn Wall
The first thing I ever learned about Eamonn Wall had nothing to do with his poetry and everything to do with his generosity. In his role as guest editor of Natural Bridge, a literary journal published by the University of Missouri, St Louis, he included one of my short stories in a special edition on exile. Without…
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An Interview with Doritt Carroll
If you ask her, Doritt Carroll will tell you that she is (unfortunately) a lawyer and (fortunately) the mother of two daughters. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. Her collection In Caves was published in 2010 by Brickhouse Books. Her poems have also appeared in a long list of publications, including Coal City…
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An Interview with Sharon Short
Sharon Short is the author of My One Square Inch of Alaska (Penguin Plume, 2013), a novel set in the 1950s that tells the tale of Donna and Will Lane, siblings who, along with Trusty, a Siberian Husky, escape their Ohio hometown and travel to Alaska. Short’s book Sanity Check: A Collection of Columns includes…
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An Interview with Clarence Brown
If you read the jacket of Clarence Brown’s first novel, Needs, you’ll learn that he is a recovering heroin addict. “Born in Charlottesville, Virginia,” the description continues, “Brown moved to Baltimore at the age of twenty-two and immersed himself in the street life, heroin, and other drugs for twenty-seven years. Like Rip Van Winkle, he…
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An Interview with Betsy Prioleau
Betsy Prioleau is the author of Circle of Eros (Duke University Press) and Seductress (Penguin/Viking). She has a Ph.D. from Duke University, was a tenured associate professor at Manhattan College, and taught cultural history at New York University. She has written numerous essays on literature, relationships, and sexuality. She lives in New York City. Her latest…