An Interview with Joanna Klink
by AB Gorham BWR: Joanna, often, in grad school, we’re (students) reminded to keep our audience in mind while composing, revising, reciting our work. Can you identify your audience, as in, do you have a particular reader in mind when you write? Have you ever thought of abandoning your audience? For example, while reading Raptus I feel a bit voyeuristic (which I love!) in that I’m so clearly overhearing a very intimate conversation between poet and “you.” How is it that your readers access such an intimate relationship between the I and you? JK: I don’t have a particular reader in...
Read MoreAn Interview with Mary Caponegro, Judge of BWR’s 2012 Fiction/Prose Contest
by DARA EWING What I love about Mary Caponegro is her delight in scenes or moments that might pass unnoticed had she not slowed them down, zoomed in, and provided them with the attention they never knew they deserved. She admits that fabulist writing is the thing she best loves, but has come around to the glories of the real. The interview below is not meant to be a key to unlock the secrets of her preferences, but might be used rather as a keyhole, a tiny spot through which you might get a wee glimpse of her thoughtfulness, her care in writing, and, importantly, her sense of humor. BWR: ...
Read MoreAn Interview with Sabrina Orah Mark, Judge of BWR’s 2012 Poetry Contest
by LAURA KOCHMAN I am so excited, because Sabrina Orah Mark is our poetry contest judge this year. You should probably be excited, too–she’s the author of The Babies and Tsim Tsum, both from Saturnalia Books, and you can find her work in Best American Poetry 2007 and the anthology Legitimate Dangers. If you are not yet enthused, or if you have an interest in becoming even more enthused than you already are, Sabrina answers a few questions below: BWR: In your last interview with BWR, you talked a bit about the term tsim tsum, the phase in creation where the creator must...
Read MoreAn Interview with Maggie Nelson, Judge of BWR’s 2012 Nonfiction Contest
by BARRY GRASS Black Warrior Review‘s annual Nonfiction contest might not be very old, but it’s already established a tradition of being judged by the best names in literary nonfiction writing. Lia Purpura judged our inaugural Nonfiction contest, and John D’Agata did the judging last year. 2012 is no exception, as none other than Maggie Nelson will judge! Maggie Nelson is the author of four books of nonfiction: a critically acclaimed work of art and cultural criticism, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Norton, 2011); a meditation on the color blue, Bluets (Wave Books, 2009);...
Read MoreAn Interview with GC Waldrep
by Lisa Tallin Black Warrior Review: So first of all I just wanted to ask you—you had a reading last night, and how do you feel reading your work out loud? GC Waldrep: How do I feel? I like to read my work out loud. I trained as a singer and the idea that poetry should be performative on some basis—that it should live in the tongue—is important to me. There are poems that don’t do that—or don’t do that primarily, that are meant to be transmitted through the page. But I hope for my work that the sound quality is important. In Archicembalo that was all there was: the sound...
Read MoreAn Interview with Noy Holland
by JUAN CARLOS REYES BWR: There is no particular way to get this started. I usually start with an icebreaker question… How are you enjoying Tuscaloosa so far? NH: It’s good. I met a lot of nice people. Yeah, I like the trees. I like the trees a lot. I’m admiring the trees. And it’s been good to meet the students. That’s really what I’ve been doing. And to talk again about writing. I’ve had a little break from teaching and mostly, you know when you’re writing it’s more interesting to talk about writing and when you’re just teaching and not writing you...
Read More