March/April 2011 Cover Image

The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation of Identity in Fiction: A Writer's Choices in Cross-Cultural Writing

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Stephen J. Quigley
Complete cultural appropriation of identity occurs when the author uses a culturally heterogeneous character with a first-person point of view. In this instance there is the least amount of psychic distance between the reader and the main character.

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Navigating Family Sensitivities: Serving the Product or the People Who Look Like You?

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Andy Nash
A memoirist who chooses the safety of others is making the right choice. And when key portions are left out, it's the right decision to at least alert the audience.
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A Conversation with Nikki Giovanni

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Chapman Hood Frazier
When Nikki Giovanni read her poem "We are Virginia Tech" at the memorial service for the thirty-two slain students and faculty after the campus shootings in 2007, the poem brought the mourners to their feet because it spoke not only about the loss and suffering of those students, faculty, staff, and parents who survived the tragedy, but also about the ability of the human spirit to endure.

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I Believe in Imagination: An Interview with Aleksandar Hemon

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Jeanie Chung
Aleksandar Hemon came to the United States from Bosnia in 1992 and ended up staying to build his literary career here.
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Novel Anxiety: Notes from the Genre War Trenches

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Martha Cooley
Devotees of literary fiction have reason to think that contemporary novels are too often replete with the trivial and the inessential.

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An Interview with Tom Grimes

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Joe O'Connell
Even though we've been in workshop situations, we understand that people can talk about the work but ultimately you're in the room by yourself looking at that blank page.
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Recent Trends in South Asian American Poetry

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Pramila Venkateswaran
For the Indian American poet, while the marginal status of the immigrant can be a place of discovery, it is also a double-edged sword; as the writer's marginal status sharpens perception, it also stereotypes the writer as "immigrant" thus making him/her feel boxed in.
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