May/Summer 2013 
Shine in that Vivid Isolation: A Case Study of the Ghazal in the Contemporary American Lyric
Tyler Mills
"The poems of this anthology by and large remain true to the form's conventions, where the first couplet rhymes in an exact word repetition (aa) with itself and the second line of each couplet rhymes with this first couplet by repeating the exact same word: (Xa), and the a word becomes a kind of refrain."
Read more...
The Partial Glimpse: Perspective & Dynamic Plotting
Catherine Brady
Every story stands as a kind of tantalizing biography too, in which the pressure of plot exposes the inner life of character in momentary, ambiguous ways: we are both tantalized by the partial glimpse and stymied by it.
Read more...
Audrey Niffenegger on Point of View—How to Choose and Use It: An Interview
Liz Radford
With third person point of view, you have many more options. Sometimes you can be very close, sometimes farther away, and you don’t have to stick with a permanent vantage point.
Read more...
Humanitarians at the Grate: The Writing Group at Graterford Maximum Security Prison
Thomas E. Kennedy
Looking through the open door and gate, I see prisoners and guards milling around inside the mouth of a long, wide hallway dotted with metal detectors in front of other doors to the left and right.
Read more...
Halfway to Symbol—Andrew Hudgins on American Violence, His Newfound Love of Rhyme, & The Writing of Lasting Works: A Conversation
Andrewy McFadyen-Ketchum
I am doing different things, working more with rhyme than I ever have before, even obsessively, and enjoying working with lusher language than I’ve indulged in before.
Read more...
Power of the Word—Foreign Influences
Jessica Chace
Literature has the power to transport readers across cultures, and as many authors pointed out, the best books give readers a sense of place, even if they are not natives of that place.
Read more...
Teeming with Villains & Villainesses or Taking Sides
Sarah Stone
Our contemporary aesthetic generally trains writers toward empathy, away from moral judgment; toward an immaculate surface of vivid detail, away from abstraction and interpretation; toward fairness to all characters, away from taking sides, in either personal or political matters.
Read more...
An Interview with Sue Wootton
Usha Akella
Composition of my own poems usually involves extensive and time-consuming tinkering as I try to better express that elusive feeling or mood.
Read more...
