LANGUAGE SPOKEN
Port, starboard, forward, aft, bow, stern, fo’c’sle, lazarette, half hitch, clove hitch, bowline, lovers knot, freeboard, false deck, fairlead, deck-winch, vanging-winch, picking boom, power block, davit, dump-box, buoy stick, PTO, chiller, seacock, shaft, rudder, keel, magnetic north, true north, degrees of variation, aurora borealis, bio luminescence, Morning Star.
Goddard MFA alumna Brianna Johnson’s thesis, Fire Sale, was recently published as a digital chapbook with Essay Press. Here’s how it begins: “I come from whiteness, which is not innocent. If I speak of things which cause intense pain, it is because I have felt pain because of them. Not feeling would cause greater pain to the memory of those brutalized. I don’t condone evil, but I acknowledge it. I am here to acknowledge it.”
Guardians, the final installation in the young adult trilogy written by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan, is coming out in paperback from HarperTeen later this month. TW: What was the inspiration for the story? Laurence and I watch a lot of old movies and had originally conceived of this as a kind of post-apocalyptic Western:… Continue reading And have you read… Guardians?
Goddard MFAW alum Greg Comer’s Master’s Thesis Winner Take None as been published! The Writer caught up with Greg after he got done with the chores, in this case, feeding horses. TW: What was the impetus for this book? Serial failure. I could never figure out how to end a short story, or sustain a novel.… Continue reading And have you read… Winner Take None?
W.B (Bill) Belcher’s (Goddard MFAW ’07) debut novel, Lay Down Your Weary Tune, which he began at Goddard, was released on January 26th from Other Press.
The Walking, Goddard MFAW faculty member Laleh Khadivi’s historical novel, began as a meditation on migration, all kinds of migration, bird, whale, antelope, fish and human… The Writer asked her how she got started.
Goddard College faculty member Douglas Martin’s sixth book! The Writer interviewed him below: 1. What was the impetus for this book? I wanted to do something similar to what Anna Kavan had done in her book, Sleep Has His House. I also wanted to revisit the terrain of my first novel, pretending that one of… Continue reading And have you read…Once You Go Back?
By Theresa Senato Edwards, MFAW 2007 The Writer caught up with Theresa right before her book Green goes on sale! What was the impetus for the writing of this book? Green began years ago as the result of an exercise in an MFA creative writing workshop at Goddard College led by Dr. Jane Wohl. For… Continue reading And have you read… Green?
John McManus’ new story collection, Fox Tooth Heart, was published by Sarabande Books earlier in November. This holiday week, The Writer decided to feature our interview with John and celebrate his latest book. Hooray x infinity! 1) What was the impetus for this book? Right now I’m about a month away from finishing a novel… Continue reading And have you read… Fox, Tooth, Heart?
1) What was the impetus for writing this book? The first inspiration for this novel was my own family. I lived in India as a child for two years, during which my father worked for the UN and my mother for the Indian Government. My father flew all over Asia for work, including Afghanistan. I… Continue reading And have you read… Flash House?
Drew Dillhunt is an alum of the Goddard College MFAW Program in Port Townsend, Washington. His poetry collection, Leaf is All, was selected as the winner of the 2014 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize, and will be published by Bear Star Press. Leaf is All is the further revised and polished version of his Goddard thesis. The Writer… Continue reading And have you read…Leaf is All?
Have you ever wondered who began the low-residency MFAW Program at Goddard College, the first of its kind anywhere? Who spearheaded our progressive and oft-imitated curriculum? It was Ellen Bryant Voigt, who just last week won a MacArthur Fellowship Grant. Ellen grew up on her family’s farm in rural Virginia. She earned her BA from… Continue reading And have you read… Headwaters?
Darrah Cloud’s play, The Stick Wife, premiered at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1987. It has subsequently received over 100 productions. The Writer interviews her here. Q: What was the impetus for writing The Stick Wife? I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about the bomber of the 16th Street Baptist… Continue reading And have you read… The Stick Wife?
When The Writer was a student in the RUP Program at Goddard College, she got a part in Paul Zindel’s play, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. It was her favorite play: she’d seen Eve Arden in it in Chicago at the old Ivanho Theatre, on a day when her mother “forgot” to… Continue reading And have you read… The Cryptogram?
On Elena Georgiou’s rapturous rhapsody… Q: What was the impetus for this book? The impetus of the book was to try to document working-class immigrant voices. I am the daughter of immigrants who then also immigrated. In my experience, working-class immigrants, on the whole, don’t have much time for putting their lives on paper, and… Continue reading And have you read… Rhapsody of the Naked Immigrants?
Jane Summer is pictured here on the left. Q: How did you get the idea for your book? A: I actually didn’t get the idea. The idea got me—in a leg-hold trap. I grew tired of writing poems about how sad I was. After futzing around writing poems about the civil rights era and the… Continue reading And have you read… Erebus?
Three Apples Fell From Heaven was Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s first novel. Here she tells us a little about its inception: I began it when I was in my late twenties and enrolled in the MFA Program at Mills College, where I also currently am on faculty. The main drive to write the book was to… Continue reading And have you read… Three Apples Fell From Heaven?
In simple, rhythmic, nail-sharp prose, the cast of unnamed characters in The State of Kansas survive a flood, brush their teeth, drink, attend a sinister dinner party, try to love others, think a lot about death (animal and human), and weigh the confusion of trying to and a place—decent or otherwise—in a big, beautiful, and often… Continue reading And have you read… The State of Kansas?
Slab is Goddard alumna Selah Saterstrom’s new book out from Coffeehouse Press, a place you can rely on for fascinating, timely and inventive work. “On a slab that’s all Katrina left of her Mississippi home, Tiger tells a story full of wickedness and incantation…” Excerpt from the book: “SCENE IN A HOUSE: The filthy kitchenette,… Continue reading And have you read… Slab?
Goddard College alum Walter Mosley has written more than 4 dozen books in his incredible career. In particular, he invented the character of Easy Rawlins, an African-American detective living in Watts, solving crimes, and reflecting on life in an America few get to know. The Writer has cobbled together excerpts from interviews Walter has given… Continue reading And have you read… Devil in a Blue Dress?
