The Literary Journal of the Stonecoast MFA
Interview by Linda Mahal A beloved faculty member of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing since 2007, Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Iowa State University, where she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment and…
By Jenny O’Connell Photo by Lucas Marquardt Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Limón is also the host of the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown. In this interview with Stonecoast MFA,…
Short answer: Because I want to read stories that haven’t been written yet. Long answer: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a weird child living in a lonely suburb must find all of his best friends in books. When I had nobody, I still…
There is a country where my voice must hold its daily reckoning and question this allegiance to the spirit of the crossroads who has scattered what remains too horrible for language and placed a skull over a stump to guard his wretched boundaries. I know his ways so…
Wind knocks brown leaves off the poplars like ashes off vertical cigars, and a trolleybus tries puddles on the round flippers of its wheels. A woman with an umbrella walks across the black square like a rustling whirligig. One out of every three in this…
You were in a wheelbarrow that day when the wind overturned trees, trashcans, and I was being born. In the pavilion Hazel foamed while Furies hovered above, their hands wrung with joy. She kept me deadlocked like Julius Caesar in a pool of blood. Then you diverted oh so…
During my medical career, my writing was confined to academic journals, book chaptersand grant applications. I never imagined writing for any other reason. However, within weeks ofmy early retirement, I began recording the details of pivotal events from my medicalexperiences. I did not understand at…
Why do you write? I write to remember, as a matter of record. I write to honor the people, places, and ideas that have given my life unexpected meaning. I write with the hope and intent of sharing some of that meaning with others. There’s enough…
Why do you write? I write because I’m trying to work things out. I see things, feel things, experience things, and I have this compulsion to sort it all out on paper. It’s easier said than done. Also, there is a core element to who I am that just…
Why do I write? I didn’t know writing was something I enjoyed until I entered college as a returning student. Though, once I realized it, it made sense. English was my favorite class in high school, and these days, I love telling tall tales, exaggerating the…