Tag: writing tips

From Volume 30: Division and Divergence, an interview with Evan Morgan Williams, author of The Divide: Stories

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The Divide: Stories, Cornerstone Press, February 2026
Date of Interview: February 21, 2026
Conducted by Maria McLeod, associate professor of journalism, Western Washington University

Maria McLeod: The title of your newly published short story collection, The Divide, represents a central theme, divisions and divergences most often related to romantic relationships in conflict due to affairs, threats of an affair, or a previous relationship that seems unresolved. Also, many of the stories take place in or near the Rockies, a physical divide. I’m curious, how did this issue of division—fidelity versus infidelity—become central to the collection? Was this thematic an intentional choice that you wrote toward as you composed your stories, or did it surface more unconsciously?

Evan Morgan Williams: Those unifying themes are definitely there, but they were not planned. I didn’t compose the stories towards any theme. That surfaced later. What the stories did have in common, though, was, for lack of a better word, a Hemingway voice; they’re straight-up realistic fiction, with spare language, broken dialogue, and a flow in real time. The length of the time it takes you to read the story is the length of time of the action of the story. They also contain a big Hemingway trait which nobody talks about: a self-contained set of symbolism and imagery within the story that generates the possibilities of the story. So, I have these stories lying around, and I see they have a unity, but I needed to narrow down to a single theme. First, I noticed they had a unity of region. A lot of them take place in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, up in the Rockies. I also noticed a lot of these stories have snow. Snow is almost becoming like an endangered artifact, right? I also noticed that a lot of the stories take place in the aftermath, the time after certain consequential choices have already been made. In fact, for a while, the working title was Aftermath, but the Rolling Stones already stole that title. Anyway, The Divide seemed to speak to both the theme and the setting, so I went with that.

MM: So, when you talk about aftermath, I think about your story, “The Clear Blue Sky,” the one where the couple are in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The woman, Emily, keeps chiding her husband, Paul, about his earlier love interest, Kimberly, many years ago when they’d worked in Jackson Hole. Emily feels like she was his second choice, that maybe Paul would be with Kimberly if she hadn’t left Jackson Hole. So that’s an aftermath story, their relationship taking place at the result of the loss of the relationship that preceded it. I could see that in a lot of your stories. I thought, also, of Raymond Carver related to conflicting romantic relationships. I don’t know if you feel that he’s any kind of influence.

EMW: As you know, we write in conversation with the things that we read. I love Carver’s stories, but he has a spacious style of writing that I find difficult to write from. I mean, he’s been described as economical, but now we find out that Gordon Lish was the one who made him that way. When I read Carver’s stories in his preferred version, there’s this spaciousness to them that I can’t write from, as opposed to the Hemingway style, which I can. Hemingway does this thing with language, and I’m still figuring it out, where he creates the potential for a story that doesn’t exist before the story is being told. There’s a proposition, and then the inevitability that flows from that proposition. The climaxes in the stories are, in a way, inevitabilities.

MM: In Hemingway’s work, place seems important to the story. I feel the significance of place in each of your stories, too. It’s funny you mentioned snow because, finishing the collection, I felt like it had taken place in a cold climate. In your story, “Anasazi,” there’s a couple with a baby whose car becomes stuck in the snow while they’re winter camping. They end up relocating to a cabin. But it’s interesting to me how often there is an echo of a former relationship. In this case, the location of this cabin was something the husband knew of from a former relationship. And the woman, his wife, is privy to that former relationship. There’s this back-and-forth that plays out in dialogue, and the structure of the story is built around that tension, their need for shelter and her conflicting feelings about his former relationship. I wonder, in terms of the arc of the story, what is the significance of conflict in your writing?

EMW: One of the things that I find with conflict is we sometimes assume a conflict is just this side versus this side. But in that case, you get what’s called ping-pong dialogue, or action and reaction, and that’s not interesting to read. So, what I often find is the real conflict comes when there is a third element. The third element is usually another person—for example in the case of that couple trapped in the snow—the third element is a woman who’s not even there, an ex-girlfriend from the past. And, in “The Clear Blue Sky,” with the couple who are dancing in Jackson Hole, the third element is also a person in the past. And in “Costume Party,” where the two women are sitting at the piano, the third element is either the husband, or perhaps the piano teacher the women knew in high school. Once you have that third element in there, the tension for the characters becomes less predictable, the choices more interesting. It’s more propulsive in terms of where the story can go.

I was lucky to be at Tin House one summer, and my workshop leader was Anthony Doerr. He gave a presentation to our workshop, calling it opposition. He wasn’t very explicit about what opposition meant, but, in a way, that’s a good thing, because you could take it to mean whatever your story needed it to mean. You can pull different possibilities out of that. For me, I remember that he talked about A versus B not being opposition. If you just have A versus B, you’ve got a static moment. That’s not interesting. In order to have that movement, you need action or dialogue or plot movements that create propulsion, escalation, or the collision of new elements.

MM: That’s so well put. So, this leads nicely into this next question I have about not just the story structure but the structure of the entire collection. I was intrigued by your splitting up of “Buena Vista” into six parts spread throughout the collection. In some ways the story provided me with scene-by-scene microcosm related to an overarching theme of regret and romantic love and betrayal and fidelity. I also experienced it as a means of providing a throughline for the collection. It becomes an episodic serial to which we return. I’m curious whether you wrote it as single story, or whether you wrote it to serve a specific function related to the structure of the entire collection.

EMW: I wrote “Buena Vista” as a standalone, continuous story. It got published in a literary magazine as a continuous story. But here, in this collection, I felt like it worked better when I broke it apart. I’ve been struggling to understand why it feels better broken apart. As you say, it definitely serves the collection as a thematic throughline. However, for me, I think the reason it works in this broken-up form is that it creates time for the characters to think about what they’re about to do, i.e., cheating on their spouses. So, the story is not just, oh, they’re at the work party, next thing you know, they’re ditching the work party, next thing you know, they’re hooking up. Each of those decisions is consequential. So, it’s useful and tense to allow some time for those things to happen. It’s one of the only stories in the collection that has line breaks, so, instead of erasing those line breaks, I leaned into them and literally broke up the story into different episodes as the characters moved through the evening.

MM: My favorite story in the collection is “Noise,” which is a masterful piece featuring a hospitalized woman who’s engaged in an unsentimental conversation with a pastor. I kept thinking of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who doesn’t hesitate to humanize the ordained. I’m curious how it developed, especially because it’s lengthy but takes place in one setting. The story masterfully holds tension through dialogue and her internalized thoughts with very little physical action, except for this clicking heart valve. I wondered about that story. What or who inspired you to write it?

EMW: Well, there’s a couple of things. One, it’s just a little nugget I noticed at one point in my life. My dad had told me about a friend of his who, by pure coincidence, had a horrible car accident right in front of a hospital emergency room, and his aorta was torn like the woman in the story, which normally is fatal, right? Princess Diana had a ruptured aorta. You bleed out immediately. But it was right in front of a hospital, and they got him into the ER in time. So, I had that little nugget. Also, because I’ve had some heart issues, maybe I’m here processing a certain hyperawareness of my own heartbeat. Then there’s a Hemingway story called “The Gambler, The Nun, and the Radio.” It’s an underappreciated Hemingway story, and I always wanted to play with it. Maybe because it’s set in Wyoming and I’ve been to those places? I don’t know. Anyway, there’s the main character, a man who is laid up in a small-town hospital. There’s a nun who works at the hospital and functions in the story as a sounding board. And there’s a patient down the hall, a gambler recovering from a shootout. Remember what I said about a third element? There he is. Also, they’re listening to the radio, another third element. I’m thinking, okay, I could use those elements. I’ve got my main character, the older woman in the hospital. Then let’s make the nun into a priest. And down the hall there’s a kid who’s been shot. And instead of the radio, they’re watching TV. Because that’s what you do nowadays in the hospital, right? So, I played with those intersectional elements to see what I could come up with. Beyond that, there’s not a lot of intentionality on my part; there’s a point in writing a story where you have to listen to the characters. What is this woman going to tell me about what’s important to her? She’s talking a lot with the priest, and the priest is angling for her to process her predicament a little more religiously. She’s not going to go there with him. She’s just not really into that. But on the other hand, she’s afraid of death. So, she wants the comfort of having the priest around, but not on his terms. That’s me trying to listen to what the characters are saying. My favorite moment in the story is when the patient and the priest are surreptitiously smoking cigars together. I didn’t tell them to do that!

MM: Interesting. I wrote a story once that includes a lot of pigs, my friend asked to me afterwards, “How do you know so much about pigs?” I told her that I made a lot of that up. So, I wondered if there was something you’d read about an insertion of a valve in a heart that made noise or if you made it up. Where did that come from?

EMW: I got that from my dad. He was a doctor. He said the first models of heart valves literally had a little ball that clicked back and forth, and you can hear it. You know, when you go on an elevator, everybody is quiet on an elevator. He had a colleague whose heart valve could be heard clicking back and forth. She said when she got excited or nervous, you could hear it clicking faster. So, I went on YouTube and there are people just like you and me, who are posting demonstrations of their heart valve. They’re holding the microphone to their chest, and you can totally hear it.

MM: That is wild. I almost googled it, but I thought, oh, I’ll just ask Evan, because I really wanted to know from you. But, how horrible. If you were not wanting people to know that you’re excited or that you’re nervous, your heart’s giving it away because it’s going click, click, click.

EMW: Yeah. What do they do during sex? Now the other risk with these early heart valves is they tend to clot. So, you have to take a lot of blood thinners. In the case of the woman in the story, she eventually—a spoiler—she dies of internal bleeding.

MM: My next question is a little long. I apologize. The women in your stories are often described in sexualized terms, sometimes pointing to their victimization as sexual objects. The story that stood out to me in terms of female agency, however, was “The Stickup,” where a young mother, Hannah, is trying to pass construction workers pushing a stroller. She’s anxious they’re going to make unwanted comments, when she comes upon the Ukrainian nanny, Lyudmila, who is also pushing a baby in a stroller. She invites her for coffee. So, in this middle of this conversation about love and the role of men in their lives, a man enters the café and holds it up. I love the moment of the robbery. You have the nanny pick up a coffee mug and clock the guy. I have to say, I almost leaped out of my chair and cheered. Then he kind of wobbles, and then she clocks him again. How lucky, two strikes and he goes down! The people he’s robbed are able to collect what he tried to steal from them. How did you arrive at this moment where you decide you’re going to have this nanny take this guy out with a coffee mug? Also, I don’t know if the way I experience ending is how you meant it, but there is something in the way she leaves and doesn’t look back, something utilitarian about her. There’s no lingering. It’s more, I just clocked this guy, and this is my life, and I’m moving on to the next thing. I wondered, were your conscientious about giving her this agency? Is that how that story came about?

EMW:  I try to be a noticer. Often stories start with a little proposition, something I had noticed and filed away. In this case, as a teacher in a public school with a fair number of Ukrainian families, I noticed that the Ukrainian girls tended to have a lot of agency, which made them excellent students, but their agency was constrained within rather narrow cultural boundaries. The Ukrainian girl in the story, as you can see, is breaking those constraints in a very physical way. But then she apologizes for it, of course. Utilitarian, as you say.

You ask about female characters and their sexualization. In a writing group I was in, it was once pointed out that the female characters in my story were described physically, but the males were not. I thought, okay, that’s an error. That’s an oversight. That’s like a new Bechdel test. Did the writer provide descriptions of each gender equally, or is only one gender being sexualized? To an extent, you have to do this within the character’s point of view. Is the character’s point of view doing the sexualizing, or is the author doing it? And is the sexualization a flaw of the character’s point of view? How are they projecting onto the other? Why do they need to do that? In this particular story, “The Stick Up,” it’s two women, and I would argue that the main character, Hannah, is self-sexualizing, then projecting that onto Lyudmila, the Ukrainian nanny, and Lyudmila is not having it, as the saying goes. She even makes a cynical comment that boys do nice things for her, but that just gives her power over them. But that story has a chiasmus structure, where Hannah’s arc is going down, while Lyudmila’s is going up. At some point, those arcs intersect, and the power is exchanged. And right as they intersect, that’s when the robber comes into the coffee shop. The robbery is kind of random. Remember, I said earlier that a conflict needs that third piece? The third piece can come from left field. It often makes it more interesting when it does. So, the robber comes in, and, at that point, you have one character who is now thoroughly in power. She’s chucking two thick coffee mugs at the robber. Then, she even says, “Next time, I throw three mugs.” Meanwhile, Hannah is so disempowered that she literally cannot remove her wedding ring when the robber demands to have it. At that point, it’s a complete reversal. Hannah gets to walk home from this situation with a very different point of view and outlook on life.

MM: I’m enamored with your endings—all your stories’ endings—the way the last lines become a means to understand the story. The ending line to the final story, “Somalia,” seemed to provide a metaphor for how I came to understand the entire collection. In that story, you have this gathering of old friends, married and with children together at a beach house. The men are around the fire. The women are at the water’s edge with the kids. The men are having this very macho, almost cliché kind of conversation where they’re chiding each other about their masculinity and their sexual prowess. Something to the effect of, “Are you going to get laid tonight with your wife?” One of the men’s wives has had a relationship with one of the other men prior to their marriage. So, there’s tension around that. But, at the night’s end, one of the men decides to light off fireworks. I love this ending: “The rocket shot up, exploding in the air, bright as day. Lighting faces where sadness and regret and joy and wonder equally played.” Amazing. What, for you, is the significance of endings? What should an ending provide for the reader? What rules, if any, do you impose upon yourself when you’re composing the ending?

EMW: Well, thank you for pointing out the ending of “Somalia,” because that’s probably my favorite ending I’ve ever written. That’s why I put “Somalia” at the very end of the collection. I met a woman in a writing group who had a habit of looking at the final paragraph of a story and then comparing it to the opening paragraph of the story. The idea was that there should be a thematic continuity. Not necessarily that there had to be foreshadowing, but the elements and the potentiality at the opening of the story should be recognizable all the way through to the end of the story. I love that notion. As the story works through its potentialities to settle into an inevitability, the climax of the story is a stress test of what’s happened up to that point. So, for example, in the “Somalia” story where the husbands are talking on the beach, there’s a lot of tension building. There’s an allusion to the woman, Caroline, who may have had a relationship with the point-of-view character, David. So, things are escalating there. Then David has a soliloquy where, instead of playing along with the guys doing their performative dialogue, he breaks the mold and he lays it out in a way that becomes like a stress test for everything that’s happened up to that point. To me, it’s very redemptive because, clearly, he and his wife have a grounded relationship—not perfect, but it’s filled with intention and commitment toward each other. That’s where he lands at the end. He says, “I’m going to go up to that cabin. We’re going to make love, right. And this is what you’re going to do, and this is what you’re going to do. And then after we make love, my wife is going to tell me all the things that the women have been saying while they were out on the sand, watching the kids play in the waves. And this is what they’re going to say…” To me, it’s a redemptive speech, even though it burns everything down. That’s the character cashing in on all the elements that have built to that point. The only thing I don’t like about that metaphor is that it’s talking about money and a bank. I don’t think it’s the perfect metaphor. I think it’s bigger than that. We get to ask, at that point, has all the imagery and potential of the story earned what’s going to happen next?

MM: Which reflects the emotion of the characters, which is the important part here and throughout the collection. It’s been so great talking to you about The Divide, Evan. Thank you.

Evan Morgan Williams is the author of four collections of short stories, most recently The Divide, published by Cornerstone Press, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (2026). He’s been the recipient of several writing awards, including the Chandra Prize at BkMk Press, in addition to being long listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize.

Maria McLeod, associate professor of journalism at Western Washington University, has authored oral histories, articles, scholarly research, and creative works. Her poetry and prose have been published in literary journals in the U.S., England, Germany, India, and Scotland. She’s been nominated for six Pushcart Prizes and has published two poetry chapbooks, Mother Want and Skin. Hair. Bones.

Author Insight: Do you have any professional advice for prospective authors seeking to be published? What did the process of getting your work first published look like?

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Close to a year of rejections before someone in the universe turned the tap on. Start a spreadsheet to track everything and just keep submitting. Develop a solid pipeline with no shortage of opportunities.

-Abbie Doll, “imma stay in namaste—,” “the unrelenting everything” & “i american’t right now,” Volume XXX, 2026

My first two pieces I put out were accepted for publication in anthologies. I thought, “Wow, this publication thing is a piece of cake!” I’ve learned to dislike cake. Like any diet, make a plan and stick to it as best as possible. Stay organized and focused. Keep paraphrasing Edison. You’re not failing. You’re successfully finding publishers that aren’t right for you. Good luck with that last one. Good luck in general.

-Bob Blatz (with Linda Blatz), “Every Life Has a Purpose Shovel,” “Main Line Fibonaccis” & “Aftermath,” Volume XXX, 2026

I think managing your expectations is key. Just keep working at it, and remember what brought you to writing in the first place. Throw it out into the world, but do it for the love of the game.

-Nicholas Barnes, “twenty-eight pomegranates” & “belonging,” Volume XXX, 2026

Write, write, write. Then write. Worry about publication later.

-Sydney Lea, “Orb Weaver at My Writing Cabin,” Volume XXX, 2026

Interview with Suzy Harris

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Author of “Listening to Beethoven (with Cochlear Implants)” (Volume XXX, 2026)

How have other authors influenced your own writing and style?

So many ways. Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita Paulann Petersen’s work was formative when I picked up writing again after almost 40 years away. I learn so much by studying other poets, how they start and end a poem, how they structure movement through the poem and play with words, how they organize their work into collections.

What advice would you give an aspiring writer who wants to put their work “out there”? 

I would ask if they are part of a writing group as the first step is to be comfortable with other people reading your work and responding to it—what works well, what is confusing, what feelings emerge reading or listing to your work. Revision is a critical part of the writing process, and it helps to have a sounding board.

Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

Often by reading other poets’ work aloud and discussing the poems with my writing partner. I have also dabbled in ekphrastic poetry, where the prompt is a piece of artwork—this is much harder for me but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what emerges. Beyond those two, it is, as poet Kim Stafford says, “the muses among us”—the noticing of everyday images, words, bits of dialogue. Like painting, poetry is about paying deep attention to the world.

Do you have any professional advice for prospective authors seeking to be published? What did the process of getting your first published work look like?

It’s important to develop (or find) a strong writing community that will be honest with you and also supportive. Once you have been working with a response group or critique group (they have various names) for a while, and you feel like your work is ready, it’s time to send it out. I often get ideas about where to send work by reading the acknowledgement sections of books by writers I admire. Also by talking with others in my writing groups.

Acceptance is a combination of skill, luck, and timing. All writers get rejections. You have to have a pretty thick skin to send your work out. I tell myself for every rejection, send out something new. For a time, I challenged myself to get 100 rejections as a way to get over the sting. (The Kurt Vonnegut museum in Indianapolis has a whole room of framed rejections.)

Interview with Lee Rossi

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Author of “Real Food in an Imaginary Garden” and “Ode to a Standing Hair Dryer” (Volume XXX, 2026)

When did you realize you wanted to write? 

It wasn’t until I was almost forty that I realized that my desire to write was something more than an itch. There were so many other itches which wanted scratching—making  money, having a decent relationship, traveling a bunch—I didn’t know how important writing could be. But once I sat in on my first poetry workshop, a ten-week course through UCLA Extension, it became clear to me that writing was the thing that would nourish me and sustain me through life.

Is what you write now the same as what you wanted to write when you started?

Yes. I always wanted to be a poet. I’ve written stories, essays, reviews and interviews, but I always come back to poetry. Poetry allows me to explore the mystery of language, to discover and impose meaningful patterns on experience.

What is a favorite piece that you wrote? What is a favorite piece that you’ve read?

I love all my children, but I have a special place in my heart for my first significant publication, a prose poem that appeared in The Sun over thirty years ago, a piece about my estrangement from my sister called “Janet the Cow.”

Continuing with the bovine theme, the first book of contemporary poetry I ever bought was called Diary Cows by Ron Koertge. I still love that book and especially the title poem, its daring rejection of self-importance in poetry.

How have other authors influenced your own writing and style?

I’ve never trusted my own voice—so self-important, so borderline arrogant. So I find other poets / poems that speak to me, and try to imitate them. The list is long and includes: Shakespeare, Keats, Dylan Thomas, Stephen Dunn, Lynn Emanuel, Kim Addonizio, Tony Hoagland, Miłosz, Zbigniew Herbert, James Merrill, etc., etc., etc. The point is that there are so many good poets (past and present) and you can learn from all of them.

How does using technology—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or even just your phone—influence how you write?

I grew up with typewriters. The electric typewriter was a major boost to my productivity. Then came word processing. I still see my computer as a glorified typewriter. (Yes, I am an old fogey!!) Facebook, Insta and the rest just irritate me. They’re a drain on my interest and energy.

What advice would you give an aspiring writer who wants to put their work “out there”? 

Be patient. If you stick with writing, if you write your truth, people will start to listen. It may not be what you imagine (the literary world is very dynamic), but if you show up, you will be seen. Maybe not in New York (unless you live in New York) but wherever you live. Know the writers in your locale. Support them. And get a day job.

What have your experiences been like interacting with the publishing world? How about with student editors working on literary journals? 

it’s strange. I’ve been publishing for almost forty years and the cast of characters keeps changing. Magazines that I use to depend on to take my poems either go out of operation or change personnel. But even the kindest, more responsive editors don’t always take what I send. That used to bother me, but not anymore. I figure they have priorities that change with every issue. I need to accept that the world (even the publishing world) does not exist for my enjoyment and gratification.

As for student editors, I try to accept their relative lack of experience. I trust that they have read a lot and that they have a sense not just of what they like but of good writing in general. I’ve usually found student editors to be as helpful and generous as the pros.

Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

I read a lot. The daily online anthologies, like Poetry Daily and Only Poems. In years past I’ve read for the Northern California Book Awards, sixty-plus books published by Northern California poets in the past year. I also try to go to readings and open mics. I find that hearing a poem makes an even greater impact than just reading it.

How do you feel about having your writing appear and read alongside other works in a literary collection? 

Love it! Besides keeping me apprised of the competition, it reminds me that I’m part of a community of writers. Also it tells me how an editor or group of editors views me in relation to other contemporary writers.

If you could have a drink or a chat with any living author, who would it be? Why? 

Hard question. I can think of three, but that’s off the top of my head. Tongo Eisen-Martin, because he’s so smart and fierce, and because I adore his politics. Barbara Hamby, because her language is so electric; it’s like when you’re three-years-old and stick your finger in a socket. And finally Diane Seuss; again, the language, she’s the closest thing we have to a Keats or Fr. Hopkins.

Do you have any professional advice for prospective authors seeking to be published? What did the process of getting your first published work look like?

Don’t be afraid to do it yourself. This is especially true for poets. My first book came out of poets’ collective in Los Angeles. I’d been typesetting and doing layout and paste up for magazines and books from the collective and finally it was my turn. Sweat equity it’s called in real estate. It works in poetry as well.

Author Insight: What have your experiences been like interacting with the publishing world? How about with student editors working on literary journals?

On By clackamasliteraryreviewIn Author Insights, Meet Our Authors

I’ve had mostly positive experiences. Form rejections (and I’ve received a lot of them) are hard, but occasionally, I get an editor who might really see my work, even as they reject it. And sometimes I’m met with enthusiasm. This is always gratifying. As for student editors, I think there’s a curiosity and wonder present that perhaps more mature editors have lost.

-Joshua Zeitler, “Anna No, Anna No,” Volume XXX, 2026

Young people are going to be the readers of tomorrow and the publishers and editors of tomorrow. I love knowing what resonates with students and younger editors. It is a gift to work with student editors.

-Lynn Levin, “Amanda the Vigilant,” Volume XXX, 2026

Pretty much everybody I’ve interacted with in the publishing world has been nothing short of dedicated, passionate, and amazing. I feel lucky when someone sees what I’m seeing, feels what I’m feeling, and it’s always reaffirming to hear that someone wants to publish you.

-Nicholas Barnes, “twenty-eight pomegranates” & “belonging,” Volume XXX, 2026

I was a student editor on a literary journal. I have also worked for a major publishing house, so this feels a bit ironic for me to answer. I have not been a writer published by a major house, but the micropress that has published me as a writer, Grandma Moses Press, was an absolute dream to work with and all of the editors I have worked with for literary sites and journals have been kind, caring, and dedicated. It’s a tough, cold world out there, but once you do break through, in my experience, you find kindness and love.

–Susan Melinda Morée, “The Fog Sounds: A Tragedy in Less Than One Act,” Volume XXX, 2026

I enjoy student editors working with journals. They tend to be risk takers who appreciate writing that bumps against norms.

-Scott T. Hutchison, “Bowls of My Father’s Anger,” Volume XXX, 2026

Interview with Cal Freeman

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Author of “*(for Simon Perchik)” (Volume XXX, 2026)

When did you realize you wanted to write? 

I was in 7th grade. At the time I was listening to the band Nirvana and wanted to be a songwriter. I got the idea that poetry would help me become a better lyricist, so I started reading poets and writing my own poems.

Is what you write now the same as what you wanted to write when you started?

Yes, in that I write poetry still, but I think back then I imagined myself being more of a musician and songwriter than a poet. I still write songs for my band, The Codgers, but I really don’t feel like myself unless I’m engaging with poetry most days.

What is a favorite piece that you wrote? What is a favorite piece that you’ve read?

“A Woman on a Green Front Porch,” which was recently published by the brilliant poet and editor, Natalie Solmer, in The Indianapolis Review, is one that is really personally important to me. It recounts memories of my mother reciting poems on the porch of my childhood home in Detroit and has some intertextual qualities where I list poems and fictions that have impacted my writing.

I’ve been obsessed with King Henry IV parts 1 and 2 lately, especially the character Falstaff. There’s something so endearing and sad about an insecure drunk who masks insecurity with brilliant phrasings. There’s also something about a big talker in a barroom padding their resume, rubbing elbows with royalty. I’m sure there are other settings where such lovely, democratizing bombast exists, but I’ve spent so many hours playing music in west Detroit Irish pubs and have known many Falstaffs through the decades that I really enjoy those two plays more than I should.

How have other authors influenced your own writing and style?

I’ve been really influenced by the associative parataxis I find in poets like Rae Armentrout and Fanny Howe, both poets who trust their readers to make connections. Larry Levis has influenced me in terms of how he lets a poem be expansively narrative and also how he has such a deep allegiance to place. Robert Lowell’s poetry has taught me much about autobiographical writing, both how to do it in poems and how not to do it in a cautionary way.

How does using technology—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or even just your phone—influence how you write?

I still write with pen on paper when I put my poems through their initial drafts. There’s a necessary slowing down that accompanies this approach, but I have used the notes function on my phone to capture thoughts and images that end up in poems later. I have Instagram and Facebook, and the best things about those platforms is seeing what friends are writing as their work comes out in journals. 

What advice would you give an aspiring writer who wants to put their work “out there”? 

Don’t overthink it too much and cast a wide net; send out a lot in other words and don’t read too much into rejection. With that being said, only send to journals that are publishing work you actually like. Pour yourself into the craft though and spend time with drafts of poems; if there’s care and time put into the craft, those poems will find homes.

What have your experiences been like interacting with the publishing world? How about with student editors working on literary journals? 

I’ve been lucky to have had mostly positive experiences, especially with my current press, Cornerstone, which features several gifted student editors. As someone who cut his teeth working as a student-editor of Mid-American Review I think it’s great when presses and journals get student editors involved.

Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

I am lucky to have some wonderful responsive readers. I often send work to the poet Michael Lauchlan, who is a wonderfully thoughtful and generous reader. My wife, the fiction writer and essayist Sarah Pazur, is also often an early reader. I was also really lucky to have the poet Kevin Cantwell in my family, and his insights and advice have been crucial for me. Richard Tillinghast has been a wonderful mentor in recent years, and I’ve been really inspired by the cool prompts he’s given me. Taking walks in the Detroit River/Lake Erie watershed with the writer Peter Markus and his dog Moonshine has been a huge source of inspiration the last few years. Early on, my uncle Patrick O’Neill really encouraged me and his poems still inspire me too.

How do you feel about having your writing appear and read alongside other works in a literary collection? 

It’s great! Of course, when I see some of the talented accomplished folks in some of the anthologies and journals I’ve been in, I can get a bit of impostor syndrome, but I think that’s a healthy thing at the end of the day.

If you could have a drink or a chat with any living author, who would it be? Why? 

I’m getting beers with the poet and fiction writer Steve Hughes next week, so that’ll be a good time. I’m really curious to meet David Dodd Lee in person. I loved his book The Bay and feel like we’d have a good visit if we were ever in the same place to grab a shot and beer. I love this line in his poem, “Fur”: We were surveilled in / a dive bar last night in the middle of winter // by a carpenter ant who then fell into my / mug of beer… 

Do you have any professional advice for prospective authors seeking to be published? What did the process of getting your first published work look like?

I’d say worry first about writing the kind of work you want to read; what kind of writing doesn’t yet exist that you’d like to read. Aim for that. I think if we bring ourselves to write according to this principle, it’ll find a home. I’d also say that once you have work you’ve invested in, send it out to a bunch of places, keeping careful records of course should you have to withdraw a piece. Finally, don’t compare and despair.

My first real publication was a long poem about Henry Ford and the labor movement in Dearborn/Detroit that came out with The Minnesota Review. It was a poem I’d spent two years writing and revising while in grad school at Bowling Green. I’d sent it around to a few places and gotten form rejections, so it was a real thrill when it got accepted and they did a wonderful job with it.

How do you manage writer’s block?

I don’t really believe in it. I think it’s merely the inability to allow ourselves to write nonsensically or badly. So I guess I get around it by letting myself write badly.

What do you think makes a story or poem “good”?

It’s so nebulous, but I think most poems I like avoid anatomically erroneous figurations involving the heart.

Is there a book, story, or poem that changed your perspective on the world? If so, did it influence your writing and/or the way you write?

Jerry Dennis’ book The Living Great Lakes changed the way I viewed and understood the region where I was born and raised, namely Southeastern Michigan. That book provided me a lexicon that could name and describe the places I move through in my daily life and raised the stakes for me in terms of what place-based writing can achieve.

Interview with Ace Boggess

On By clackamasliteraryreviewIn Author Interviews, Meet Our Authors

Author of “Grave Thoughts” (Volume XXX, 2026)

When did you realize you wanted to write? 

I always dabbled with writing. I remember as a kid starting novels on an old typewriter. I’d write a few pages or a chapter and then forget about them forever, whatever they were. I started writing poetry and my first novel manuscript in my last year of high school and finished the latter during my first year of college (it was crap). That first year of college, though, my poems began to get accepted to small horror and sci-fi magazines, and that drove me on. A year or two later, I turned to more literary poetry and prose, and that’s when I really felt it, believed it, wanted to continue that for the rest of my life.

Is what you write now the same as what you wanted to write when you started?

Oh no. No no no. I started out writing genre fiction and awful rhyming poetry. I moved through experimental and Beat-inspired work, spent some time writing comedic stuff, and finally found my place writing literary work that not only moved me but I was much better at creating. Even that style has evolved many times over the years.

What is a favorite piece that you wrote? What is a favorite piece that you’ve read?

As for mine, the one that always comes to mind is “Watching the Wizard of Oz” in prison, which you can find on the Rattle website. Favorite poems include Stephen Dobyns’s “Uprising,” Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” Julie Sheehan’s “Hate Poem,” and the entire books The Evening Sun by David Lehman and Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts.

How have other authors influenced your own writing and style?

I can look back and trace a litany of authors and books that, the first time I read them, changed my entire perspective. There are far too many to list, but here are a few. The first time I read Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, it opened my mind to possibilities. Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair taught me beauty. Lehman’s book The Evening Sun and Zagajewski’s Without End came into my life at exactly the right time to shift my focus in ways that still linger in my writing. That’s just a few. I read too much, really: novels, poetry collections, journals, whatever I can get my hands on (and afford, which is often the problem, being an unemployed ex-con). I read all the Best American things: poetry, short stories, debut fiction, short fictions. It all moves me.

How does using technology—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or even just your phone—influence how you write?

I use Facebook and Twitter, mostly to keep up with what others are doing and post about my publications. It’s grown my audience, but I don’t really use it for my writing unless some random thing inspires me to write some other random thing. Google Search is the main technology I use. I often get paranoid that I’m misspelling something or not using a word correctly despite having used it that way for more than thirty years, so I’m always searching to make sure I’ve got things right (and sometimes don’t). I don’t use AI for anything to do with writing. I have contempt for it—not AI itself, but for having it in any way connected to the arts. Nor do I write on my phone, although I do use it to take notes on things I see occasionally. That’s handy.

What advice would you give an aspiring writer who wants to put their work “out there”? 

I say some version of this all the time to young writers discouraged by rejections. The whole process is a crapshoot. It’s not just about getting the poems or stories right; it’s about getting the right pieces to the right editors on the right days when nobody yelled at them over the phone or ran over their dog in the driveway. Just keep submitting and the acceptances will come. Also, keep tightening the screws on your work.

What have your experiences been like interacting with the publishing world? How about with student editors working on literary journals? 

I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve had good experiences and bad ones with every type of editors and literary journals. Some journals I’ve expected to be small and obscure turned out to be glorious incarnations, while some I thought would be among the best mishandled my work or misspelled my name (which happens far more than I’d expect). I’ve dealt with publishers that really cared for my books and did everything they could for them, and others that put the book out and then promptly folded or quickly moved on to the next book without any support. I’ve had five-minute acceptances and rejections that took two years.

Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

Inspiration comes from everywhere. I write about everything I see or experience, dreams, all the weird or twisted thoughts that go through my head. The best way to find inspiration is just to live and have interesting moments, good and bad. As for guidance, I’m self-taught, especially with poetry. My guides are other poems. I read way too much. I consume books and journals as much as my limited finances allow. With prose, I had one class as an undergrad, but I had already written three novels before I took the class (all in different styles, two of them terrible). The main thing I learned in that class was not about writing but just to read better. That’s the main thing anyone should learn. Read as much as you can of what you want to write. Read other things, too, just to get a feel for possibilities, but mainly read what does the sort of thing you want to do. You gain a lot from that simple act.

How do you feel about having your writing appear and read alongside other works in a literary collection? 

I love it. It gives me things to read (for free) from people I might connect with, especially now in the age of social media. I crave moments of discovery when I read someone new and think, goddamn that’s good!

If you could have a drink or a chat with any living author, who would it be? Why? 

Christopher Moore. He’s the one author from my early days of writing horror and comedy that I still read everything he writes. He tells good stories and, especially when you read them aloud with a companion, those stories often result in many spit takes. Picture chunks of lamb korma flying uncontrollably across the room. I did chat with him a few times back in the days of America Online. What a different world that was. He was always friendly. I talked with Tom Clancy on there too, but always found him to be a bit of a dick.

Do you have any professional advice for prospective authors seeking to be published? What did the process of getting your first published work look like?

Oh, hell. That’s a long story. I wrote mostly novels for the fist fifteen years of my life. About a book a year. I couldn’t sell them. I had a reputable agent, and she couldn’t sell them. It was a very self-destructive time in my life, and the feelings of failure were a big part of my drug problems, crime, and ultimately imprisonment, which—again, Fate—led to the writing of my best book, a collection of poetry called The Prisoners that was accepted on the day I made it out. My first published book was a couple years before prison, though. It was a small poetry book called The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled. The publisher was the editor of a magazine who published many of my poems over the preceding years and had me up to do several readings in central and eastern Pennsylvania. She decided one day that she wanted to publish a book of my poems, so I put a manuscript together for her, and she released it. It was a gorgeous little book, and it was one of the most exciting times of my life. Unfortunately, I was already too far gone by that point, between the self-doubt and the drug habit. I didn’t appreciate it nearly as much as I should’ve.

How do you manage writer’s block?

I don’t have it. Never have. I always write something when it’s time to write. If nothing exciting is happening to write about, then I’ll write about a shoe or a deer or a layer of dust on my baseboards. It doesn’t matter. I’ll write something. Maybe it’ll be great, maybe awful. But that’s a decision for later. I can always edit it or discard it. My history is littered with the corpses of discarded poems. I’d put their bodies on pikes like a paper Vlad the Impaler, but there’d be so many that it might ward off other poems.

What do you think makes a story or poem “good”?

The main thing for me is a sense of connection to the strange. I want to feel what the author is feeling and live their lives in a way that what they’ve been through, happy or sad, common or unique, seems like something I can understand and experience as I was there, a part of it, and in that sense, a part of the poet as well. It’s what I aim for in my writing, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Is there a book, story, or poem that changed your perspective on the world? If so, did it influence your writing and/or the way you write?

I already answered this in one of the questions above, so I’m going to go in a different direction and tell you a story about why I love Clackamas Literary Review and always submit here: Around the turn of the millennium, I went with a friend to an alternative club in Huntington, West Virginia, which had replaced a previous alternative club on the same spot. We sat there listening to a band and had a great chat about how the new bar brought up so much nostalgia for the old one, and how things change, and what that meant for our lives. I went home and wrote a poem called “Ghost Club” that I submitted to CLR (my first time submitting here). It was accepted, and about eight months later, published in a gorgeous edition. Meanwhile, my friend was headed off to Alaska for some job or other. He flew cross-country to, I believe, Washington, but I’ve forgotten the details. Anyway, he sent me an e-mail from there. He had walked into a bookstore while there, spotted CLR on the shelf, thought it looked good so picked it up, saw my name, read the poem, and wrote to tell me how crazy it was, and how cool, to go all the way across the country and pick up a random journal only to read a poem with me in it. That’s big-F Fate. I have loved CLR ever since.

Author Insight: Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

On By clackamasliteraryreviewIn Author Insights, Meet Our Authors

For me the two best sources of inspiration are reading and walking. I find that, especially when I’m struggling to write, it’s a good idea to just cram a ton of other people’s writing into my head and hope it sparks something. It doesn’t have to be poetry or literature, either. I just a read a bunch of stuff about televised Senate hearings in the 1950s and somehow even that started to get some gears turning. Then I like to go for long walks with my dog and just let my mind wander as we go. It’s a great feeling to come home excited to write.

-Ben Fowlkes, “The Rest,” Volume XXX, 2026

I look to people. Even the most trivial conversation with a stranger might inspire a scene in a novel or story. Although nothing is ever trivial to me.

-Grace Whitmore, “Beyond the Haze,” Volume XXX, 2026

Family!

-Celia Lawren, “The Problem of Describing Color,” Volume XXX, 2026

Whenever I’m stuck in my writing, I pick up a book and read.

-Joshua Zeitler, “Anna No, Anna No,” Volume XXX, 2026

Interview with Lindsay Wilson

On By clackamasliteraryreviewIn Author Interviews, Meet Our Authors

Author of “Letter to You Beginning at a Dead Lake,” Volume XXX, 2026

When did you realize you wanted to write? 

Pretty early in high school I started to write in a notebook. It started by trying to write a song, and I found it so difficult. I remember sitting there for hours and never finishing it. The difficulty of trying to translate my thoughts into words fascinated me and that never went away. My childhood was complicated, so trying to make sense of that through writing (whether that writing was fiction or nonfiction) helped me sort through events and moments I needed to reflect on. It’s that difficult translation between thought and words on the page that’s very interesting, and I don’t think I would find so much joy through writing if it was easy.  

Is what you write now the same as what you wanted to write when you started?

In a sense, yes, but it’s so much more nuanced than how I started. I didn’t start by wanting to write about any specific thing other than my life and questions that simply came up by living. That has never changed. My understanding of poetry, the books I’ve read, and the writers I’ve studied with, or have become friends with, all have deepened my process, which is completely different than how I started.

How does using technology—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or even just your phone—influence how you write?

Technology mostly has a negative impact on my writing. The positives are obvious. It’s nice to be friends with a lot of great writers through social media. You can talk to them. You can see what their latest works are and read them before they come out in book form. All of that is very interesting, and given so many of these people do not live where I live, feeling “connected” to them in some way is great. It’s also nice to be writing and realize you want to research something, so having the ability to look things up is helpful. That said, technology is powerful distraction, and writing is about attention. Studies suggest that it takes 10-20 minutes to get into a creative mindset, and when we consistently stop working to check our phones, we pull ourselves out of that creative mindset. It then takes another 10-20 minutes to get back into that head space, but most people check their phones every 5-10 minutes, so do that math. We also have this false believe in our abilities to multitask, which isn’t real. What we call multitasking is really splitting our attention. You stop doing one task to do another. You can’t write a good poem and read your phone in the exact same moment. You do one thing, and then stop and do another. It’s never at the same time. Also, reading on a screen is dreadful. I retain half as much as I would from reading a hardcopy. On top of all this, we live in an attention economy, and many of the tech bros who profit from that are not good human beings, so disconnecting from that world is an intentional choice that we all need to make more often. Unfortunately, promoting yourself is difficult to do, and phone addiction is a real thing, but social media gives you the ability to share work that’s been published and promote your books. It’s a difficult thing to manage. The positives are there, but the negatives are extreme.  

What advice would you give an aspiring writer who wants to put their work “out there“? 

There is your writing process and what you create, and then there is publishing and self-promotion. They are not the same thing. In fact, trying to get out there and promoting yourself, takes time away from creating. It’s important to see these things as distinctly different. The most important thing you can do as an aspiring writer is develop a love for the process of writing. There is nothing more important, in my mind, than that. If you develop a love for the process, you will love to write. All creatives need to put in a lot of time and attention to work on their craft. It takes years, but after that time, the growth will be obvious, and then getting it “out there” is much easier. But don’t be in a rush. You’re only competing against yourself. After that time where you do a lot of work, you need to work on learning the literary magazine market and presses. This too will take time. Ask friends what journals they like. Go to book fairs with small presses and journals. Go to journal reading launch parties. Buy sample copies. Follow journals and presses online and see what sort of work they promote. Always remember, you can’t give a journal the ability to say yes to your work without giving them the ability to reject you. See rejection as a path towards acceptance. Rejection can be discouraging, but all writers go through it.

Where do you typically seek inspiration and guidance for your work?

I don’t seek inspiration. Life just happens and poems drift your way if you’re paying attention. You just pluck them out of the sky or pick them off the sidewalk, and if you don’t grab them as they go by, well, then Ocean Vuong gets them.

How do you manage writer’s block?

I don’t have writers block as much as I have moments when what I’m writing isn’t living up to my expectations. You just have to write your way through those moments. Again, you need to fall in love with the process, and that often involves working on writing that may not appear in your next book or get published in a journal. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re writing, and you know that not all of it is going to be your best work. But you have to trust that working through those not-so-great poems or stories will lead you to the next thing and the next.

Author Insight: How do you deal with writer’s block? Do you have any unique rituals you do to keep writing and meet deadlines?

On By clackamasliteraryreviewIn Author Insights, Meet Our Authors

Though I am hesitant to use the word ‘writer’s block’ (especially in the world of creative nonfiction and poetry, where memory and experience are never-ending writing material; Example: any moment from your childhood) I truly believe that reading is the best cure for a creative stall. Read anything; read everything. And most importantly, read for enjoyment. You can’t read a book intending to find a cure for your block. It will ruin the book and you won’t find what you’re looking for. You’re writing will most likely be tainted. Instead, read and allow your mind to rest, to learn from and enjoy the way words dance on the page. In my experience, your next idea will just come to you, as long as you allow it.

-Darius Atefat-Peckham, 20th Anniversary Issue

How do I deal with writer’s block? Badly, of course. It’s terrible and the doubt and frustration from it only make it worse. But I don’t exactly have trouble writing, the times I’ve stopped. It’s more that I have trouble feeling. Feeling deeply enough to reach the level I need or want creatively. Either from being pulled in too many different directions and it’s hard to maintain focus or because I get overwhelmed by personal or professional circumstances. The kind of writing I do is very emotional and I need to have an open channel to those emotions and be able to sustain them to have a chance to do it well.

-Harry Newman, 20th Anniversary Issue

There are two things that thwart writer’s block. In my seminars at Lesley University, William Lychack was fond of reminding us that the only way to write is to keep your butt in the chair. If you don’t sit down to write, you’ll never write. That’s solution number one.

Solution number two is to figure out what motivates you. I’m a people-pleaser, so I love deadlines. They are one of the top ten things I miss about grad school. Knowing someone else is expecting my words is inherently incentivizing. Now, the only person expecting my words is myself—that requires an inordinate amount of self-discipline. When the writing isn’t going well, it’s easy to stumble into writer’s block. I combat this by keeping my butt in the chair and by finding someone else to expect my words. I employ my friends and family members to pester me about my work. Because I don’t want to disappoint them, I plow right on through writer’s block.

-Heather Charton, 20th Anniversary Issue

Writer’s block often hits me when I am least interested in a piece I’m working on. Usually, this happens at the mid-point in a story (after the initial excitement of an idea has worn off) or at the very end (when I need a viable and compelling conclusion to the story). When writer’s block hits I make a concerted effort just to get words on the page. There’s a moment when I stop caring about quality (and maybe even content) and I just try to write whatever I am thinking about for however long I need. I’ll often think about some of my favorite writers, and, in a moment of utter frustration, I’ll try to write something in their voice, to mimic it as perfectly as possible. Though it doesn’t always mean I add great content to whatever piece I’m working on, it’s often a decent exercise to get my brain going again. One of my very favorite professors encouraged taking walks to avoid the zombie-effect of sitting too long staring at words on a screen, and I find that very helpful as well.

-Tyler Wilborn, 20th Anniversary Issue