Issue 11.2 begins with a raucous, sprawling, peripatetic feast of a poem that posits a contemporary definition of the Almighty: an omnipotent androgyne, both hilarious and terrifying, who “Says forgetabout in a New York accent,” “Reads self-help books,” and is most definitely “not going to attend your potluck.” Read on to discover the genesis of this …
Sara Watson: Since my MFA years at Chatham University, a program grounded in themes of nature and travel writing, I’ve developed a particular interest in poetry of place. So much of my own work looks inward, or, at its most ambitious, reaches out from my body toward another. I love it when other poets are …
We’re doing something unusual with this feature—running a piece from our pages (in this case a story in our current issue, “It Was Just Swimming” by Tom Paine) in its entirety on our blog. We hope to present you with more such content in the future, and we are grateful to LSU Press for allowing …
The human skull—perhaps no artifact so powerfully represents ephemerality and longevity, vulnerability and strength, enlightenment and its concommitant darkness, apex and nadir, life and death. Its complex and conflicting associations have historically made the skull a powerful symbol in art, literature, mythology, and ritual, representing the unknown as well as the known. Meshell Ndegeocello has …
Write what you know. It’s easy to tire of the adage, to bristle as the tweedy, bespectacled creative-writing-instructor-within brandishes his red pen at the slightest intimation of the unknown: dark matter, psychic surgery, monkey robot vampires from Planet Zed. When we asked 11.1 contributors Eric Pankey, Lesley Parry, and Michael Marberry to discuss their process, …
As those of you following along know by now, last Friday here at UC Mary Szybist read from her National Book Award–winning collection Incarnadine. What you might not know is that during said reading Szybist shared an ekphrastic poem (a poem responding to a piece of visual art), an abecedarian (a poem in which each …
Creative inspiration is often rooted in a writer’s ability to be attentive to the moment. Frank Baum is a prime example: he’d tell improvised fairy-tales to his children, and after they’d fallen asleep, he’d jot down his stories in a notebook. Eventually, these revised fairy-tales became The Wizard of Oz. He expanded upon his world …
We just got wind of this extraordinary interview on Popdose with CR contributor Steve De Jarnatt, whose story “Mulligan” (8.2) was selected for 2012’s New Stories from the Midwest. The interview begins: Not every creative professional can claim to have badgered Ringo Starr on network television, ushered the popular SCTV characters Bob & Doug McKenzie onto …
We’re thrilled to announce that poets and contributors Jessica Greenbaum (4.2, 6.1); Shara Lessley (6.1, 10.2); and Eliot Khalil Wilson (1.2) have been awarded Creative Writing Fellowships in Poetry from the National Endowment of the Arts. We hoist our glasses, beat our drums, raise the roof, and kick up our collective heels to Jessica, Shara, …
Welcome to the adagio movement of our Pas de Deux between fiction writers and 11.1 contributors Leslie Parry and Joan Leegant. Read on to witness these virtuosos pirouetting around such topics as adapting fairy tale motifs in contemporary literature, the advantages of dramatic action in short fiction, and (a nod to Black Friday) the dangers …