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 …
Welcome back to another dynamic performance of our double-interview feature Pax de Deux, this time between fiction writers and 11.1 contributors Joan Leegant and Leslie Parry (about whose story “Vogelsong” Brenda Peynado wrote a glowing appreciation last week). Scroll down to view the entrée of this two-part duet, in which the dancers brisé across such …
As writers, we’re often asked about what inspired a piece, what outside stimulus provided the germ, the grist, or the spark for a first draft. Even the word inspiration, from the Latin inspīrār (to blow or breathe into), implies an agency without rather than within the artist, as if we were nothing more than receptacles for …
One of the million cool things about making a magazine is putting various works in conversation with each other. No poem is an island, after all. Or, if a poem is an island, then CR, and poetry in general, really, is an archipelago. And like the flora and fauna that travel from one discrete landmass to …
You don't have credit card details available. You will be redirected to update payment method page. Click OK to continue.