Mary Leader is a poet-lawyer from Oklahoma. She served as the Assistant Attorney General and later as a Referee for the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Distaff Side, a collection about matrimony at the meeting of just-barely-on-the-surface and just-barely-underneath-it is her fifth collection of poems, The extraordinary visual aspects of the poem serve as the poet’s means for pleasure and defiance. In this interview with Tiffany Troy, Mary talks about her new book and the process of writing it, major themes, and more.
Category: Author interviews
An interview with Meredith Stricker
Meredith Stricker is an artist and poet working in cross-genre media. She is the author of six poetry collections and recipient of the National Poetry Series Award. Her most recent book, Rewild, won the Dorset prize from Tupelo Press. She co-directs visual poetry studio, a collaborative focusing on architecture in Big Sur and projects to bring together artists, writers, musicians, and experimental forms. In this candid interview she speaks to Yasmine Guiga about her new book Rewild and the challenges she faced, reader expectations, inspirations, the search for aesthetic wholeness, TS Eliot, and lots more.
Confronting Invisible Winds: A Conversation with Rachel Rueckert about East Winds
Rachel Rueckert is an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University as well as an M.Ed from Boston University. As a seventh-generation Utahn, her favorite subjects include place, family, mental health, unconventional spirituality, and climate change. In this in-depth interview, Rachel speaks about her new memoir East Winds.
An interview with Kelly Weber, author of We Are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place
The author of We Are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place talks about her latest book and how it evolved, her composition process, on writing about alternative erotics in kindship with the ecological world and in platonic relationships, on family stories that directly and indirectly teach about power dynamics, gender and sexuality expectations, and wounds, mythology and symbolism, and lots more.
An interview with Scott Erickson on Mommy, Why Did America Collapse?
Many years after America’s collapse, a young girl asks her mother to explain why it happened. Her mother explains that the tragic story has a good side. The rest of the world was spared America’s fate by learning from America’s example what changes needed to be made.
An interview with Cindy Morgan
Singer/songwriter Cindy Morgan is a two-time Grammy nominee, a thirteen- time Dove winner, and a recipient of the prestigious Songwriter of the Year trophy. In this in-depth interview, she talks about her first novel, The Year of Jubilee, the real-life story behind it, first memory impacts, faith, civil rights, the mother-daughter dynamic, her characters, settings, the “poor mind”, and lots more.
Marina Rubin in Conversation with Stephanie Dickinson
Marina Rubin in Conversation with Stephanie Dickinson, discussing Rubin’s new book Knockout Beauty and Other Afflictions – a collection of stories of desire, damage, and human meandering. The authors discuss, among other things, influences, the advantages of being multilingual, linguistic precision, characterisation, utilising humour, the power of the first line reveal, and lots more.
An interview with Dale Griffin
The author of The Last Lion of Karkov talks about his new book, his characters and the process of creating feisty female protagonists, his inspiration and why he’s donating his sales to Girls, Inc, his new work-in-progress and lots more.
A conversation between Cynthia Good and Stelios Mormoris
Authors of two new poetry collections get together to interview one another about their work. Cynthia Good, author of What We Do with Our Hands, and Stelios Mormoris, author of The Oculus take a deeper look at what compels a person to write a poem.
“A poem is an object made of words”: A conversation with Flemish poet, novelist, and art critic, Willem M. Roggeman
In re-reading the interview now, it is clear that Gary Snyder was just an entry point for me to have a conversation with a true renaissance man of poetry. I’m reminded of the Pakistani proverb that says when you share the first cup of tea, you are a stranger. With the second cup, you are a friend, and with the third cup, you become family. Mr. Roggeman and I sipped coffee during our conversation, and it was clear that we quickly moved through the three cups from strangers to friends.