In this comic interview, Mandy-Suzanne Wong talks about finding inspiration for her novel from a mundane household object.
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News & Review Type: News
Coco Picard, author of THE HEALING CIRCLE, interviews Mandy-Suzanne Wong for Electric Literature!
The New Yorker highlights ELISE PASCHEN’S BESTIARY in the importance of “telling Osage stories!”
At the end of Anthony Lane’s review of “Killers of the Flower Moon”—Martin Scorsese’s new film about murders that were committed in the Osage Nation in the early twentieth century, after oil was discovered on Osage land—he expresses the hope that perhaps “an Osage voice will tell the tale anew” (The Current Cinema, October 30th). Outside the realm of cinema, there are a few instances of Native Americans telling this story. The Osage poet Elise Paschen’s “Wi’-gi-e” is spoken in the voice of Mollie Burkhart, one of the central characters in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Snap Judgement Podcast highlights “Seeking Shizuko” from DAVID MAS MASUMOTO’S book SECRET HARVESTS
A young girl was lost to her family. Torn away from them during their time in the Japanese-American prison camps, she was institutionalized and thought to be gone. But now, somehow she is rumored to be alive. Mas wrote about Shizuko in his book, Secret Harvests.
This story is part of Lisa’s podcast California Foodways. It gets support from California Humanities and the Food and Environment Reporting Network.
Psychology Today features article on “Parenting a Chronically Ill Child” by Lisa C. Krueger, author of FLORIOGRAPHY CHILD!
A Personal Perspective: It took years to receive an accurate diagnosis.
The director read out loud my daughter’s excused absences: fatigue, swollen glands, sore throat, exhaustion. She looked up at me. “Are you sure we’re not talking about something else?” I responded with a detailed listing of medical tests and specialists to determine the source of my eleven-year-old’s illness. She had been unwell with a host of difficulties (Mono, Epstein-Barr, swollen spleen and glands, fevers) since age four. Now, entering adolescence, her medical challenges had worsened, leaving her pale, listless, and often dizzy. How could anyone question the validity of her ailments?
The director was silent. Then she leaned across her desk, looked at me closely, and said, “Breathe.”
David Garyan interviews Kim Dower, author of I WORE THIS DRESS TODAY FOR YOU, MOM, for Interlitq’s Californian Poets Series!
DG: From 2016-2018, you were the Poet Laureate of West Hollywood, a dynamic, culturally rich city. Can you talk about this period, some of the work you wrote, and also your experiences in general related to serving this city?
KD: I loved everything about being West Hollywood’s City Poet Laureate and the opportunities it afforded me, one of which was to teach a Saturday morning poetry workshop at the West Hollywood Library, a gorgeous facility facing the hills. Five years after my “service” was complete, I still teach there and I’m still grateful to know the interesting people who sign up. During my time as Poet Laureate I became aware of how many people really don’t care or know much about poetry, but if you introduce it to them in a fun and entertaining way they are immediately drawn to its magic and able to appreciate the joy poetry brings. In 2017 I took on an ambitious project. I went around the city visiting shops, parks, bars—to our wonderful bookstore, Book Soup on Sunset Blvd, to the yogurt shop, library, and collected lines from over 100 WeHo residents and visitors. (Basically, I asked strangers to answer one of three prompts). I then wove their lines together into a collaborative poem entitled, I Sing the Body West Hollywood, an homage to Walt Whitman. he City of West Hollywood created posters of the poem which they sent to libraries and schools, and displayed them on bus shelters. They also commissioned a visual artist to create public art banners based on the poem, and it was even turned into an animated video for which I narrated!
DG: What’s one venue in West Hollywood you love to read your work in, and why?
Melanie Conroy-Goldman’s novel, THE LIKELY WORLD, selected as librarian’s spooky pick!
Read through the Montrose Regional Library’s picks for the spooky season below!
Find the whole article here!
Madeleine Nakamura’s CURSEBREAKERS is #1 on Kirkus Reviews’ list of “20 SFF Novels That Will Blow Your Mind”!
A tightly plotted conspiracy novel that blends seamlessly with its superbly developed setting.
Aliah Wright, author of the upcoming novel NOW YOU OWE ME, discusses new The Ebony Alert System policy in her piece for The Root!
In late September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Ebony Alert system into law—becoming the first state to notify the public when Black children and young Black women between the ages of 12 and 25 disappear. It mirrors the AMBER Alert system, which generates emergency alerts on smartphones and electronic road signs. It also encourages the media to share news when someone vanishes.
But while this new system is a fantastic first step to alleviating racial disparities when it comes to paying attention to missing Black women and children, it doesn’t go far enough.
Black people—Black women—deserve better. Way better. The Ebony Alert system should be worldwide, just like its predecessor.
Elise Paschen’s poem “Wi’-gi-e” called “an act of remembrance and a call to action” by Shannon Toll for The Conversation!
Elise Paschen’s poem “Wi’-gi-e” or “Prayer” from her 2009 book BESTIARY honors Anna Kyle Brown, who was thought to be the first victim of the Osage Reign of Terror.
For Shannon Toll, Associate Professor of Indigenous Literatures at the University of Dayton, Paschen’s poem serves as “an act of remembrance and a call to action: It is up to the speaker – and perhaps the reader – to explore, rather than ignore, spaces of loss and injustice. It is also a testament to the fact that the stories of the Osage people neither begin nor end with the events that will be portrayed in Scorsese’s film; as one Osage citizen declared, “We were victims of these crimes. We don’t live as victims.”
Elise Paschen partly credited as inspiration for the title of Martin Scorsese’s new film, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON!
Martin Scorsese’s latest film — “Killers of the Flower Moon” — documents the real-life tragedy that befell the Osage Nation in the early 20th century. After becoming rich after discovering oil on their land, numerous murders were committed by white infiltrators looking to take their oil head rights.
The movie is based on the 2017 novel, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann. However, the metaphor of the flower-moon killer didn’t originate with David Grann. Its origin is found in 2009 poem from Osage poet Elise Paschen titled “Wi’-gi-e.”
Lisa C. Krueger author of the recently published poetry memoir FLORIOGRAPHY CHILD featured in Literary Hub!
Most of us, in some manner, dig into our lives with words. We want clarity, we want understanding. Words, as Adrienne Rich said, are maps. The process of discovery, in both therapy and poetry, bears the weight of questions: What will I find? Can I live with what is there? We therapists reside in contemplation and mindful presence with people who are searching. Who dig.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, author of WATER & SALT, receives the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize for Translation from the Poetry Foundation!
Several prizes are awarded annually for work printed in Poetry during the preceding year. Only poems already published in the magazine are eligible for consideration, and no formal application is necessary. The winners are announced in the December issue. Below the prize descriptions is a complete list of past prize winners.
The Poetry Foundation also administers many other awards and grants.
The John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize for Translation, established in 1999 by Bonnie Larkin Nims, trustees of the Poetry Foundation, and friends of the late poet, translator, and editor, in the amount of $500, is awarded to Lena Khalaf Tuffaha for her translations of Zakaria Mohammed’s poems, “January 2,” “August 15,” and “August 16” in the September 2023 issue.
Berkeley Fiction Review interviews E.P Tuazon about upcoming book, PROFESSIONAL LOLA!
Gillian Gee at Berkeley Fiction Review has the wonderful opportunity to interview E.P. Tuazon, writer of the Pushcart Prize-nominated short story, “Professional Lola.” The interview covers topics ranging from representation of culture in fiction to what it means to be a Pilipinx-American writer.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, author of WATER & SALT, discusses the life and work of Palestinian poet and writer Zakaria Mohammed on The Poetry Magazine Podcast!
On this week’s episode, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with poet, essayist, and translator Lena Khalaf Tuffaha about the life and work of the renowned Palestinian poet and writer Zakaria Mohammed. Born in Nablus, Palestine, Mohammed was a freelance journalist, editor, and poet who authored nine volumes of poetry. In 1994, after twenty-five years in exile, he returned to his homeland to live in Ramallah where he recently died at the age of seventy-three. Ok and Khalaf Tuffaha discuss Mohammed’s rebelliousness, his democratizing practice of posting early drafts of his poems to Facebook, and how he approached writing in the shadow of Mahmoud Darwish. They also talk about grief, the politics of translation, and the always tricky task of composing an email. Finally, Khalaf Tuffaha treats us to some of Mohammed’s poems in Arabic and English translation that appear in the September 2023 issue of Poetry.
Juliana Lamy’s debut Haitian short-story collection YOU WERE WATCHING FROM THE SAND featured in Trinidad Express!
Welcome to the latest installment of the Bocas Book Bulletin, a monthly roundup of Caribbean literary news, curated by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago’s annual literary festival, and published in the Sunday Express.