Not a Residency, But a Residence: An Interview with City of Asylum Pittsburgh’s Henry Reese
“Making a home for a writer in exile ended up a way for us to make a better home for ourselves.”
Interviews
A Conversation with Ghanoonparvar
* Kaveh Bassiri *
Perhaps no one has been more responsible for introducing modern Persian prose to Americans than Mohammad Ghanoonparvar. Everyone who teaches modern Persian literature or reads Persian novels in English translation is indebted to his work as a translator, scholar, and teacher. Ghanoonparvar and his students have produced a significant portion of modern Persian literature in English. He recently retired from University of Texas at Austin and is now Professor Emeritus. In celebration of his long service to Iranian literature, I took this opportunity to ask him some questions.
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Into The Wind: An Interview with Jessica Fogel
How might the arts contribute to our perceptions of our evolving landscapes as we transition towards renewable energy sources? This is the question which Jessica Fogel, choreographer, Artistic Director, and Professor, has made central to Into The Wind, a dance and music performance that will be presented at the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) in Muskegon, Michigan on August 22nd and 23rd.
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The State of Being Many: An Interview with Celia Rowlson-Hall
* Elizabeth Schmuhl *
Celia Rowlson-Hall is a New York based filmmaker, choreographer, and Bessie Award winning performer. I was first drawn to Rowlson-Hall because of her short film Three of a Feather, a piece she wrote and directed. Three of a Feather stars and features choreography from Monica Bill Barnes, a contemporary dance company to which Rowlson-Hall once belonged. Because I am interested in multidisciplinary arts as well as artists who push boundaries, I found Rowlson-Hall’s work immediately appealing. She was gracious enough to take time from her busy schedule to allow me to interview her for MQR.
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¿Por que te vas? An Interview with Veronica Gonzalez Peña
“I mean the fantastical is as old as stories themselves, is perhaps where stories begin, but when a Latin American uses that trope we are immediately categorized. Boxes are safe. Safety doesn’t interest me, not in art. “
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In-Process: A Conversation with Gina Balibrera
* Claire Skinner *
This is the first installment in what I hope will be a long and fruitful set of discussions with writers who are are engaged in the wonderful yet daunting process of writing their first books. My first interviewee is Gina Balibrera, a writer of fiction and nonfiction, who is at work on her first novel, The Volcano-Daughters.
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Tremors of Iranian American Writing
“Many of us feel that our experience of being bicultural, tricultural, or simply growing up between continents and cultures has given us a kind of double-vision. I think of this as being a kind of third eye in which to see others, and in particular to see ‘otherness.'”
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Substantiations of Violence, Romanticism, and Lame Jokes: An Interview with Douglas Trevor
“I think the idea that writing makes people feel better is usually mistaken. Finishing a book, or a story, or an article, is an accomplishment and that should bring a measure of joy and/or relief, but I think when people set out to write about painful experiences they delude themselves when they claim that they will feel better at the end of the experience. They might feel better by virtue of finishing the book or the story, but I don’t think that means they will feel better about whatever was ailing them when they started out. I just don’t think writing cures despair. Melville says as much in his diaries, and so does Shakespeare’s speaker at the end of the Sonnets: ‘Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.'”
Kismet, Blueprints, & Secret Tattoos: Catching Up with Essayist Aisha Sabatini Sloan
“For each essay, I would set myself up as though I were allowed to make a collage using last Wednesday’s newspaper, a 1996 issue of Art Forum, and the notes I took while on layover at the Minneapolis/St Paul airport. And the reason for each particular assemblage was not random: there was always some hunch that I was trying to articulate in the gathering. Race, place and art are ongoing themes.”
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The Writing Life in Stockholm with Kevin Lee Luna: Old Swedes, Cheap Copy Machines, and Amazing, Romantic Things
“I’m very slow when it comes to taking in content. I’ll find a writer I like, usually someone who is dead because their books are used and cheap, and then I’m very loyal to them, re-reading, searching for more of their work, hijacking their style for a few months or years. In Stockholm there are a few good places to find used books in English. Larry’s Corner, where I have a little office in the back. Alpha Books near the city center and lots of the thrift stores. One nice thing about looking for English books in a foreign country is that you’re forced to read what is there and go outside of your snobby box a bit.”