Winter 2023

Author Mini-Interviews

To give authors a chance to talk more about their process and craft, or just to give us a little more insight into their piece, we provided them with a list of questions from which they could pick one to answer. We hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain!

Sara Streeter

Q: How did this piece begin? What was its seed idea?

A: One morning, I woke up in my Maryland bed, looked at my phone and saw I had a KakaoTalk message from my Korean sister. She included a picture of an octopus in what I assumed was her kitchen. I stared at the picture on my phone for a long time trying to figure out what I was feeling. Why was I so unraveled by the octopus? Even though I regularly receive photos and notes from this sister I've never met, our communication can still send me into an emotional tailspin. I picked up a pen and started writing. The octopus metaphor helped me understand, and then explain, what it is to be the long lost sister, to be a tourist of a life I could have had. After several iterations, those words scribbled in a notebook eventually evolved into “My Sister’s Octopus.”

Lori Barrett

Q: If you could give your piece an accompanying tasting menu, what would it consist of?

A: This story was inspired by the time I spent working in a diner, and the way the men who ate there and the men who worked there acted like we women were on the menu alongside the food. I've compiled a tasting menu to go with the story.

Cocktail, from the accompanying bar (to be served by someone over 21): Seagrams Seven and Seven Up. Shot of milk optional. Other options include endless decaf, sweet tea, or syrupy soda.

Appetizer: Fried provolone sticks served with marinera dipping sauce.

Greek salad: Romaine lettuce, one large block of feta cheese, kalamata olives, onion, soggy tomatoes, and heavily seeded cucumbers, topped with an oil and vinegar dressing fragrant with dehydrated thyme

or cup of chicken rice soup.

Housemade rolls with a sweet cream cheese in the center, served warm.

Main course: Meatloaf and homemade gravy (homemade in this case can mean from an industrial size can). Sides include cottage cheese, cole slaw, cup of fresh fruit, or baked housemade macaroni and cheese topped with stewed tomatoes.

Dessert: Choose from a selection of cream pies, fruit pies, layer cake, pudding or jello from our rotating (literally slowly spinning) dessert cooler; decaf coffee optional.

Eric Scot Tryon

Q: What’s a helpful revision tip you follow?

A: My favorite revision tip that I follow religiously might also be the simplest: let it sit. Whenever I finish a first draft (or second…), I always put it away and won’t look at it for a couple weeks (sometimes months). When I come back to it, not only do I now have a certain objective distance from the piece, but I’m also no longer the same writer I was a few weeks ago. I’m able to really see the piece anew. And more times than not, this unlocks something in the story that could not have been achieved any other way.  

I know many writers do this when they are stuck on a piece, but I also do it when I’m really happy with a draft! Because of that objective distance, I’m able to look at the story more as an editor than a writer, which gives me a different and extremely helpful perspective.  

Just because flash can be read in a flash, doesn’t mean it should always be written that way.  

Eliot Li

Q: How did this piece begin? What was its seed idea?

A: During the 1940’s, my grandmother was a cigarette girl in a San Francisco nightclub. She actually met my grandfather there. In traditional Asian American circles, this would not be considered a very honorable situation. But when my mother told me about this, I could not have been prouder of Grandma, who to me was the scrappiest, most street smart and resourceful woman on the planet. 

I recently watched a documentary called “Forbidden City USA,” which chronicles the history of an Asian American nightclub that existed in the 1940’s on the outskirts of San Francisco Chinatown. The club featured burlesque dancers, as well as a variety of other performers, two of whom were billed as “the Chinese Frank Sinatra” and “the Chinese Ginger Rogers.” Most of the performers were second and third generation Chinese Americans, who braved their families’ disapproval, as well as the racism of the day (still very much present, unfortunately).

I asked my mother for the name of the club where my late grandmother worked, but she couldn’t remember. I was so hoping Grandma worked at the Forbidden City, as I could totally imagine her as part of that band of wonderful, talented Asian American rebels.

Emily Myles

Q. What’s something you’ve read lately that you really loved/found inspiring?

A. I recently read and loved Flight, by Lynn Steger Strong. Its portrayal of family, as well as the specificity and intimacy that each character is rendered in, is really beautiful and affecting.

Tim Conley

Q: What’s a helpful revision tip you follow?

A: I can name two, one that I find universally applicable (that is, I suppose every writer ought to do it) and one that is specific to me, but which perhaps somebody else might find helpful. The first: reading one's work aloud is the truest way to hear what works and what doesn't, to catch errors, to hit upon felicitous changes of phrase. The second has to do with endings. Several years ago I figured out that I often go too far in endings, probably out of striving for some sort of "neatness," which at its worst can tie too flashy a bow on things and neutralize the immediacy or dull the raw effect of an ending. I learned that, as often as not, I do well to cut the last sentence or two or even three. That's not something I need to do all the time, because some endings (like the one in this story) are more gradual and staggered, but I am usually wary of any possible bows.