May/Summer 2002 
An Interview with Jayne Anne Phillips
Sarah Anne Johnson
Jayne Anne Phillips was born and raised in West Virginia. Her first book of stories, Black Tickets, won the prestigious Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. Machine Dreams, Phillips's first novel, a New York Times best-seller, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 12 Best Books of the Year.
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An Interview with Les Standiford
Steve Glassman
Les Standiford is the founding director of the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami, which has been called one of the ten best writing programs in the country by The Dictionary of Literary Biography. He holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Utah and has published nine novels, including Bone Key (Putnam, April 2002) and several works of narrative nonfiction, including Last Train to Paradise (Crown, September 2002). He has been awarded fellowships from the NEA and the Florida Cultural Affairs Council for his novels.
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Literary Couples
Tom Nawrocki
You open the book flipping past the title page, and there it is: the dedication. More often than not, it is several heartfelt lines directed at a husband or wife who held back the world for a few hours at a time. The hard work of writing doesn't get done by itself: all writers with families know this.
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If You Have to be Sure Don't Write: Poetry & Self Doubt
David Wojahn
Tattoos begin to lose their luster in middle age. After a couple of decades of wear and tear, even permanent ink begins to fade, and middle-aged flesh, more prone to flab and loss of muscle tone than the taut skin of youth, is apt to become a poor display case for your body art. The roses and the bluebirds and the prancing tigers sag, and soon you're wearing one of Dali's melted watches-now the incised skin shouts tempus fugit.
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Poetry Anthologies: One of the Moister Areas of Literature
Rachel Hadas
Poetry anthologies are useful, even crucial, resources for teachers and students, literary scholars, and indeed all lovers of poetry. But to put the matter this way is too humdrum and impersonal, for poetry anthologies are not only literary tools but also lightning rods for all kinds of feelings more or less closely related to poetry.
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An Interview with Li-Young Lee
Marie Jordan
Li-Young Lee's great grandfather, Yuan Shikai served as China's first republican president from 1912 to 1916 and tried to establish himself as emperor. Lee's father, Lee Kuo Yuan, a profound and religious Christian, was a physician under the Nationalist Chinese during China's civil war. He was physician to Communist leader Mao Tse-Tung.
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