May/Summer 2010 Cover Image

An Interview with H.L. Hix

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John Poch
H.L. Hix is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, philosophy, and criticism, and has edited numerous other collections. He has an NEA fellowship, and he has won the KCAI Teaching Excellence Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry from Truman State University Press in Missouri. In 2006, he was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.
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An Interview with Marie Howe

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Christian Teresi
Each person writes according to their own character and their own need. Some publish, some don't. Finally, we're all here writing for eternity, which is apparently always now.
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Turning the Screws of Story Construction with Henry James

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Aimee Liu
"The plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place." This quote from Aristotle's Poetics brings to mind a book that used to baffle me.

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Narrative Strategy & Dramatic Design

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K.L. Cook
Postmodern writers and filmmakers often make readers and audiences feel as if we are studying an x-ray-which is simply another way of revealing what Joyce called the radiant "whatness" of experience.
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To the Betrayed World: Darth Howard, Ashurbanipal, & a Defense of Poetry

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David Wojahn
What did I hope to learn from Darth Howard? ...I was looking for a decent answer to the question of why? Why write poetry if we are never to know the answer to the question of whether our craft is to be characterized as a sacrament or as a con-game?
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What We Talk about When We Talk about Theme

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Eileen Pollack
Sure, you can raise the stakes of your character's conflict by making the consequences grave, or even lethal. But even if a character is based on someone real, by the time you have processed him or her through your IBM or Mac, he or she has become fictitious.
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An Interview with David Ives

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Dana Gioia
My third play was at college and was The Worst Play Ever Written. From there, I had nowhere to go but up. My next play got produced, and suddenly I was a real-live playwright. I've been faking it ever since.
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