September 2002 Cover Image

An Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

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Sarah Anne Johnson
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the bestselling novels The Vine of Desire, The Mistress of Spices, and Sister of My Heart, the story collections The Unknown Errors of Our Lives and Arranged Marriage, which received several awards, including the American Book Award, and four collections of prize-winning poetry. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Best American Short Stories 1999, and other publications. Born in India, Divakaruni lives in the San Francisco area.
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Six Editor-Publishers Speak Out on Poetry's Current Situation

Marie Jordan
Three weeks after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center I interviewed six editor/publishers of independent poetry presses to discuss their thoughts, experience, and hopes for the future of poetry in America. The current war, bombings, Anthrax and germ terrorism, stock market crisis, and national attitude may all play into the need for and the relevance of poetry in the marketplace.
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A Lion in his Skin: An Interview with Michael Ondaatje

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Alan Soldofsky
Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje has published 11 books of poetry, four novels, and a memoir. Born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1943 of Dutch/Indian parentage, he was raised in London and has lived in Toronto since 1962. Though he made his initial reputation as a poet, Ondaatje has earned international acclaim as a novelist for his books Coming Through Slaughter (1982); In the Skin of a Lion (1987); The English Patient (1992), winner of the U.K.'s Booker Prize, and which was later made into an Academy Award-winning motion picture; and Anil's Ghost (1999), his most recent novel, set in the early '90s during the height of the brutal Sri Lankan civil war.
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Poetry and Survival

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Gregory Orr
Last year's catastrophic terrorist attacks and their continuing aftermath have had an enormous emotional impact on large segments of the American public. Confusion, grief, rage, and a sense of vulnerability have overwhelmed significant numbers of individuals, and they have sought different means of coming to terms with their experience. Among other responses, many sought clarity and consolation in the reading or writing of poems.

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Ghost Writing

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Barbara Feinman Todd
The night before I was to teach the first class in a course on literary voice at Johns Hopkins University, I had an anxiety dream. In it, I was about to introduce myself to my new students when the door swung open and a stranger burst into the room and strode up to the podium.
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