Marta Rose Interviews Laura van den Berg

Alum Marta Rose (fiction, ’15) and faculty member Laura van den Berg appears at Fiction Writers Review:

I first noticed Laura van den Berg sitting a few seats ahead of me on an airplane en route to Asheville, North Carolina, though I had no idea who she was then. I had recently sent my family on their own summer adventures—my eleven-year-old son was at sleep away camp, my seventeen-year-old daughter was taking a course in urban studies in Chicago, my wife was with friends at the shore—and I was thrilled to be on my way to a ten-day writing residency as a fiction student in the Warren Wilson MFA program for writers. The young woman seated a few rows ahead of me, however, looked anything but thrilled; in fact, I first noticed her because she was visibly shaken by the turbulence on our short flight from Charlotte to Asheville, gripping the arms of her seat with each bump, her eyes seeking the flight attendants for reassurance each time the small airplane jerked and bounced. I wanted to give her a reassuring smile, but I could never seem to catch her eye.

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