A New Story by Dan Leach (fiction ’20) Appears on COPPER NICKEL

“Wasp Queen” was the winner of the Editors’ Prize in Prose for issue 33 of COPPER NICKEL

I.

Convention says I should kill you. By convention I mean my wife, the artist, who had plans to repurpose the vintage steel trash can inside of which you’ve built a nest the size of a small child. By convention I also mean my four-year-old daughter, who has been afraid to play outside since the day she bumped the trash can, prompting your drones to emerge and sting her on her face, and across her stomach, and even in the tiny pockets of flesh behind her knees. Twenty-six hits? Some might call that excessive. 

Read the full story at this link: https://copper-nickel.org/wasp-queen/

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Daniel Tam-Claiborne (fiction ’20) Interviews Peter Ho Davies

I was first introduced to Peter Ho Davies through a mutual friend to talk about craft for a lecture I was to deliver as a graduation requirement for my MFA program at Warren Wilson College. After two years of parsing short stories and making conjectures on writerly intentions in their work, I was eager to engage with Peter directly about marking identity through the lens of dialogue in his novel The Fortunes, an ambitious and captivating book that recasts Chinese American history through the lives of historical and fictional Chinese figures in America.

https://therumpus.net/2021/11/the-rumpus-interview-with-peter-ho-davies/
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“Offering,” a Poem by Mike Puican (poetry ’09) from FOUR WAY REVIEW

THE OFFERING

Unknown, wind-blown, the night 

requests your presence. The world burns 

at the oven door of your blank page. 

Read the full poem and listen to Mike’s recording of it on the FOUR WAY REVIEW website: https://fourwayreview.com/offering-by-mike-pulcan/

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“Memorial,” by Muriel Nelson (Poetry ’06)

Five poems by 2006 poetry alum Muriel Nelson were recently featured in Bloom. Read an excerpt of “Memorial” below:

Read this poem in its entirety, as well as four others, here: https://bloomsite.wordpress.com/2021/10/26/bloom-creative-writing-poetry-by-muriel-nelson/

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“Denoument,” by Suzanne Langlois (Poetry ’20)

2020 poetry alum Suzanne Langlois was recently featured in Rust + Moth. Read an excerpt of “Denoument” below:

Denoument

The only part of Time Bandits I remember
is the end, when the boy’s parents hold
a toaster oven between them with a charred
hunk of evil inside. The boy tells them
not to touch it. I think he says, “Don’t touch it,
it’s evil!” But they touch it anyway, and though
we don’t like them—they’re bad parents—
the resulting blast is disturbing. Even as
the curious neighbors step out onto their lawns
and the firetrucks arrive, we know he’ll be left
alone, which isn’t necessarily better. I might
be remembering it wrong. It’s been thirty years
since I saw it. But I remember clearly the dull
sense of dread settling in my bones. It probably
came from the recent realization that my parents
weren’t quite up to the task of raising me,
and that I wasn’t quite up to it either,
and those were the only available options.

Read this poem in its entirety here: https://rustandmoth.com/work/denouement/

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“Bone Folder,” by Leslie Contreras Schwartz (Poetry ’11)

“Bone Folder,” a poem by 2011 poetry alum Leslie Contreras Schwartz, was recently featured in the Cortland Review. Read an excerpt below:

Leslie Contreras Schwartz

Bone Folder

The bone folder dissects a single sheet
into half of one crisp line.

Is it possible to spare the hands, the fingers,
the body’s own bones and muscles?

But the work requires manipulation
upon hidden or interior lines

the body’s cellular agendas and maps
locked behind glass with the last lady’s skull.

Read this poem in its entirety, and hear the author read it, here: https://www.cortlandreview.com/issue-88/leslie-contreras-schwartz/

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“The Smell Test,” by Noah Stetzer (Poetry ’14)

Noah Stetzer, a 2014 poetry alum, was recently featured in One Art. Read an excerpt of Stetzer’s poem “The Smell Test” below:

The Smell Test

Ten thousand jasmine flowers and twenty
eight dozen roses are required to make
a single vial of this landmark perfume —
to it they add essence from the tropical
ylang ylang tree along with the michelia
magnolia mixed in with the white
star-shaped petals of the tuberose:
a concoction of not one particular earthly
manifestation, but an achievement
of the platonic ideal of a flower… 

Read this poem in its entirety here: https://oneartpoetry.com/2021/10/11/the-smell-test-by-noah-stetzer/

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An interview with Alberto Reyes Morgan (Fiction ’20)

2020 fiction graduate Alberto Reyes Morgan was recently interviewed for Catapult. Read an excerpt of the conversation below:

A Conversation with ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021’ Author Alberto Reyes Morgan

What is the best or worse writing advice you’ve received, and why?

When I was dipping my toes into the writing game I had this piece about a kid climbing a tree to grab something his friend threw up there. The tree starts bleeding, then drowns the world in its blood, including the friend. I had this line, “bright horrific beauty,” in it. When I showed the story to the writer Peter Orner, he just said, his eyes looking down at my piece of paper, “What’s ‘bright horrific beauty?’” I remember feeling embarrassed because, yeah, what the fuck did that even mean? He told me to beware of adjectives.

Finally, where do you discover new writing?

Every year, I make sure to buy the Best Debut Short Stories anthology and read the fantastic writers within its pages (wink, wink). Well don’t write in the part where I winked at you, otherwise . . . Are you writing this down? I don’t—

Read this interview in its entirety here: https://catapult.co/dont-write-alone/stories/a-conversation-with-best-debut-short-stories-2021-author-alberto-reyes-morgan

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“Motherhood: A Map,” by Chloe Martinez (Poetry ’09)

Chloe Martinez (Poetry ’09), the author of Ten Thousand Selves, was recently featured in Shenandoah. Read an excerpt of Martinez’s poem, “Motherhood: A Map,” below:

Motherhood: A Map

You are here: abject, bereft, clear (all-seeing, also
see-through); disheveled. Euphoric, enervated, flushed, faint,
fierce, and also, generous, gushing milk and patience,
goddess-like, even while grieving—what?—your good, distant self.
Heavy, heaving. Helper; holder of hands or heads.
You’ll appear, to some idiots, indignant, indigent, icky.

You’ll ignore cries, which is not to say you won’t hear them,
no, your rabbit ears will make you jumpy, jealous
of the free world. Animaled, you’ll grow keen, willing
to kill, almost, kept in the kennel of loving a small helpless thing
so helplessly that you’d carry your cub, kindred, kinder
through the streets in your very teeth…

Read this poem in its entirety here: https://shenandoahliterary.org/702/motherhood-a-map/

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