1. Why are literary journals significant?

RL: I think the most meaningful [...]]]> At the IR Editors Showcase, we were presented with some challenging, excellent questions. I asked our outgoing and incoming genre editors to respond, and I’ve corralled their answers for you. Today, we have Fiction Editor Rachel Lyon, Poetry Editor Cate Lycurgus, and Nonfiction Editor Sarah Suksiri!

1. Why are literary journals significant?

RL: I think the most meaningful thing to me about lit journals is that they’re a way of forming community without necessarily sharing a space. We can read the work of other writers, and feel close to them, and participate in the dialogues that interest us with people whose work we respect, without being in the same city or state or country. Plus, because they are curated by editors who know something about what’s going on in their field, the quality of work tends to be higher.

CL: Literary publications are a testament to the power of the imagination and the power of language, both of which are undervalued, yet necessary parts of our lives–in order to innovate, to make sense of the nonsensical, to connect with others, to provide wonder or surprise or consolation or astonishment. Literary journals have the potential to find this expression and to share it.

SS: Journals are significant, because they make us keep asking this question. Seriously, what other line of work and craft is there where the participants keep asking themselves, “Is anything that we’re doing relevant?” The fact that we (journals) are so concerned with what it is that moves and thrums in the world is part of what makes us relevant.

2. What do you think about their future?

RL: As long as people write, there will be journals; people will always write, so there will always be journals. The state of printed matter may change, paper may no longer be the medium of choice, but the periodical will persist. If anything, I think the number of small journals has increased even as many large, for-profit magazines collapse. I suspect that trend will continue, and that as more journals pop up they will begin to serve more and more rarefied niche audiences in order to make space for themselves in a vast, variegated landscape.

CL: I think there will always be people for whom stories and poems and words matter. I also think there will be people who want to hold and read a physical book. On the other hand, it’s crucial for journals to recognize that today’s financial and technical realities make print journals an ever-more challenging proposition. Journals themselves will need to be creative in the strategies for disseminating their gems.

SS: Journals will engage their digital alter-egos more intelligently and elegantly; their print counterparts will become more elegant and efficient, embracing their irreplaceable role as art and artifact. The whole idea of what constitutes a “publication” will evolve magnificently.

3. What are some of your favorite journals?

RL: Geist, Works in Progress, One Story, Zoetrope, Alimentum . . . there are so many.

CL: Crazyhorse, A Public Space, DIAGRAM, The Sun, Gulf Coast, Poetry, especially the December issues!

SS: Currently: Narrative Magazine, Brevity, Armchair/Shotgun.

4. What is the last thing you read that you deeply loved/that undid you/that made you want to write RIGHT THEN?

RL: I was deeply inspired by Nathan Englander’s story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (from his eponymous collection), which came out in The New Yorker last year. I am just so impressed with the way he used Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” thematically and structurally, without letting his story become at all derivative. His work is clever without being insincere, and has a kind of spare clarity that recalls Carver without imitating him. That story made me think a lot about how we pay homage to the writers we love. I ended up using it as a kind of guide while working on a piece I wrote for the Flannery O’Connor colloquium we had here, called “Good City People.”

CL: A few poems in Todd Boss’s Pitch. Or Brenda Hillman’s Practical Water. Although I was so blown away and intimidated by that one, I don’t know that I could have picked up a pen!

SS: Anything by Gerald Stern or Steve Scafidi or Gianni Celati.

While Vievee and Roxane and Mary were here, I got a chance to sit down with each of them and talk a little bit about their work. Below is the first of these interviews. You can read a transcript of my conversation with Mary below, or click here to hear the full interview as [...]]]>

While Vievee and Roxane and Mary were here, I got a chance to sit down with each of them and talk a little bit about their work. Below is the first of these interviews. You can read a transcript of my conversation with Mary below, or click here to hear the full interview as an mp3.

•

Mary Hamilton: Hi, I’m Mary Hamilton [laughs].

Rachel Lyon: How would you describe yourself as a writer?

MH: I like to write short-short pieces, pieces that sort of take reality and twist it a little bit.

RL: Have you always written like that, or is that sort of a development that’s happened over time?

MH: I think I always had that sensibility, but the end of my first year of grad school I think I sort of discovered that and embraced it and found that there was a lot of possibility within it that I could go with, so I think a lot of times you start grad school you think that you have to be a certain kind of writer, you go in and you think you’re going to be like Alice Munro, and then you discover that Alice Munro is Alice Munro, and you figure out what you really want to do.

RL: So what’s that process like, then? Sort of refining your voice, or allowing your voice to come through?

MH: Um, I think for me when it happened was I had an instructor so I had to be confident with what I was writing. We had one-on-one meetings, so I had to be really confident when I went into that meeting of what I was bringing to him, so that anything he said back to me I could back it up, and believe in it. So I think after that experience happened, if I put something out into the world I have to believe in it, so I think that’s a big part of developing that so-called voice: knowing that it’s yours. And then when you put it out, even if someone rejects it, you’re like, ‘Well, that’s me.’ So you move on a little bit.

RL: At this point, where do you say you are in your writing career?

MH: I’m pretty chill about it, actually. I love writing, I love putting my work out, I love the prospect of collections coming along the line in the future, which I think is good. I’m not one of those writers whose great ambition is to be in the New York Times. My goal is just to have people read my work and like it. To me, that’s success.

RL: What do you hope people will take away from reading your work?

MH: Um, something. [Laughs.] For me it’s more of a conversation with the reader than anything else. As long as somebody got something out of it I’m happy. Because the stories are really short; there’s not a lot of certain details in them, I guess, there’s not a lot of, like, this is what this means, and this is what this means. So if someone thinks the story means one thing to them, and another person thinks it means something to them, I’m cool with that.

RL: Your stories do kind of resist interpretation. Can you talk a little bit about that? The directness, I guess.

MH: For me, I know exactly what it’s about, I know exactly what it looks like, I know everything about it, but I get a lot more out of talking to poets about writing than I do, I guess, to fiction writers, because my perspective on it I guess  is similar to a poet’s perspective, where it is like a conversation, so you say something to someone and they hear it and they say something back to you. With poetry you’re more open, it’s more obvious that the reader’s going to interpret it in the way they want to read it, and with fiction you’re expected to tell them, ‘This is what’s up,’ and I kind of like playing that line with fiction, and saying, ‘Well, I’m going to write a story that you’re going to interpret the story the way you want to.’

RL: So why fiction, then? Why do you write fiction?

MH: Because it’s what I am, you know? I’m a terrible poet [laughs]. And I really like playing that line in fiction.

RL: Well, how are your stories not poems?

MH: ‘Cause I say they’re not. [Laughs.] That’s it. If someone wants to call it a poem, they can call it a poem, but for me they’re stories.

RL: You were talking a little bit about this group of writers that you send work back and forth to and from. This is a community that you met in grad school?

MH: Oh, that was a project I did in grad school with two of my friends. We had similar sensibilities, but very different writing styles, and so just for a couple of months we got together and just did a little project, where we sent pieces to each other that connected to each other in a way, just to get some writing done, and out of that I got some pieces that I really liked, which, one I’ll read today.

RL: Yeah, let’s go ahead and do that.

MH: Okay. So the project was that my friend Kate would write a very short piece and she’d send it to Patrick, Patrick would write a short piece to follow that, and send his piece to me, and I would write a short piece to follow Patrick’s, and I’d send my piece to Kate. So there was that gap in between where something unexpected would happen. So we had this main character whose name is Thomas and he’s an elf, and you would write what you think happened to Thomas, and by the time it got back to you it had totally evolved and you’d have to rethink the character a little bit. So this is one of the pieces I wrote. It’s called “Never Ever.”

It’s one of those things like how a riddle works its way into the notches in your sinus cavity and lingers and infects and wakes you at night and you try every possible path to resolution, and still you can’t figure the answer. And still you are awake at four a.m. And still you are debating the right moment to ask if you can move your hand from the place where she has situated it so your finger could hold tight the wrapped ribbon while she fixed a bow of multiplying loops over your purple now blue finger and she doesn’t notice the colors changing because she is worrying over the color of the ribbon. The pink sage color of the ribbon and it seems to be clashing with the paper and while she is fretting over ribbon versus paper you are sniffling back any mucus that is attempting to escape your nose and you are considering the impact of asking her if it is time to let go because that is a question that you never ever want to ask. Never ever never ever never.

RL: To what extent are the characters in your work… like, how personal is your work?

MH: Very. Yeah. That’s what helps with fiction, ‘cause you can hide behind a character. Yeah.

RL: The idea of the mask that both limits you and frees you to talk about certain things.

MH: Mm-hm.

RL: How does that work for you?

MH: I think it allows you to go where you wouldn’t go yourself, in a way, like you can make the character do something that you weren’t brave enough to do, or say what you weren’t brave enough to say. In the last year I’ve written a couple sort of nonfiction pieces that I got really honest with, and that’s really scary, to be like, ‘This is me!’ Super scary. Much easier to do if it’s an elf named Thomas, like, he can do whatever. It’s much easier to be honest within a character than to be honest within yourself. But I’m getting older. [Laughs.] Time to get real.

RL: Yeah, it’s time for sincerity.

MH: You hit your thirties, and you’re like, ‘There’s no turning back.’

RL: What does it mean to you to be a woman writer right now?

MH: I think the biggest part is just putting out real work, and strong work, making sure people read it, you know? I mean I’ve had some conversations with a couple friends of mine who are male editors, and they’re like—and I know that they mean this—they don’t choose what they’re going to put into their journals based on the name, they totally do it based on the work, but it’s also like, you’re coming at it from a male sensibility of what you like, so you kind of need to open your brain up a little bit and think about all sensibilities when you put together a journal. But as far as feedback, I think, for me anyway, men and women have responded to my work equally, which I like. So, just as long as I’m getting my voice out there.

RL: You’re not a writer by day.

MH: Right.

RL: Your day job is…

MH: I’m an optician! [Laughs.] I love it. I love being an optician. For those that don’t know, an optician doesn’t do the eye exam. I like to say we’re sort of like the pharmacists for glasses. But the work I do is sort of a blend between that and also it’s eyewear itself. The product itself has a lot of different categories, a lot of different levels, and I work with very small, independent designers, handmade glasses, so a lot of what I do is looking at faces, and fitting faces to glasses.

RL: So you’re the person who says, ‘Oh you shouldn’t have square glasses, you should have round glasses,’ or.

MH: It’s even more detailed than broad shapes like that. We have about nine hundred frames in our store for optical glasses, and then we have another two or three hundred sunglasses. It’s looking at a person’s eyes, nose, brow line, jaw, cheekbones, and then thinking about the exact frame we have that would fit that person, so it’s a whole other part of the brain that I use at work than I do when I’m writing.

RL: There’s a lot of math involved, right?

MH: Yes. I love math.

RL: What’s that balance like, then? You spend your day figuring out these equations or whatever, and then you go home and you write. What is that like, that transition?

MH: Well, it’s sort of freeing, because you get home and you still have all this creative energy. I mean, it’s work, you know. There are days when you’re really tired and you get home and you just want a beer. But it doesn’t suck away that creative energy that goes into writing, so I feel like I don’t use up any words, you know, like I don’t use up anything. And it’s sort of this constant discovery, because you never know who you’re going to meet in that job, you know, because everyone wears glasses. I could meet an airline pilot, I could meet a ballroom dancer, I could meet a heart surgeon, you know, in the same day, and have conversations with them. It informs my work quite a bit, because I like to find inspiration in all kinds of places. It feeds it, I think, having that.

RL: Do those characters make their way into your work?

MH: No, but it’s sort of like understanding the world is bigger than you, on a personal level. I’m a very independent writer, in a way, like I go home and I write a story, and I don’t really think of it in a broader sense than that, they’re very personal and they’re very small. It’s more of understanding the world on a one-to-one level, and the store I work at, it’s very one-to-one. Someone comes in and you work solely with them for about an hour.

RL: So it’s a very intimate experience.

MH: Yeah.

RL: That seems like it would foster a kind of serenity or something.

MH: [Laughs.] Yeah, it’s a great experience for most people. They feel loved.

RL: I guess I’m curious about your background, where you come from, your life.

MH:  Well, I grew up in Minnesota, youngest of five kids. And I went to school in upstate New York. I actually went to school for video production and radio production, and I thought I was going to be a video editor. And I went out to LA and I did some internships, and I decided I didn’t want to be a video editor. And so I spent my whole senior year of college taking English courses and writing courses. I bummed around Boston for three years, which was, I highly suggest it. And then I decided to do it, and I went to grad school for writing. It was something I always knew that I wanted to do, and never could admit that I wanted to do. So finally admitted it, and then stumbled into opticianry while I was in Chicago. And then I recently moved to LA, back to LA, for an optician job, but it’s sort of funny that I landed back there.

RL: How do these different places or different cities work into your work? What does LA mean to you that Minnesota doesn’t mean?

MH: I think I have a lot of Minnesota still going on in my work, just the physical space of it. A lot of the stories are still set in forests, and a lot of the times when I’m writing I’m still think about the way the sky looks there at night, and trees, and it’s definitely still more informative to my work than any other place I’ve lived. A lot of my stories, even though they don’t have strong physical descriptions, I see the place in my mind really clearly, and usually what I’m seeing is Minnesota.

RL: So then how does LA work itself in, if at all?

MH: Um, I’m still so new there, that it hasn’t yet, actually. It’s still too new to have done anything yet.

RL: Where do you see your work going now?

MH: I can definitely see it evolving, and it’s sort of fun to see that. I’ve been playing with shifting the narrator, and sort of finding ways to end stories with almost a little surprise. Kind of like I did with one of the stories in IR, the bird story. When I had that ending I felt like I made a discovery in my writing, that I could do that. It was a really freeing way of ending a story for me.

RL: What exactly was it doing?

MH: Not resolving anything, but resolving. You know, it’s like the way that story ends, it’s like a shrug. And it was really freeing to be able to end a story without having that beautiful final line that everybody wants to have at the end of a story. It’s just a sort of ‘well, there it is’ kind of story, and that was really freeing to me to be able to do that, and I’ve sort of been incorporating that feeling almost earlier into stories now, and shifting what a narrator can be, and what a main character can be. So I’m working on a story right now where the main character is actually light, the idea of light. And it’s fun playing with that, saying, like, ‘I can do this. Who’s gonna stop me?’ You know? It’s fun to see your work evolving, and being okay with taking chances.

RL: It seems like there’s something kind of existential about that shrug.

MH: Yeah it’s great, it’s freeing.

RL: Are you putting together another collection right now? What are you working on?

MH: I have a collection coming up with the LitPub, later this year. It’s been done for alittle over a year, and so I’m figuring out these new stories, and working toward, I think, another project, another collection.

RL: What do you think are some misconceptions about short fiction?

MH: Oh, there are so many. There are so many. It’s getting more respect lately, but I think a lot of people look at it as practice for a novel, like, ‘Oh you put out a short story collection, the next thing you have to do is put out that novel,’ or, ‘You’re not really a writer until you’ve written a novel, ‘cause the novel is the big thing you have to do as a writer.’ I think a lot of people look at short stories as practice, or as, ‘Isn’t that cute, look, they’re having fun with that.’ And I think that’s a misconception because for me, short story writing, like, you can’t slack off at all. The shorter the story is, the more is at stake with every single word, every single image that you choose, and there’s really no room to take a breather. You have to be on your game with every single word when you’re writing short-short stories, so for me it’s much more difficult. [Laughs.] I’ve never tried to write a novel. I don’t want to try to write a novel. But I think it’s just as hard.

RL: Who are some writers that you admire?

MH: Like, living writers?

RL: No, not necessarily.

MH: Okay. I love Langston Hughes. Probably the most influential writer for me. I like Jack Kerouac a lot—I know a lot of women don’t like him, but I love him. And I read this book called Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett, which is probably the most influential book for me in the last year or two. It’s a nonfiction book—he’s a linguist—and Mary Roach. I love her. And it’s not about language; it’s about topic with her. Well, it’s about language; she knows what language to use to convey these topics.

RL: So two out of four of those are nonfiction writers.

MH: Yeah. I read more nonfiction than fiction.

RL: How’s that reflected in your work?

MH: When I read nonfiction, even if it’s written poorly, I’m discovering something and it’s opening the world up and showing me more of the world, which I know a lot of people find through fiction, but I get really picky, and I get really angry if I’m reading fiction and it’s not good. I’m like, ‘Well, I’m giving you this time of my life, and you’re not feeding it.’ Whereas with nonfiction if it’s a fascinating topic, it’s like, ‘Well, you can’t write, but, wow, that’s fascinating that there’s a patron saint of ugly people. Who knew?’ I’m very impatient when I read fiction. If I don’t like a book, I’ll just stop reading it. If I don’t like a short story, it doesn’t matter how long it is, I’ll stop reading it. If I’m giving my time to something I want it to reward me. And I listen to a lot of music, like I just sit and stare at the wall and listen to music a lot. It’s hard for writing to compete with really good music. You can’t compete with a really good song.

RL: It’s not apples and oranges?

MH: No. [Laughs.] I mean, you want to have some sort of response to art. I had a great conversation with a friend of mine once about Jack Kerouac’s book Mexico City Blues, and how he was really trying to create music with his writing. Langston Hughes has a lot of music in his writing. And I don’t mean like literally referencing music, but imitating the rhythm and the feel of music, and I think that’s why I respond to those two writers so much, because there is that musicality to their work.

RL: Is there anything else you want to say before we wrap things up?

MH: Thanks for having me!

RL: Thanks for coming in.

When I was seventeen, I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and finally felt understood.  Like many children of immigrant parents, I was never sure what to make of my identity.  Indians my age called me out when I tried to ignore it, claiming that I didn’t care about the country that nurtured my [...]]]>

When I was seventeen, I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and finally felt understood.  Like many children of immigrant parents, I was never sure what to make of my identity.  Indians my age called me out when I tried to ignore it, claiming that I didn’t care about the country that nurtured my parents.  When I gave it my full attention, I felt close-minded and not myself.  After reading The Namesake, I thought through and wrote about these issues in ways I hadn’t before.  I kept a response to the book tucked inside the pages.

At this age, a life without Jhumpa Lahiri would be a completely different life.  Two days ago, I drove up from Bloomington to Indianapolis to see her talk, feeling reluctant the entire drive.  Her writing has affected me in such intimate ways and I consider her my favorite author, yet, I didn’t want to see her.  Over the past year, I’ve began to take writing more seriously and as a developing writer trying to find stories to tell, I’ve distanced myself from her.  Whenever I reference a story of hers and try to write my own, I know that she snatches my pen from me and writes with her own voice.  

At the reading, the lady sitting next to me looked giddy.  We started talking and she, too, felt all sorts of confusion with her family origin.  It made me think of how often I don’t have these sorts of conversations.  When I told her I had forgotten to bring a book to have signed she told me that she had brought all three.  They’re all so important to me for different reasons, she said.

The room continued to fill and people made do by sitting on the floor along the walls when there were no vacant seats.  I had never seen such excitement around a writer.  As Lahiri began to speak, I thought how strange and nerve-wracking it felt to listen to her voice, which traveled directly to my body, separated by only a small space of air, rather than finding me through a set of headphones, or through letters on a page.

When the question and answer session began, a younger boy asked, “Who would you talk to if you could, alive or dead?”  I expected her to say Chekhov.  I think she almost did because she responded, “I would say one of the writers I admire, but maybe I wouldn’t actually want to meet them.  You come to know a writer through their work in a different way than you do a person.  You may be noticing that now.” She went on to say that she would talk to her grandparents who she never knew that well, considering the mystery that surrounded her family history.

A man asked why all Indian couples in her stories appear unhappy.  Is there a reason for that?  I saw an Indian woman in the audience turn to her Indian husband with wide-eyes, playful and inquisitive.  It was the type of expression I had seen so many times during childhood, the one that encapsulated both the excitement and shame of being foreign.  Lahiri answered the question by giving examples of Indian couples that appear happier in her work.  She eventually said that writers write about problems.  They walk into deep blindness to do so.

One girl asked did writing come to you or did you come to writing?  Lahiri said that she had developed slowly and that in comparison to other writers, she came to writing at a much later age.  There had been reluctance on her part to accept the role of a creative artist.  She worried that it was presumptuous and she worried what taking on that identity would say about herself.  Her answer helped me think through my own problems as a developing writer.  To me, the identity of a writer is another identity I have to fight with and fight for.

When the Q&A ended, the lady sitting next to me pulled out her three books and asked which one I would like to have signed.  What a gift for a person to offer something so meaningful to a stranger.  I picked Interpreter of Maladies, the only paperback she owned of the three.  I asked for her address and promised to send her my own copy.

In line, we were given post-it notes to put on the cover page of the book and told to write our names on them.  Lahiri signed my book quickly and wordlessly, making eye contact at the end.  I squinted at her.  Is this person real, I wondered.  As she handed the book to me, I smiled slightly and said thanks.

This morning, I pulled out my copy of The Namesake.  The pages have browned over the years.  I took out the note that I wrote five years ago, a time in which I could never trust myself to do what was right.  I didn’t have the confidence.  When I read the note, I was touched and shocked at the conviction with which my seventeen-year-old self wrote.  I wrote with an assurance that I don’t remember having at that time.

“Don’t fret about not knowing where the future is headed.  You have potential and purpose.  Use it.” April 14, 2007.

This sort of strength came from sitting alone in my bedroom and reading a book.  It reminds me why I believe in writing and why our stories must be told.

The winning entry of IR’s annual 1/2 K Prize will receive $1000 and publication in Indiana Review. All submissions are considered [...]]]>

Image: inc.com

Is that thing you wrote a prose poem, or is it a short short? We don’t care what you call it; as long as it’s 500 words or fewer,  we want to read it!

The winning entry of IR’s annual 1/2 K Prize will receive $1000 and publication in Indiana Review. All submissions are considered for publication, and all submissions are read anonymously. This year’s prize judge is the wonderful Michael Martone.

Find full submission guidelines here.

Indiana Review is sponsoring another reading: this time featuring the work of our lovely editors! Join us Monday, April 23rd from 7-8:30 P.M. in the Great Room at the Honors College (when you enter the building, take a right and then another right immediately and you’re there). Deborah Kim, Jennifer Luebbers, Rachel Lyon, [...]]]>

Indiana Review is sponsoring another reading: this time featuring the work of our lovely editors! Join us Monday, April 23rd from 7-8:30 P.M. in the Great Room at the Honors College (when you enter the building, take a right and then another right immediately and you’re there). Deborah Kim, Jennifer Luebbers, Rachel Lyon, Cate Lycurgus, and Sarah Suksiri will read selected works featuring a mix of fiction and poetry.

Deborah Kim is the Editor of Indiana Review, and she writes about magical creatures, food, and home. She would like a DeLorean one day.

Jennifer Luebbers serves as Associate Editor, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2011, Cream City Review, The Journal, Massachusetts Review, and Washington Square Review, among others. Most recently, Marie Howe selected her poem, “Barn Elegy,” as the recipient of Washington Square’s 2012 Poetry Award.

Rachel Lyon is the Fiction Editor. Her fiction and creative nonfiction has appeared in Toad, Hobart, The Saint Ann’s Review, and Arts & Letters. She was this year’s recipient of the Ledig House International Writers’ Colony Fellowship. She also volunteers with the Bloomington Writing Project, a free community resource for help with writing, and does art features for the NPR station WFIU.

Cate Lycurgus is the Poetry Editor. Outside of her IR duties, she remains busy spreading her love for literature. Like Rachel, she is also currently working with the Bloomington Writing Project. In addition, she teaches creative writing to second and third graders in The Project School in Bloomington.

Sarah Suksiri, the Nonfiction Editor, gets excited about creative and journalistic nonfiction, but spends her time writing poetry. She has also published several restaurant, art, and book reviews.

Following their readings, we’ll have a Q&A session to discuss publishing and the future of creative work. If you have questions about the publishing industry or the writer’s world (ranging from print vs. digital literature, making it in a world saturated with voices, how to handle rejection), we’re happy to answer them. We hope to have an honest conversation about both the joys and the difficulties of thriving in these communities. Above all, we’d like to celebrate the value of creative work to society and to the individual.

We are also excited that two of IU’s undergraduate literary journals are co-sponsoring the event with us: Crimson Umbrella Review and Labyrinth.

The Crimson Umbrella Review is a self-run and self-directed online literary journal that is published monthly during the academic school year. The review’s goal is to provide every writer or artist with an umbrella to protect and shelter them as they develop their work and writing skills. The Crimson Umbrella Review believes that each writer or artist should have a safe-haven that allows him or her to publish his or her works freely, in a supportive, stress-free zone.

Labyrinth is a literary magazine sponsored through IU’s Hutton Honors College. Labyrinth’s goal is to publish outstanding undergraduate work in poetry, prose, and visual arts. They accept submissions in photography, painting, poetry, and prose (up to 1000 words). They hope that by having a magazine that displays the best of students’ artistic achievements, they encourage others to share what they have to say with the rest of the student body.

Pictured: readings by Pablo and Bethany; [...]]]> IU’s graduating MFA class of 2012 concluded their time here with several wonderful nights of thesis readings. Congrats to the readers for all of their achievements!

Pictured: readings by Pablo and Bethany; the cast of the IU MFA Reality Show accepts their awards for Bests and Mosts

Where is home?

A little suburb in the Silicon Valley where there is plenty of good Vietnamese food and rush hour traffic.

Favorite issue of IR?

Our Winter 2011 issue. It has [...]]]> This week, we finally hear from our marvelous Nonfiction Editor, Sarah Suksiri, who shares with us her delight for innovative nonfiction.

Where is home?

A little suburb in the Silicon Valley where there is plenty of good Vietnamese food and rush hour traffic.

Favorite issue of IR?

Our Winter 2011 issue. It has a good haul of nonfiction writers — possibly the most IR has ever published!

Tell us about what you’re reading right now.

I’m reading Scott Russell Sanders’ latest collection of essays, Earth Works, which I have to put down between every other essay because it makes me want to go for long walks.

What are you excited to see in nonfiction?

I get excited about creative and journalistic nonfiction exhibited in elegant, accessible online forms that do the work justice, like Wave Composition, The Junket, and The New Inquiry, or even blogs as a form of creative nonfiction, fused beautifully with other multimedia, like Ian Coyle’s Edits. I’m excited that there seems to be a very hungry audience for nonfiction, and that there are so many people who want to participate in other people’s experiences by reading about them. I’m also excited  for our new Nonfiction Editor, Mal Hellman, to take the reins and make IR nonfiction even better.

Last September, our super design-savvy Editor, Deborah Kim, blogged about why the font you choose to use matters  in the submission process. Last week, however, I stumbled upon typeconnection, a website that is home to “A Typographic Dating Game.” The concept is [...]]]> Image: typeconnection.com

Last September, our super design-savvy Editor, Deborah Kim, blogged about why the font you choose to use matters  in the submission process. Last week, however, I stumbled upon typeconnection, a website that is home to “A Typographic Dating Game.” The concept is basically the same as online dating—you select the font you’re most “attracted” to, and then you’re given several new fonts that you might like based on your previous selection. You check out pics of those fonts, read their bios, and then, if you fancy, you send the new font and the original font on a “date.” You’ll be told whether or not these fonts are compatible together.

While I’m a Garamond gal myself, I can’t pretend I wasn’t intrigued by the concept. Was I missing an opportunity? Was there a font out there for me?

Well, after exercising extreme care in a decision-making process that took the better part of my workday (sorry, Deb!), it turns out the two fonts I sent on a date weren’t compatible. Maybe Garamond and I are doing just fine on our own.

What about you, dear readers? Do you think a font has the power to alter the way you perceive a piece of writing? How so? We’d love to know your thoughts!