Welcome back to “Meet the Editors!” This week, Jen Luebbers, our intrepid and trendsetting Associate Editor, answers a few questions for us and fills our shopping carts with new books.
Where are you from?
Columbus, Ohio.
Favorite issue of IR?
Oh no, do I really have to pick just one? Well, I guess if I have to choose, I’ll say 33.2, because a) it is filled with amazing poems and stories, and b) it is the first issue I’ve seen in each stage of production, from start to finish.
Favorite non-IR journals?
Wow, you ask hard questions. There are so many wonderful literary journals out there. I especially love Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry, Kenyon Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter. For online journals, I love Blackbird, Diagram, and KR Online. But really, I feel like I could go on and on.
What/who is on your reading wishlist right now?
(1) Litany for the City by Ryan Teitman; (2) Self-Portrait with Crayon by Alison Benis White; (3) Among the Missing Dan Chaon; (4) The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story by Gloria Houston (This has been my favorite Christmas story since I was young); (5) My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams edited by Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor; (6) Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke; (7) Mule by Shane McCrae; (8) Nine Acres by Nathaniel Perry
And two things you’re looking forward to right now?
This winter break? Gingerbread houses, fires in the fireplace, spending time with my family, reading books (see above), watching old movies (An Affair to Remember), and hopefully writing some poems!
Next year, at AWP, I am most looking forward to our joint Gulf Coast/IR Reading–it is going to be the event of the year!
