I care about the narrator and am curious about what happens next. I want to read the next sentence and then the next. I forget about stretching, or the room temperature, or the fact that I didn’t eat breakfast before arriving at work. I’m only thinking about the essay. For a few minutes, the whole world is this essay.
We maintain the false notion that literature must, or can somehow be completely original, pure, a work of genius, without questioning what exactly those terms mean, and how no writing is devoid of influence.
In November’s episode, editor-in-chief Stephanie G’Schwind and managing editor Katherine Indermaur join podcast editor Meghan Pipe to chat about the new Fall/Winter 2017 issue. Listen to the podcast here: Episode 30. Become a subscriber to the Colorado Review podcast! Just search “Colorado Review” in the iTunes store or follow this link.
During my time at the CLP, I not only get to see how the inside of a publishing house operates, but I also get to work alongside people producing content much like that submitted to the CLP for publication. I have learned just as much about the process of selecting a piece for publication as I have about the process that goes into making a publishable piece of work.
The English language is a system, albeit a wonky and sometimes counterintuitive one. Writers can certainly choose to break the rules of that system, but it helps for us to first be aware of the rules from which we’re departing.
In October’s episode, podcast editor Meghan Pipe dives into the archives to read Katherine Hill’s “Waste Management,” winner of the 2010 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction (Fall/Winter 2010 issue). Then, Hill joins in via phone to chat about the Nelligan Prize and how her writing life has unfolded since winning. Listen to the podcast here: […]
. . . there’s also nothing quite like finishing the memoir of a real person who has lived through something similar to what I’ve experienced, and finding a kindred spirit in those pages.
In the past several weeks, I have read submissions about war and horrific physical injuries, debilitating ailments and incurable diseases, families shattered by divorce or marital infidelity, death and suicide, drug addiction and abuse, homophobia, transphobia, and so many other sources of trauma that I often find myself ruminating on these narratives well after my shift at the Center for Literary Publishing has ended.
Confession: I always wanted to take a poetry class, but felt that I was impeded by a gentleperson’s agreement of sorts, a sense that fiction and poetry had their own “turf.”
In Colorado Review’s September episode, Podcast Editor Lauren Matheny, Co-Nonfiction Editor Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, and Associate Editor Michelle LaCrosse discuss “Daughter Tongue,” an essay by Kathleen Blackburn featured in the Summer 2017 issue of the magazine. Listen to the podcast here: Episode 28.