Category: Interviews

lisa higgs interview

Poet Lisa Higgs, interviewed by her University of Illinois Springfield colleague Ted Morrissey, discusses her chapbook of sonnets, Lodestar (2011); the collection she’s currently writing; poetic craft; and the Vachel Lindsay Association, for which she serves as president. The interview took place in the historic Vachel Lindsay Home, originally built in the 1840s.

jacqueline dougan jackson interview

Jacqueline “Jackie” Dougan Jackson is the author of over a dozen books, including three about the family dairy farm in Wisconsin that her grandfather began at the turn of the 20th century. The Round Barn, volume one, is at the culmination of years of dedicated collection, research, and synthesis using family materials, historical sources, and cultural artifacts. In this interview, taped in Jackie’s home in Springfield, Illinois, the author discusses the origins of the book and history of the Dougan farm, the organizational strategies for each volume, and her decision to self-publish. Part two will continue the conversation about The Round Barn books and also delve into Jackie’s long career as novelist, poet, professor, and mentor to dozens of writers.

a.d. carson interview

A.D. Carson—rapper, poet, novelist, educator—released his first novel Cold, A Novel by A.D. Carson in May. The novel, a multimedia work that blends traditional prose narrative with poetry and hip hop, is conceptually brilliant. In both form and style, Cold adopts the conventions of hip hop creating a profoundly symbolic narrative that follows a young A.D. through the course of his education as poetry and hip hop battle for affection. Carson has also published “Oedipus-Not-So-Complex: A Blueprint for Literary Education,” a chapter in Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hop’s Philosopher King released earlier this year. You can join A.D. is his celebration of spoken word at Speak Easy at 9 p.m. the third Thursday of every month at Bar None. To learn more about A.D. Carson, you can visit his website.

isaac morris interview

Isaac “Marty” Morris is Adjunct Instructor of Philosophy at Lincoln Land Community College and the author of The Absence of Goodness. Deborah Brothers interviewed Morris in October 2010 about his novel, which is set in Springfield, Illinois. Although the book references an actual unsolved murder of a young woman from Springfield, Morris explains in this interview how his book is much more than a detective or mystery story. He discusses development of his main character, Margaret Donovan, who must choose between her former life as a sheriff’s deputy or her present one, where she is undergoing her novitiate. Additional interview highlights entail Morris’s religious background and influences and his plans for a sequel.

john and peg knoepfle

John and Peg Knoepfle visited D’s lit class and we put together this video. A conversation with John and Peg was in part why I put together this failed writing blog. They were the writers who told me to expect failure in writing and submitting. They were the ones who told me to write and be patient. I particularly like how Peg observes how in her writing ‘the world is a poem.’

joanna beth tweedy interview

Some news: D and I interviewed and filmed an interview with Joanna Beth Tweedy author of the novel The Yonder Side of Sass and Texas. She discussed her novel and finding a publisher as well as the use of dialect/patois in her fiction. Also we discussed her founding of the Quiddity International Literary Journal and Public Radio Program. We should have that edited and up on the LLR website in a week or so.