Interview: Neema Avashia Lives in Another Appalachia by Kristen Paulson-Nguyen Neema Avashia is the author of Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, which was released from West Virginia University Press in March 2022. Much…
Flame Nebula, Bright Nova by Sherre Vernon Author’s Note I did not know that Flame Nebula would shine so brightly until it was nearly finished. I could only tell you that I had lived much of my life under…
Interview with Katie Manning on her Poetry Chapbook 28,065 Nights by Eric Van Gorden and Makenzie McGee In a previous visit with us, you said that “Your Death Explained in Birds” was originally placed at the end of the…
By Sarah W. Bartlett MER contributor and book reviewer Sarah W. Bartlett shares the step-by-step process for creating and publishing Life Lines, a book of writings by incarcerated women. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK Vermont’s incarcerated women tell their…
Athena Dixon On Writing The Incredible Shrinking Woman The Incredible Shrinking Woman opens with an essay, “A Goddess Makes Platanos,” that takes places in the center of chaos and redemption. In the mind of the woman who experienced it,…
Asking the Form / After Words by Hilary Sallick A small regret is that I didn’t include the dates of publication along with the acknowledgments of those journals that published some of the poems in Asking the Form.…
Margo Orlando Littell on The Distance from Four Points My Characters’ Trapped-in-Amber Fate When I started writing The Distance from Four Points in 2013, pandemics were something safely tucked away in the world of science fiction or dystopian…
Marjorie Maddox On Writing Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises I didn’t plan on publishing a book during a pandemic. You may not have planned on reading it then, either. But, since most of…
Patrice Boyer Claeys Author’s Note – On Writing The Machinery of Grace At the end of my poetry reading in a downtown Chicago high-rise, one man exclaimed, “We want your next collection to be an all-cento book!” It had happened…
When They Take the Children by Ellen Meeropol We are outraged at the recent separation of migrant children from their families, but family separation is not new. It has been used for centuries as a political tool to frighten,…