We love learning more about our contributors, and an interview seemed like a fun way to hear more about the writers and artists we publish, so we gave them a choice of questions to answer. We hope you also enjoy hearing more about the artists and their works. Check out Issue #27 for work from Deborah Davitt and more.



What was the inspiration for the piece published in the issue?
Well, I have read about exoplanet  55 Cancri e, which is a hell world with (probably) a diamond core, but it's so close to its sun that it probably rains lava from its skies. I've written short stories before about a planet where the sands of its deserts are made of diamond dust ("An Endless Sea of Diamond Dust" and "Leaving Red Footsteps"), but this time, I wanted to evoke wonder instead of a sense of noir desperation. I think this poem succeeds in that!


Who or what inspires your work generally?
I derive enormous satisfaction from reading about archaeology, history, science, and more; there are usually confluences between these areas that I see, places where a discovery about the past echoes something we're finding in our strange future, and that's where a poem ends up finding its inception.


What is your creative process? Do you plan pieces out or let them happen as they come?
Ah, the eternal question, 'are you a plotter or a pantser?' I am a little of both. Poetry, I tend to write as it goes along; with formal poetry, the form itself helps guide what I write. Prose, I usually have a loose idea of what's ahead of me, but I can change my mind as I write. I never get married to an outline.Sometimes my characters are way smarter than I am, and refuse to do what was outlined, and if I don't listen to them, they sulk and stop talking to me.


What is your "white whale"?
After having self-published several novels, and planning to self-publish at least three more, it would be nice to sell one to a traditional publisher. Finding an agent and traditional publishing is definitely my white whale, though!


If you're part of a workshop group or other creative community, tell us about it! How did it form, what all do you do, and how does it help your creative process?
I am a part of Codex, a community for new and established professional writers. I participate in various contests there, and run three, offering prompts to kickstart creativity, and a structure in which people have set timelines in which to write, and get anonymous feedback from other writers on their work. It's a great system, and one I'm happy to give back to! I owe a lot of my published short story work to the existence of Codex and the amazing writers that are a part of it.