The Many Complexities of Bewketu Seyoum

Ethiopian novelist and poet Bewketu Seyoum discusses his writing process, how he remains connected to Ethiopia, and how the pandemic has inspired his writing.

“I can’t keep myself silent”: Q&A with Mai Khoi 

Building hope in a hopeless place. The musician sits down to talk about her fight for democratic reform in Vietnam — and how it’s led her to flee her home.  

‘Just Look at Us, We’re Beautiful’: An Interview with féi hernandez

“I hope to encourage others to find ways to weave their own blankets, to tell their own stories. We all have so much to contribute. So many stories are still buried due to systemic inequities. I write to crack the earth and say: we are here and our stories are bountiful and necessary — just look at us, we’re beautiful.”

Why We Write: Inside the Creative Process with the Poet Laureates for Allegheny County

To conclude a year of poetry, we’ve explored the broad philosophical questions of how someone becomes a poet and what it means to sojourn through the creative process. We posed these questions to Allegheny county’s four poet laureates; Vincent Folkes, Paloma Sierra, Mj Shahen, and Celeste Gainey.

Love, Imprisonment, & Exile: In Conversation with Fatemeh Ekhteseri

“I was sentenced to 99 lashes just for shaking hands with the opposite sex. … In another instance, when I sent my book to get permission to be published, they censored some of my words. As a woman, if I imagine or write about a romantic connection between two people, it’s censored.”

Paleontologist’s Palette

by Joseph Szalinski

Wing nights attract like tree stars; barstools and booths become bonafide Bedrocks; boasts of the best are shared like rumors and maps to Skull Island. Roars of napkin-muffled belches and a show-and-tell of aromas greet festive company ready to make flavorful discoveries buried in meat instead of layers of crumbly history. Saucy archaeologists whose only tested faith is in their own ability to devour dozens of drums and flats. Dig-Dugs of dry rubs, rattling off crazy culinary nomenclature as difficult as Latin terminology.

in april, how many

by M. Christine Benner Dixon

“how many tiny bees/ have gotten that far/ and starved by the journey/ eaten shadow pollen/           never to return/ through her bright horn”

They Always Come (A Note to My Son)

by “I Medina” Jackson

How do I prepare you for apocalypse?/ How do I prepare you for the inconspicuous, loud, cyclical doom of White/ supremacy’s tentacles”