Rachel Morgan at FTRS

February’s Final Thursday Reading Series brings Rachel Morgan back to the stage. Morgan is Poetry Editor for the North American Review, and author of the chapbook Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Alaska Quarterly Review, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and Poetry South. 

You’ve had a really productive streak of publications lately. Any pieces you’d like to single out? Any magic formula for getting published?

RACHEL MORGAN: I often think that getting work published is rain or shine; it happens all at once or not so much for a while. As a writer, I try to divide my time in thirds: a third to generate new material, a third to revise, and a third to submit and read the work of other poets. I do try to think about audience when sending a piece out to a literary magazine: who reads this magazine and what’s their aesthetic. I wrote a poem “Sequelae” which was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, sure a prestigious publication, but publishing here might not mean so much to a poet trying to place a poem in Poetry. “Sequelae” struck out when I was sending it to traditional literary magazines. After it was rejected enough times, I sat with it and tried to figure out if it needed revising or if it hadn’t found the right home, and that’s when I recognized that all the medical jargon dominates the poem. Normally, I would revise a poem after a realization like that, but this poem felt central enough to its manuscript that I did minimal revisions and decided the poem was for a different audience: doctors and researchers who speak its language.

What are the kind of subjects or challenges that motivate your poetry?

RM: I’m motivated a lot by what I’m currently reading. My undergraduate mentor, Rick Jackson, talked a lot about writers “finding their voice,” and encouraged us to read and imitate writers we really admired. At the time, for me, those poets were James Wright and Elizabeth Bishop. When Rick talked about writers finding their voice, I naively understand this as arriving at an ending. Now I understand this as a journey where the destination is always changing. We take detours and day trips. This summer I read Ada Limón’s book The Carrying, and I got to the last poem and immediately opened the collection to the first poem and started reading again. I admired how she opened poems with specific times, the earnestness of each line, her humble, but brave “I.” I liked these things at this particular time because I felt these elements were missing from my current writing. I like to read poets who are doing things and writing in ways that I haven’t yet or can’t yet. I understand now that “finding your voice” is always about the horizon, as long as you keep moving, so does it. 

I’m going to claim that the Rachelaissance began with Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey, since that was a Final Thursday Press chapbook. How does that book fit into your larger oeuvre (and, yes, I spelled that word wrong the first time)?

RM: Rachelaissance, flattering and probably too grand for my writing right now, but thanks. Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey is a “project book” based on the history of type 1 diabetes and the biography of Frederick Banting, inventor of insulin. I did a lot of research for this chapbook, but after it was published, I continued to write poems that are less centered on history and more narrative in nature. It’s also true that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Currently, I’m writing poems that aren’t associated with a project and experiment more with form and language. 

You’ve served as Poetry Editor for the North American Review for a number of years now. How has been an editor affected you as a writer?

RM: I wish that being an editor and writer affected each other more than they do for me. These roles feel like parallel tributaries inching along and all the symbiosis happens below ground. Anyone who has served as an editor can tell you this job takes up an enormous amount of time, much time that otherwise might be used to write. As an editor, I read submissions looking for the poem that I haven’t read yet, paying attention to what’s new or intriguing—what I remember later that night while washing dishes and think about how the poet crafted the poem. I try to take this sense of wonder into my writing. I want to be brave, to take risks, to write what will surprise me, what I haven’t written yet. 

Where is your writing headed? What can people look forward to hearing at your Final Thursday Reading Series reading?

RM: I’m currently working on a chapbook about living in Los Angeles, an experience that feels far from me now. And unlike the poems in my chapbook Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey, much of which I wrote while in the midst of an experience, this book is very much about hindsight, which can sometimes be oddly clairvoyant if we’re paying attention.  

—Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin

The North American Review at FTRS

Last summer the North American Review celebrated its 50th year at UNI (and the 204th year since its first issue!) with a complete revamping of the magazine’s design. At the January 30, 2020 Final Thursday Reading Series, the first NAR of the 2020s will make its debut in an event featuring NAR editors, student assistants & contributors. This interview features Poetry Editor Rachel Morgan, Managing Editor Brian Pals, Fiction Editor Grant Tracey, and Multi-genre Editor Jeremy Schraffenberger.

So, this is the third issue of the North American Review since the big redesign/rebranding? How has it gone and have the design changes impacted how you think about what you publish?

JEREMY SCHRAFFENBERGER: So far we’re all very pleased with the new look and feel–and the newly articulated mission of NAR. Because it’s the oldest literary magazine in the United States, we didn’t take on the work of rebranding lightly. It was more than a yearlong process, guided ably by our Art Director Sarah Pauls. I don’t know if I’d say that we’ve selected different kind of work to publish since the rebrand–we’ve always wanted to present beautiful, artful, necessary writing to our readers–but we’re certainly more aware of our guiding principles of remaining eclectic, open, and restorative. 

Can you walk through the process of getting an issue out the door? What does it take to bring together everything?

BRIAN PALS: The process starts by reading the submissions we get through Submittable, and from here students and editors work to select the pieces for publication from the thousand upon thousand of submissions. Once the piece is contracted from the author, it enters production and goes through a multi-step proofing process. The pieces are laid out in InDesign and then a mock-up of the issue is made. From here, production moves more quickly, as students and editors pour over the issue and once the issue is proofed, it’s off to press.   

Any changes worth noting in terms of the kinds of submissions you are seeing or the kind of work likely to be published in the magazine?  

RACHEL MORGAN: I’ve been reading poetry for the NAR for a few years now, and I’m excited to see more experimental work come through submissions. Not only did we redesign the print NAR, but also our digital publication: Open Space, which allows us to publish hybrid, mixed media work, as well as longer narrative poems, such as Stephen Haven’s “Old Boston Roads,” that weaves the reader through memories and “a city in blossom.” Having an innovative digital space allows us, and perhaps more importantly, our contributors to create beyond the confines of a page. I think as editors, we all like to see a mix of classic craft and experimental work. 

How are UNI students involved with the NAR?

JS: Among the many things that NAR is, it’s also a learning laboratory for students, who are involved in production every step of the way. The student staff is currently made up of undergraduates enrolled in the NAR Practicum (a really great course, by the way), grad assistants, and a few interns. Running a literary magazine is also like running a business, being a publicist, as well as editing, so students who work with the NAR develop a wide variety of skill sets, and returning students get to hone skills they’re passionate about like promotion of the magazine and its content via social media or design and production. You can see some of their work on our Twitter and Instagram. 

Any particular favorites/standouts from the new issue?

GRANT TRACEY: I like all four stories in this issue, but two really stand out. Kate Campbell’s “Boiling Out” is a compelling piece that mixes an offbeat exploration of misguided mentorship (a farmer who is also a WWII veteran and two high-school boys), hyper masculinity, and harrowing past trauma that coalesces into a vibrant yet subtle Vietnam-era, anti-war story. Campbell’s willing to present men behaving badly, objectifying women, but they are believable and always interesting. Erin Flanagan’s “Hold Steady” has a wonderful splash opening: winter storm; a bus slips into a ditch; Mom stuck in town; the bus driver, Lucy, our narrator, is stuck taking care of Avery, her final passenger and Mom’s daughter. They make it to Avery’s house and wait things out. The big question: “So there’s booze in the house?” Flanagan knows how to create a strong narrative arc and expertly plays with time, building her story to a quiet resolve. Beautiful.

RM: The redesign of the magazine and our digital space allows us to publish unconventional work, like the graphic poem “Protest Against” by Naoko Fujimoto. The poem is a dance of boxed handwritten texts, “my first love letter hid origami paragraphs” against Picasso-esque figures and face that populate the page. Red spills across the middle of the poem, and I love the way it takes the reader in, first visually and then through text. This poem will be in her forthcoming book Glyph:Graphic Poetry=Trans. Sensory (Tupelo 2020).

JS: We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the winner of the James Hearst Poetry Prize, Katy Aisenberg’s exquisite “The Invention of Ether.” While the poem is set in 1846 in Boston, it speaks directly to our time: “They had no thought that their civil country would suddenly split in two / Like a woman laboring to bring forth an unwieldy child.” The poem is part of Katy’s newest manuscript The Ether Dome, which she says is “based on the theme of forgetting–personal and political. The first operation done under general anesthesia was performed at Mass General Hospital; this ‘experiment’ in forgetting pain organizes the poems in this new collection.”

Of course, let’s end with a plug. What should people expect at the FTRS issue release event? How can someone subscribe to the NAR?

JS: Each of the editors will be reading passages from their favorite pieces in the issue, and some of the students who worked in the NAR office in the fall will read the pieces they selected to edit and prepare for publication. There may be a modest offering of music (bring your harmonica!), we’ll be giving away free back issues, and there will be door prizes. Those in attendance will be encouraged to subscribe to NAR, but otherwise people can visit northamericanreview.org or email nar@uni.edu for details. 

–Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin

Spring 2020 FTRS Schedule

January 30     North American Review issue launch featuring editors and contributors 

February 27    Rachel Morgan, author of the poetry collection, Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey

March 26         Andrew Farkas, author of the novel, The Big Red Herring

April 30           Jim Johnson, author of One Morning in June: Selected Poems 

Grant Tracey and the Double Space

Grant Tracey is the featured reader at the November Final Thursday Reading Series, which happens one week early on November 21, due to Thanksgiving. Tracey is the author of the Hayden Fuller Mystery Series, which includes the books Cheap Amusements, A Fourth Face and the forthcoming Neon Kiss. Tracey is also Fiction Editor at the North American Review and a Professor of English in the Department of Languages & Literatures at the University of Northern Iowa. 

Can you share a bit of your writing process for the recent book?

GRANT TRACEY: The first two drafts of Neon Kiss were written by hand. My mind works differently when I put pen to paper. I don’t chase the narrative as much; instead I develop the characters, context, and situation. Mood resonates. Even with final revisions I have to work off computer printouts to really see the story, to really feel and live it.

What led you to write it?

GT: I enjoy writing an ongoing series. Each novel is self-contained, but there’s a larger character arc, involving Hayden and his girlfriend Stana and Hayden and his father Ira, that closes out with the fourth book, Shot, Reverse-Shot (which I wrote on sabbatical last spring and I will be substantially revising this summer). I guess I’ve always liked serialized stories, and that’s part of the fun of a series like this, seeing how the characters evolve across the various adventures and challenges they take on. How are they constantly re-defining themselves?

I also really like mysteries, hardboiled detective stories, and since I was seventeen, I’ve been writing them. There’s something about a figure who is both inside and outside the law that’s fascinating to track. Hayden sports a 1950s buzzcut, but he has a 1960s liberal outlook, valuing people and believing in collective responsibility.

But aside from all this serious-minded stuff, I want to tell crackling stories that entertain. I know I’m writing in part for other writers, but I get the biggest kick when I hear folks at Bob’s Guitars have read my books and dig them.

What are you most hoping readers will gain from reading your books?

GT: Hardboiled detective stories are more than just entertainment. Yes, the best stories are wonderfully told yarns, but they also say something about love and loss and pain. My hero was a victim of child abuse and that’s something he carries with him, and over the course of these four books he learns to forgive about himself. There’s a perception that the hardboiled tradition is rich in sexual prurience, pornographic violence, sadism, and sexism. That’s not why I read the genre, and that’s not what I’m about.

What writers inspired you?

GT: Favorite writers? Raymond Chandler. He was a master of interiority; mood, and presenting us with a lead character who is a tarnished knight who empathizes with those he encounters. Chandler’s prose is literary and lyrical, rich in similes and psychological nuance. 

Mickey Spillane. He always said he wrote thrillers not whodunits. I love the energy of his two-fisted prose and the shock endings to his books. They’re a cathartic rush. For some critics, Spillane is an American primitive; for me, he’s just a great storyteller. 

Ed McBain. Inspired by the documentary realism of Jack Webb’s Dragnet, McBain took the police procedural to new levels of crime writing, humanizing the detectives of his 87th Precinct, and opening his narratives up to the lives of the criminals too. His stories have incredible pacing. And they’re smart.

Jim Thompson. His characters are unreliable and nuts. Reading Thompson is like hanging out with a bunch of alcoholics: the day starts off slightly slant; by late afternoon the characters are irrational, full of mood swings; and by late evening they’re violent and deadly, and there may be a body in the kitchen. Savage Night, The Getaway, and A Hell of a Woman are tour-de-forces.

You’re a citizen of Canada. How does this impact your writing?

GT: Well, I love hockey which goes without saying, and in the latest Fuller novel, Hayden’s back in the NHL, playing for, of all teams, the bleu-blanc-rouge of the Canadiens. I’m a Torontonian, so having my hero play for Montreal is, well, it just is. 

Anyway, on a serious note, I may be a Canadian citizen, but I love the US and I love Iowa, and every day of my life I live in a space of double-ness, here and there, drawing connections, comparisons. My Fuller novels all set between 1965-1966, and the Canada I’m writing about is the Canada of my childhood, not the Canada of today, so even in my fiction I live in that double space, between past and present. It’s a place I’ve kind of grown accustomed to. I guess in that way, I’m like Hayden: I’m a retro guy who loves 1950s porkpie hats, short hair, and blue jeans; but I’m also a product of the 1960s, someone who cares about social justice and change. Hayden is me, but I’m not him.

—Interview conducted by Joshua Baird