Meet Taylor Kensel!

Taylor Kensel grew up in Pocatello, Idaho. She completed her undergrad at Idaho State University with a degree in English and an emphasis in creative writing. She is now at Eastern Washington University working on her MFA. She is loving Spokane, and she especially loves that she finally now has an opportunity to miss her hometown!

This month, we had the opportunity to chat with Taylor about her favorite places, books, and literary magazines—as well as really important subjects, like the art of creating the perfect mixed cd! Taylor also offers some great advice for aspiring writers and literary magazine editors.

Questions:

     1. What three traits define you?

Messy, procrastinator, adventurous.

2. What’s one thing you couldn’t live without?

Lipstick.

3. What is your greatest fear?

Deep-sea creatures.

4. Where is your favorite place to be?

Mountain View cemetery in the fall.

5. What is your favorite thing to do?

Making a new mixed cd and driving around while smoking a grape Primetime.

6. Where is the best place you have ever visited? Why?

Prague; I loved the huge cuckoo clock. It was incredible being a part of such a large, silent crowd all waiting for a wooden man to pop out.

7. What would be your ideal career?

Teaching at the university level.

8. What is your favorite book, movie, and band?

Hunger by Knut Hamsun (book); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (movie); Interpol (my favorite band this year).

9. What is something that might surprise us about you?

I’ve had nine major surgeries and am missing many body parts.

10. What is your favorite quote?

Andy Warhol: “I don’t know where the artificial starts and the real starts.”

11. If you could have a dinner party with ANY three people (dead or alive), who would they be?

Alison Bechdel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Coco Chanel.

12. If you had to eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Ham, with anything else, as long as it’s ham.

13. If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you?

Probably Kate Hudson because I’ve been told I resemble her.

14. If you were an animal what would you be?

Cat; my human personality would transition well.

15. If you were stuck on an island, what three things would you bring?

A Norton Anthology of American Lit, my house sweater, and a fingernail file.

16. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Invisibility.

17. What kinds of hobbies and interests do you have outside of work?

Riding my mint green beach cruiser, cooking, and trivia.

18. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Hopefully employed (fingers crossed).

19. Do you have any favorite literary magazines/publications that you’d like to give a shout out to?

Tin House and Willow Springs.

20. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists and literary magazine editors?

Go for it. Always.

—–

For new spotlight posts, please visit our blog the second week of every month (but, of course, do come back more often than that!).

 

The staff at Black Rock & Sage has some wonderful recommendations for the month of December. Check them out below!

Jeff Howard, Editor-in-Chief:

Okay, I’m going out on a limb here, but it hit me recently that people who read these recommendations might also be writers, some of whom like to write creative nonfiction. Assuming I am right (as I usually do), I wanted to recommend Dinty Moore’s book Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide to Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction. It’s the kind of book that reads easily, despite being a how-to book. I mean, let’s face it, Moore is an accomplished writer, and his voice permeates the entire book in a way that is inviting and encouraging, while also being instructive. Moore provides an abbreviated history of personal essay writing, going clear back to Montaigne and incorporating Hazlitt and Woolf, while also mixing in advice from more contemporary writers in the genre. He also explains the different types of nonfiction, such as travel writing, spiritual writing, contemplative writing, etc., and gives a ton of writing prompts to help writers get started. I think English instructors who teach personal narrative in writing courses would do well to read, if not assign, this book, but for writers in the field of creative nonfiction, whether they just got here or are old-timers, Moore’s book has a lot of ideas that can infuse their writing with energy through fresh perspectives and approaches.

 

Christopher Swenson, Prose Editor:

The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake is a short story collection that was first introduced to me in school, and it immediately impressed. Pancake manages to capture the stark styling of Hemingway but without any of the masculine posturing. In its place is a voice of incredible sensitivity facing down the economic desolation of West Virginia in the fifties and sixties.

 

 

Anelise Farris, Poetry Editor:

I received an advance reader’s copy of The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak. When I first read (and immediately loved) Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, and then his second novel Armada, I realized that I am a huge fan of what I am terming video game literature. And what’s even better than a novel about a video game? One that also feeds our fascination with the 1980s (as Ready Player One did, and now The Impossible Fortress). Rekulak’s novel is Stranger Things meets The Breakfast Club, and it’s (no surprise here) awesome! In this novel, Billy Marvin, a fourteen-year-old computer geek, is pulled into a plan to snatch a copy of a Playboy magazine from a local mart; however, what Billy does not expect to find at the store is the manager’s daughter, Mary Zelinsky: a seriously skilled programmer. This is a story about video game design, geek culture, and adolescence, and it’s so good. You can even visit the author’s website and play a faux-8-bit adaptation of the computer game Mary and Billy design. The Impossible Fortress comes out February 7, 2017, so mark your calendars!

 

Susan Goslee, Faculty Advisor:

Alamo Theory by Josh Bell. Tremendous!

 

I spend the summers up high in the mountains where it’s cool. I spend most of my time with the bighorn sheep. The rams like to fight on perilous cliffs; I enjoy wrestling with them till they bleat in surrender then I let them go, good fun. At night they huddle together and I try to lay down among them but always they keep a small distance away. The mountain sheep are ungrateful. They are ungrateful even though I have saved them from big cats more times than I can count. Too often I see a cat stalking towards them and chuck it off the edge screeching, or get them with a rock till they look like smashed berries, and yes I enjoy it, but they clearly benefit don’t they? Do those bleating idiots thank me? No. they just stare off into the distance nibbling on roots and mountain weeds. Sometimes I think of punting them all into the ravine below but I would miss them and their stupid faces, so I sit and nibble roots with them and we stare at the mountains for whatever reason.

At night I hear wolves howling, the prettiest sound. This night I try to howl with them. When they hear me, they stop. I try to tell them don’t stop, but there is nothing now—only the wind. Frustrated, I grab one of the sheep to lay my head on; it bleats in protest before giving up. I look to the stars until I am asleep.

At daybreak I go down the mountain to get something good to munch. I go to the river to snatch some salmon but there is the brown bear that always wants to tussle with me over the best spot for fish. We wrestle for an hour; though the truth is I prolong it for my amusement, before I throw the bear into the current. The bear goes off roaring into the distance. Sorry buddy, looks like its berries and roots for you.

After I have feasted on many fish, I head back up the mountain. As I climb the mountain I think about the bear, who is not as strong or as fast as it used to be. This concerns me for some reason. Maybe I will let it win next time. Strange thing to be thinking.

While going on my way, I run into an elk with its leg in a man trap. It kicks and whines like crazy. I walk up, and even though the elk tries to kick me, I grab the man trap by the teeth and pry it open. The elk leaps away awkwardly into the distance. Not so much as a thank you or anything. Fine.

I take the man trap to my cave and add it to the collection where I keep my shiny bottles and cameras and man bones. (Not my doing, the bones, but I keep them anyhow.) It’s too hot to linger in the cave though, and I head back up the mountain brushing myself with a prized man comb.

The rams are at it again. This time my heart is not into it, so I just watch while brushing myself. When night falls and the sheep lay down, I hear the wolves howling. I want to howl too, but I know it will just silence them so I just listen. I just listen, and it is humiliating because I know the sheep hear me weeping. The wolves are howling and I am just weeping.

 

Black Rock & Sage Issue 15 (2016)

Love
By Tom Flynn

Two dodos trying to build a nest.
All assertions-unsure jabs:
pushing sticks into and out of piles,
squawking about designs and time,
dreaming of a product beyond the builder’s means,
rubbing faces and useless wings,
in love.  They wag their asses
in celebration of the stick pile’s new form.
Lacking allusions to make sense of where they stand,
they bond as unique and believe in their dream
of formidable walls made of spit, mud and sticks-
withstanding thwarts of wind, rain and time.

Rain–has them waddle this evening, under thunder,
to the close, dense bush to huddle side by side
and watch and wonder if their heap will wash away.

Meet Jeffrey Pearson!

Jeff Pearson is a graduate of the University of Idaho’s MFA Program. He has been published by Noble / Gas Quarterly, Black Rock & Sage, Otis Nebula, a capella zoo, Heavy Feather Review, Shampoo, Salt Front, Axolotl, and Moon City Review. He has work forthcoming in Barrelhouse.  His first chapbook, Sick Bed was published by Small Text Dreams Press in collaborating with Eli Z. McCormick and James Lloyd. He currently teaches at Washington State University.

This month, we had the opportunity to chat with Jeff about his favorite places, books, and literary magazines—as well as really important subjects, like the glory of tacos and a dinner party with Gertrude Stein, Joseph Smith, and Leonard Nemoy! Jeff also offers some great advice for aspiring writers and literary magazine editors.

1. What three traits define you?

Sensitive, impulsive, and loyal

2. What’s one thing you couldn’t live without?

Humor.  I couldn’t bear to live without laughing.  What is that horrible saying that is stenciled on in god-awful serifs throughout bedrooms and on weighty keychains: live, laugh, love?  If I couldn’t find humor in making fun of the kitsch that is daily life, I wouldn’t want to live. I need to be able to laugh at neighbors because of their wifi access point names (like my neighbor’s wifi access point, livelaughlove).

3. What is your greatest fear?

That’s a hard one. I get scared discovering or dwelling on fears, because of the possibility of obsession around those fears. But I think my greatest fear would have to be losing interest or curiosity. I constantly have to acknowledge that my interests change, which is not my fear, but that I am scared to death that I will totally lose interest in everything.  It probably has to do with medication symptoms I hear on TV and them being related to depression. I also think non-curious people are boring.

4. Where is your favorite place to be?

At home around my stuff. I am introverted in the way that I need to stay home and recover from daily social interactions, i.e. teaching, running errands, talking to friends, talking on the phone with family, etc. When it comes to these social interactions, I think I come off as outgoing and fine with engaging with other people, but I truly have to go home and stay home—away for days from these interactions in order to recover. Centering myself with my favorite media helps this process.

5. What is your favorite thing to do?

Nap with my cat, Inky.

6. Where is the best place you have ever visited? Why?

This last summer I went to Germany. It was amazing to be in another country and have to rely on my girlfriend for almost all communication, except in Berlin and Munich where most people speak quite a bit of English. We toured the Reichstag and learned about the government process, which is very much about transparency along with taking a walking tour in Munich, where I finally felt part of history. I also got to ride in my first sleeper car overnight from Berlin to Munich, and I love trains.  I would never drive my car again, if the U.S. had a train system like Germany.

7. What would be your ideal career?

Some days I wish I were writing video games, specifically visual novels.

8. What is your favorite book, movie, and band?

That’s difficult.  I really like Nabokov’s Pale Fire. The last movie I really liked was last week when I watched Repo Man with Emilio Estevez. And I’ve also been listening to a lot of Badbadnotgood, which is a jazz band that has somehow snared hipsters by featuring rappers like Ghostface Killah.  It’s good music to write to.

9. What is something that might surprise us about you?

That I am the youngest of eight siblings—six sisters and one brother.

10. What is your favorite quote?

I like this one, even out of context, by Henry James: “We work in the dark—we do what we can, we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task.  The rest is the madness of art.”

11. If you could have a dinner party with ANY three people (dead or alive), who would they be and why?

Gertrude Stein, Joseph Smith, and Leonard Nemoy because it would be a huge surprise what the small talk would be about if we even talked at all.

12. If you had to eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Tacos al pastor with lime, salsa verde, guacamole, and cilantro.

13. If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you?

Paul Newman

14. If you were an animal what would you be?

Some kind of predatory bird like an Osprey.

15. If you were stuck on an island, what three things would you bring?

A machete, The Harvard Classics five-foot shelf of books, and writing materials

16. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Flying even though I am scared of heights.

17. What kinds of hobbies and interests do you have outside of work?

I play a lot of Japanese Role-playing Games (JRPGs) and have been since I was 6 years old. I like bird watching, poetry, re-building and fixing computers, and listening to records. I also like to go on long drives and take different routes to destinations I drive to often.

18. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Probably still teaching and writing.  I see myself traveling internationally more.  I am also trying to be less selfish, and so I see more and more that I dedicate my time to teaching, even if it is my job, also.  I’ve learned that if I don’t focus on my skill at teaching, I really appreciate being able to help someone with something, even if it is composition, I am knowledgeable about. I think it really helps me to change my worldview, and it definitely gives me more empathy.  There may be a point where I have to go back to working a mindless job manufacturing something.  My girlfriends’ family makes hot water solar panels, so maybe I’ll be doing that in 5 years.  I think sometimes I am too sensitive to deal with adult problems especially when it comes to being a college student, that’s probably the reason I might stop teaching.

19. Do you have any favorite literary magazines/publications that you’d like to give a shout out to?

I have to plug the one’s I’ve read and worked for:  Fugue journal where I was Poetry Editor and a reader for 3 years and Blood Orange Review where I am Managing Editor.  I also like many of the journals that create conversations with their writers instead of just publishing them (or even rejecting them), no matter the notoriety; being a writer is pretty lonely sometimes.  I’ve been mostly interested in the online writing community lately, so I frequently follow journals and magazines on twitter.  Some web journals and publications that I am reading with lots of online content are: Otis Nebula, Waxwing, Vagabond City, Sundog Lit, The Mackinac, Noble/Gas Quarterly, Barrelhouse, Vinyl, and Arcadia.  I also really like ekphrasis projects and journals with artist and writer collaborations: Broadsided Press, Prompt Press, and frequently, many journals have been doing features around this theme.    

20. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists and literary magazine editors?

Don’t be afraid to join writing communities or scenes.  You can always find better writers to learn from even if they are so damn good that they seem godly.  You can always find writers that won’t like your work.  Most importantly, there is always something to teach other writers, artists, or editors no matter your skill.  This is why I think collaboration, being part of literary magazines, submitting your work, workshopping, doing public readings, tweeting links to poems online, starting your own journals, zines, presses, is so important.  This doesn’t mean throwing your writing willy-nilly to anyone who will publish it, but to open the lines of communication and correspondence where you can give and take creative energy, but always respect people who want to read your work and share your work. Publishing always gives you something to look forward to, even if it is for rejection notices.

—

For new spotlight posts, please visit our blog the second week of every month (but, of course, do come back more often than that!).