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. Read on and check out issue 21 for work from Darcy Smith.



What was the inspiration for the piece published in the issue?
"How to Catch a Birthing Witch: Instructions for Water Shifters"  was inspired by a bunch of research I did about witches, rituals, medicinal healing, and the power of water in its many forms. I had long wanted to write a 'Instructions For' poem. This poem weaved all those elements together.


What is your #1 advice for other writers or artists?
Read poems that move you. Read more. Write. Write more. Study craft. Discover what excites you in a poem. Aspire to write a poem that shakes you and your reader to the core.


What do you do in the rest of your life and how does that connect and/or conflict with your creative life?
I am an American Sign Language Interpreter. I believe that drafting a poem is a lot like translation. Both are enlivened by inference, image, and shifting syntax.