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 23 for work from Beth Kanell.

Listen to Beth's reading of "Sand Dollars in a Small Wooden Box"

What was the inspiration for the piece published in the issue?

This year half a dozen of my friends are grieving the loss of partners—and their worst pain comes with the slow losses of dementia. Mostly I listen to these folks and assure them their rage, sorrow, and repeated feeling of a ripped inner organ (heart, lungs, brain) make sense. Then I balance these times with my own memories, feeling for their continued presence the way the tongue goes to a loosened or chipped tooth. I want to paint (in words) portraits of real loss, and of that search for meaning in the past, while also scrabbling for joy. That mixed urgency sends me both to poetry and to my garden—both of them offering a happy hour redolent of spices and forgiveness.