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. Check out Issue 30 to read "Gravity Man" from Steve Minnich... click the links below to hear some installments...
What was the inspiration for the piece published in the issue?
For millenia i have been learned that i am the american ideal yes i am the most super of superheroes and you can too. it is not so hard. what is in your life right now that you absolutely cannot overcome? you can and will overcome it. that is your superpower. Gravity Man is not so different. he has a job, too. you already know. it sucks or does not, same as yours.
Who are some of your favorite writers, and what do you like about them?
i am constantly reading new authors, returning to old, etc. i could answer this question for days and do. i'll try to keep it shorter than days here but i can't promise much shorter. i gravitate most toward the writers that trigger my imagination by pushing beyond what i know or what i thought possible. this works in two realms : the real, i.e. this writer is leading me to imagine something from the world i could never experience or articulate myself (Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, Julie Carr, Dave Eggers, Ilya Kaminsky, Maggie Nelson, Tommy Orange, Claudia Rankine, Danez Smith, Maggie Smith, Alice Walker come to mind from the regular rotation); & the fantastic, i.e. this writer is leading me to imagine ways of thinking about & being in the world i hadn't thought possible, envisioning a world otherwise impossible (Italo Calvino, Anne Carson, Russell Edson, Ilya Kaminsky here too tbh, Anne De Marcken, Zachary Schomburg, Gertrude Stein, Mathias Svalina, James Tate). i'll leave with two writers i've come across somewhat recently that have instantly become part of the rotation--Kristin Lueke and Bhanu Kapil. Both tap into ways of looking at the world that continue to expand my mind and encourage me to think more deeply and interestedly about my life and what surrounds it. Kapil's How to Wash a Heart and Vertical Interrogation of Strangers create mind-bending, heart-rending, emotional and visceral journeys please read Kapil if you've not yet. i kept coming across Lueke's name and work when scanning for my next favorite mag to submit to and knowing, when i saw her words, it was a mag worth checking out. her work stands out everywhere i see it and i can't wait to see more of it. check out her chapbook here i show you a human heart as you and i both await the debut full-length.
What is your creative process? Do you plan pieces out or let them happen as they come?
everything is a surprise. there are tools that help me catch the passing surprises, i keep a notebook and pen in my pocket and a larger notebook goes everywhere with me in house or backpack and sometimes i record audio notes into my phone or type texts to myself or into the notes app and then also i have a waterproof pencil and notepad in the shower. that one catches a lot of ideas. mostly i scribble a million little things when ideas catch me then i go back and make sense of it another time. sometimes a piece comes to me whole and immediate other times the idea comes and i can't stop thinking about it for months until i can make sense of it in a way that goes down on paper. sometimes i keep lists of titles that i may or may not ever return to. there are about 60 titles for Gravity Man episodes still waiting for the episodes. prompts and plans are good tools too but usually the prompt or plan is coming from myself and that guy is full of shit and i know i don't have to listen to him so then i go off-script and that's fun too. but makes it mighty hard to win a sonnet contest & that's where all the big money is. dang.
What do you do in the rest of your life and how does that connect and/or conflict with your creative life?
i work about 5 jobs that all help and hinder in their way. i teach, i tend bar, i cater events, i run an occasional sandwich pop-up shop, i organize readings and writing workshops. it's hard to find time to write or make books in the middle of all of that but also all of that goes into my writing and making books. some of my most faithful readers are the regulars at my bar and the stories that get shared there often find their way, somehow, into the work. teaching keeps me reading new things and helps ground the purpose of it all, sharing good word to learn how to better human in this world. through catering i see humans in all facets of humanness that i wouldn't see otherwise; when else would i see an energy production & data summit, and see what kind of people make a living out of such things? it is fascinating work to be fascinated by such horrid mundanity. it is fascinating work to see what gets prioritized and what gets funded and what gets platformed then tabled, for sure. all the while i'm just the guy setting the table. all of this to say, i have no idea what kind of writer i would be if i had a singular stable job etc etc. i don't think my writing would be nearly as interesting or fun. the benefits of living in capitalism's armpit, i guess.
We think of "after happy hour" as the time you can really let loose and be yourself. What is your after happy hour?
getting home after a long day of pouring beer and grilling dogs and cracking open my own beer and taking it into the shower and working out all the thoughts and little microinteractions of the day all that shtuff just down the drain and have another swig and by gosh in'that just the weight of the world off your shoulders.
Why did you feel like After Happy Hour would be a good home for this piece?
read some archived stuff & the vibes were right. it takes a certain journal to be home to Gravity Man but i usually know it when i see it; a little off-beat, a little transgressive, enjoys a good narrative and also a bit of whimsy. i feel like a good journal for Gravity Man is a journal you read with a slight wry smile on one side of your face 5 pages in you've gone "heh" a dozen times and the smile grows wider and is still on just the one side of your face.
If you're part of a workshop group or other creative community, tell us about it! How did it form, what all do you do, and how does it help your creative process?
community has been a huge part of waking my practice back up. i wrote a lot all through schooling and college, and went to grad school in an effort to read and write poetry for the rest of my life, but found that institutional avenue to largely be empty for me. the grad schooling turned my creativity off and it took about 8 years and community old & new to bring me back. i've found my community elsewise; the most important thing i've found is to share and be open to others' sharing, even when i don't want to do either, and rarely do i want. an incredible poet and human, Joanna Lee, runs a couple monthly open mic nights in Richmond as part of the River City Writers group which helped break me out of my shell and my funk. this community has been a great home and platform for many early versions of Gravity Man episodes and more. the encouragement of that group has been incredible and has helped keep me going. Joanna and the group also always make space for workshopping, critiquing, and sharing space to ask questions or submit work together; i haven't taken advantage of those spaces recently, and miss them, and love that the space is made, and will get back to them soon. i also have a group of friends that have been getting together online off-and-on in the 10 years since going our separate ways after grad school. it's been a lot of fun keeping up with each other; pokes and prods from this group remind me why i'm here and why i do what i do. as much as the institutional path that grad school showed me never felt right for me, it's a really special thing to find people you want to get together with, and read with, and share work with and write work for, and to find that you still enjoy doing all that with them even 10 years later and even mostly through screens now. it's also fun to find ways to travel across the country and get back together in person. i also organize a poetry book club that gets together twice a month, once to read together from a book and again for a generative workshop with prompts based on the book. i started it about 2 years ago with another writer though they've now split to do their own thing. i've made some really good friends by doing this and am always grateful to the folks that show up. it's been a great way to keep reading and finding ways to talk about why i like the books i select. curating which poems we read in our limited time is also great practice for finding those poems that define a book or author, or are the most interesting to talk about, or put in conversation. then of course turning it all into generative prompts is a whole other thing. all part of the wonderful process.
Give us a recipe and tell us why you chose it--what's special about that dish?
Bananas. peel em & weigh em & put em in a blender. Peanut Butter. equal weight as bananas. blender. blend the things together til consistent. bingo bango banana peanut butter. good for 1-2 weeks in the fridge depending on the banana ripeness when made (whatever parts of it are touching air in the container will brown pretty immediately but it's still good so long as it doesn't sour or ferment on ya). it's fluffy and delicious and transforms everything. instant upgrade to peanut butter and jam (bonus if homemade jam, also very easy, wash & cut & weigh fruits put in heavy bottom pot with 1/4-1/3 weight in white granulated sugar, add juice from 1-2 lemon/lime/orange/citrus-of-choice, let sit for 15 min-12 hours in dark cool corner of kitchen or fridge, then put on stove med-high heat bring to boil for ~5 min then slowly very slowly like over 30 minutes lower temp til simmering on low then simmer for an hour or so til you can dip a metal spoon without it running then jar & fridge & good for 3-4 weeks). i also like to add this banana peanut butter to a bowl of soup to enrich the broth, i use it for "instant upgrade ramen" which is, you know, instant ramen but... upgraded. it adds a nice savory peanut richness with some balancing sweetness and breadiness from the banana. good ingredient to prep and use in elevating simple easy foodstuffs to make when you don't wanna.