This latest contributor interview may go down in MAR history for being the only one to include a sentence like, “His biggest decision is whether to lick his rear end before or after he takes a nap.” But that kind of poetic insight is what we’re here for, folks. Enjoy this lively interview with Carrie Shipers, whose poem “How Sandbag Lives Up to His Name” appears in our Spring 2014 issue (Vol. XXXIV, Number 2). Carrie’s poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New England Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and other journals. She is the author of two chapbooks, Ghost-Writing (Pudding House, 2007) and Rescue Conditions (Slipstream, 2008), and a full-length collection, Ordinary Mourning (ABZ, 2010).

Quick! Summarize your story/poem/essay in 10 words or fewer.

My eleven-pound dog keeps me safe.

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

I’ve been in love with dictionary poems since being introduced to A. Van Jordan’s amazing collection M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A during my MFA program. Unfortunately, as much as I love those kinds of poems, I’m actually pretty terrible at writing them. One of my challenges with “Sandbag” was to let the dictionary definitions do their work without my over-explaining or simply repeating them. As I revised the poem, I trimmed as much as I could from the non-dictionary parts of the poem and tried to trust the juxtaposition between the authoritative voice of the dictionary and the more searching voice of the speaker.

What was the worst/best feedback you received on this piece?

One of the first times I sent this poem out into the world, an editor wrote on the rejection slip, “Of these, Sandbag shows the most promise.” On one hand, I was thrilled to get a personal note of any kind because I know how busy editors are. On the other hand, I kept thinking, “Of course Sandbag shows the most promise! He’s a dog! His biggest decision is whether to lick his rear end before or after he takes a nap.” (Sadly, these are exactly the kinds of arguments I have in my head with editors, even when I know they’re right.)

You’re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?

Since I’m currently writing a series of poems about professional wrestling, I really hope no one asks me this question. I’d hate to knock over the potato salad while demonstrating some of my best wrestling moves.

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

This might sound silly, but I’d been submitting to 5 AM for a decade and always got rejected, although sometimes I received an encouraging note. About a year ago, my poem “A Bed of Grass and Stolen Hay” appeared in the magazine’s last issue before its current hiatus. I really hope the magazine eventually continues publication, but I’m thrilled I finally made it in there.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does involve writing.

My writing brain works best in the early morning hours, which means I’m usually at my desk by 5:30 or so. In the four years since my husband and I adopted Sandbag, he’s been sitting on my lap while I constructed most of my first drafts, including this one.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue?

I’m totally in love with Janet Smith’s poem “To Do List.” Every time I read it I’m reminded how often we seem to make choices designed to make us miserable rather than happy, and how easy it becomes to justify these choices as necessary or responsible rather than seeing that they’re really inspired by fear. It’s easier to keep crossing items off our lists than to move through the world anticipating joy, even when the items on the list are making us actively unhappy. I especially admire these lines: “Decide it’s okay you never see / Prague. Work late for no reason. / Turn down the music. Keep your shoulders / hunched in case of unexpected attack.” Reading them reminds me to do the opposite, for which I’m grateful to their author.

Thanks for the interview, Carrie!

Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

Martian mascots, murder cases, James Bond, and geography spanning from Russia to Nebraska? It’s all part of our inaugural Mid-American Review contributor interview with author Laura Madeline Wiseman, whose creative nonfiction piece “From Russia with Love Melancholia” appeared in our Spring 2014 issue (Vol. XXXIV, Number 2). Here’s a quick sampling from the essay:

“Do you want to touch my monkey? Do you like his yellow shirt? What about his teeny pair of jeans? How about a picture with my monkey? He will climb up on your shoulder or sit on your hip, his little hand will clutch the silver heart of your necklace. Would you rather hold this red parrot? Listen, he says hello in Russian. He says goodbye, da-svi-da-nya.”

Let’s hit it!

1. Quick! Summarize your story/poem/essay in 10 words or fewer.

An essay on traveling to Russia for with love.

2. What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

I started drafting “From Russia with Love Melancholia” while I was traveling in Moscow and Sochi in 2011. At the beginning of the trip, I was often jetlagged and/or culture shocked. Taking just a few moments to record my impressions allowed me to think through the cultural differences and reflect on my experiences while I was there. When I returned home to the United States, I continued writing bits and pieces of the essay, focusing on the parts of my travels that lingered, or that I found myself returning to without conscious effort. Russia didn’t just go away after I returned to my normal Nebraska summer of gardening, bicycling, and working. Rather, like learning a new word, Russia seemed to filter into my everyday life. I found myself seeking out more of Russia in the form of renting movies like the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love, reading books like Elliot Holt’s You Are One of Them, and attending cultural events like The Russian National Ballet Theatre’s production of Sleeping Beauty. Even recently, I enjoyed the audiobook version of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch for the literary quality and the story, of course, but also for the reader’s performance of Theo’s Russian-born friend Boris.

3. You’re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?

Actually, something like this recently happened. I was giving a reading in Omaha at a local art gallery this spring and a woman approached me before the event to ask if we were related, given that we had the same last name. She said, “I came to this reading because of your last name.” She asked specifically if I was a descendant of a Charles “Chick” Wiseman. I was. He was my great-grandfather. She was a descendant of his elder brother. We talked a little about that connection and then I explained that I’d recently written a book about our mutual ancestor, Matilda Fletcher Wiseman, who was a nineteenth century lecturer, suffragist, and poet. Matilda was my great-great-great-grandmother and Chick’s great-grandmother. My book Queen of the Platform follows Matilda’s career by exploring the connection to the men in her life: her brother, a civil war solider, her first husband, a school teacher and a lawyer, and her second husband, a minister who became her agent. Matilda spoke to support herself and her family. On the stage she spoke among other lecturers of her time, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I didn’t have extra copies of Queen of the Platform with me at the reading, but I did have a copy of my chapbook Men and Their Whims, a series that focuses specifically on the bond between Matilda and her younger brother, Geo, who was charged with murder. Handing over a copy of the chapbook for free to my recently discovered Wiseman cousin, I said, “Here,” adding, “Thank you for coming to my reading.” I also told her how she could find Matilda’s book about the murder case.

4. What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

I always feel like my latest released book or chapbook is my biggest success. Thus, I’m delighted to have my newest book of poetry, American Galactic, in the world. Opening with an epigraph from Charles Simic, “Lots of people around here have been taken for rides in UFOs,” American Galactic, explores Martians, crop circles, abductions, and how humans face an extraterrestrial invasion via sci-fi poetry.

5. Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

I successfully biked every mile of RAGBRAI this summer, biking 446 miles across the state of Iowa in seven days. My team’s mascot was a Martian.

6. Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does involve writing.

I write every day.

7. Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this issue of MAR? If so, name it and tell us why.

I adore Jeannine Hall Gailey’s poem “Every Human is a Black Box.” I’ve been a fan of Gailey’s work ever since I read her fabulous Becoming the Villainess. In the MAR poem, I love how she explores and charts the ways each of our bodies are marked by a world that none of us can fully read.

Great responses. Now, if we could only have a shot of you with your MAR issue….

Perfect. Thanks for your time!

Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor