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I tend to piece poems together from stray phrases and images, discovering as I proceed, Dr. Frankenstein-like, what shape the poem will take and whether it is, finally, alive.

I write mostly at night and usually after midnight. If I write during the day, then I prefer moments when I am not supposed to be writing, such as when I’m in a faculty meeting, at a seminar or on the phone.

The Fates never claims to have answers to any of these questions about death, spirituality, and fate. Instead, the questions vibrate both implicitly and explicitly around the poems’ descriptions of physical moments and spiritual explorations, like the moment of death in a hospice bed, an evening when a young girl kept watch over a dying bird, or five women holding a seance around a creaky table. The collection leaves its readers reflecting on the hand they play in their own fates, and the effect they have on the fates of others.

I get to spend my 9-5 with birds, bears, bobcats, mountain lions, creepy crawly beings and all the rooted things that sustain them. I pick through their scat and witness how they eat each other. I live near a river that’s sometimes an arroyo. Coyotes wake me up at night with freaky songs. All of that manages to create a head full of poetry.

I have been writing most of my life, which is now quite a long time. I truly think books saved me as a child, and then I began to write to make sense of the world.

Sullivan joins, perhaps unknowingly, the female gothic tradition. The cause of terror in Sullivan’s novel is not from the supernatural, but rather the female mind, familial horrors, and the loss of control. While working within themes of feminism, patriarchal control, and mental illness, Sullivan’s commentary is never overt. Haunting prose and intelligent twists haunt and thrill, while her lyrical prose simultaneously adds an elegance and beauty to every scene and character.

At heart, I am an adventurer. I climb, I ski, I sea kayak. The outdoor, natural world is my religion. I pray to the snow gods, I sacrifice skis, mountains are my temples, water is my verse.

I’ve learned that by framing what you see, choosing how and what you impart to the viewer or reader, you make the work of art.

In his debut collection of short fiction, John Matthew Fox is a master inspector. He offers his readers a journey through nine stories, a look through nine windows, all bound together by Fox’s insightful and unflinching exploration of religion.

It’s not about who is the first to publish; it’s who is the last one standing.