Interviews

With her award-winning memoir Red Paint (Counterpoint, 2022), Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has emerged as a writer who can convey deeply personal material while delighting readers with her mastery of language and formal experimentation. With her poetic debut Rose Quartz (Milkweed, 2023), LaPointe shows similar prowess as a poet who can dance along the line between …

I let my feelings guide me. There’s no calculation. I remain open and trust my memories to show me an image related to what I am working on. Here’s a quick explanation of what I do: I locate an area of my body where I feel a strong emotion. I press my non-dominant hand to that area and begin to ask: What more would you like to say? What memory do I need to remember? Show me. That’s when my brush touches the paper. Asemic writing lets me reach another layer of feeling through hand, wrist, and memory.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss anything about orthodoxy; it mapped a path for me that led across mountain ridges with lush vistas. Poetry has become a kind of surrogate for orthodoxy, except instead of one beaten path to the peak, there are manifold deer trails, switchbacks, creek beds. Swards of green to ford.  

Because too many of us have been hurt in ways both subtle and not quite so, we rightly feel the need to have our existence validated, often through the stories we urgently need to share. So, my dear writer, read and write. Keep reading. Keep writing. But above all, nurture that flame flickering inside of you. It will keep you warm on days when everyone around you acts as if they’re doubting you.

Yeah, stuff breaks the page. So I don’t think that it’s that new. I think digital publishing, with all the things that come with that, has pushed it a bit and has sensitized us, and as we’ve become sensitized we’ve become— kind of delighted!

An Interview with Kim Lincoln and Amy Woodward  Jocelyn Marshall, creative nonfiction editor and a Bellingham Roller Betty, continues our interest in collaborative artwork by interviewing Kim Lincoln and Amy Woodward, two local artists who specialize in photographing roller derby. Here, they discuss their collaborative process and their development as artists.   Jocelyn Marshall, Bellingham Review: …