It’s been out for a while, but I’ve been perusing Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature, Vol. 6. The biannual, online journal out of Coastal Carolina University includes fiction by Julie Babcock, Sarah McCraw Crow, Billy O’Callaghan, Nick Ripatrazone, and Jennifer Spiegel, along with poetry, essay, and a long interview with poet Natasha Trethewey. There’s also a transcript of Trethewey’s Emory University Distinguished Faculty Lecture, which she delivered earlier this year. In it, she observes:
It seems to me that all writers, at some point, must respond to a question—posed either by themselves or someone else—in order to answer, as Orwell did in his 1946 essay, “Why I Write.” The first time I had to do this I was trying to get into a graduate creative writing program and I needed a statement of purpose.
I love that Orwell essay too, and have been slowly working my way through both Trethewey’s speech and interview. Another mind-nourishing diversion for your weekend. Enjoy!
