More on: interview

The current issue of Image features three new poems by Scott Cairns. The author of numerous volumes of poetry, a convert to Orthodox Christianity, and a longtime contributor to Image, Scott has often advocated what he calls a “sacramental poetics”—the idea that a poem should not so much describe something as dosomething.   Image: Your poems use an exacting, prophetic voice, but…

The daughter of a Tuskegee Airman and a teacher, Marilyn Nelson was brought up primarily on military bases and started writing while still in elementary school. She earned her BA from the University of California, Davis, and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (MA, 1970) and the University of Minnesota (PhD, 1979). Her…

A big thanks to one-half of Over the Rhine, the pianist, bassist, and songwriter Linford Detweiler, for participating in our reader interview–and to our Imagereaders for their thoughtful, funny, and off-the-wall questions. You can read the jumping-off point for this interview, Linford’s reflection on the word human from issue 75, here.    What was your first thought when you sat down…

The summer issue of Image includes a novel excerpt from Valerie Sayers. She answered our questions about baseball, the novel, and the allure of characters who are so bad they’re good.   Image: You seem to be quite a baseball fan, like a number of American writers past and present. Do you think there’s a…

Acclaimed novelist Larry Woiwode is the author of Beyond the Bedroom Wall; What I’m Going to Do, I Think; and Words Made Fresh. His short story “That Old Dog” appears in Image issue 70.   Image: “That Old Dog” is about a famous novelist who hasn’t written a book in a long time. But over the…

Born in 1950 in Newcastle, New Brunswick, David Adams Richards is one of Canada’s most prolific and powerful writers. His first novel The Coming of Winter was published in 1974, followed by three more novels from Oberon, a small press in Ottawa. In 1988 his Nights below Station Street (McClelland and Stewart) won the prestigious…

Betsy Sholl’s poem “The Harrowing” is published in Image issue 73. This web-exclusive interview with Sholl features questions from readers of Image.    How do you connect with secular readers? Part of me wonders if, when it comes to art, these distinctions between secular and sacred really apply. A poet has to write from a point…

Dana Gioia—poet, critic, and arts leader—has sometimes said, “I’m the only person who ever went to Stanford Business School to become a poet.” A native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent, he studied at Stanford (BA, MBA) and Harvard universities (MA), worked as VP of marketing for General Foods, and has published four poetry collections…

Image: In your essay in the new issue of Image, “Power in the Blood: Hollywood and the Myth of Religious Violence,” you write about the strange relationship Hollywood has to Christianity—mainstream Hollywood movies tend to use violent Christians, often broadly stereotypical ones, as villains. They also tend to tell stories where further violence is used to…

John Kohan’s calling to sacred art began early: “Sacred art has been a lifelong preoccupation, judging from the earliest sketch of mine my mother saved. It is a pencil illustration of Jesus’ parable of “The Sower and the Seed”…drawn when I was a child of six or so.” Since age six, John has worked as…