Nostalgia for the Doughnut Shop
By Poetry Issue 89
These days I write elegies and read the Metaphysicals. And when I turn the radio on prefer to hear a pennywhistle playing “Purple Heather.” In all weathers I wander back to parishes where I feel nostalgia for the doughnut shop and the junkyard where things were given a second chance. It was there that…
Read MoreA Conversation with Gina Ochsner
By Interview Issue 72
Gina Ochsner is the author of the short story collections The Necessary Grace to Fall (Georgia) and People I Wanted to Be (Mariner), as well as a novel, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight (Portobello/Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt). Her awards include the Flannery O’Connor Award, Oregon Book Award, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and fellowships from the National…
Read MoreThe Rage of Peter De Vries: Reckoning with a Brokenhearted Humorist
By Essay Issue 83
IT WAS AN ORDINARY autumn night in suburban Chicago when I received the most disturbing book I have ever read. I was seventeen, slouching in my bedroom making a half-hearted attempt at homework, my sweaty cross-country clothes festering on the floor. My father appeared at the doorway and handed me a yellowed paperback that looked…
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