The Humiliation of the Word
By Essay Issue 55
The following is adapted from the commencement address given to the first graduating class of the Seattle Pacific University Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. The ceremony was held on August 4, 2007, as part of the MFA residency that is held concurrently with Image’s Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. …
Read MoreWeb Exclusive: A Conversation with Pinckney Benedict
By Interview Issue 57
Our spring 2008 issue includes a new story by the weird and wonderful Pinckney Benedict. This month we virtually sat down with Pinckney to ask him about where he gets his ideas, how he manages them, and what his dog means to him. Image: You have a novel titled Dogs of God, and in…
Read MorePsyche, Soul, and Muse
By Essay Issue 59
The monastic men and women of the fourth century went into the desert for the specific purpose of combating their demons. When I moved to South Dakota with my husband, I had no such design. I wanted a quiet place to write and to nurture our relationship. But by planting myself firmly in a marriage, in my grandparents’ house in a part of the world considered by most to be a desert, I had done something untoward, and more radical than I knew. In a place with few distractions, where it is possible to go to monasteries for excitement, I had taken on the burden of time.
Read MoreA Conversation with Tim Gautreaux
By Interview Issue 63
Tim Gautreaux was born in Morgan City, Louisiana, in 1947. He attended Nicholls State University and the University of South Carolina, where he earned a PhD in English literature. In 1972 he began teaching creative writing at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he directed the creative writing program until his retirement in 2003. His books…
Read MoreStalking the Spirit
By Essay Issue 67
The following is adapted from the commencement address for the Seattle Pacific University Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing delivered on August 7, 2010. THIS PROGRAM IS blessed to have its intensive, ten-day residencies at two of the most beautiful places on the continent: the high desert of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and…
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 MoreA Conversation with Sydney Lea
By Interview Issue 81
Sydney Lea is poet laureate of Vermont. His tenth collection of poems is I Was Thinking of Beauty (2013). Recently published are his collaboration with Fleda Brown, Growing Old in Poetry: Two Poets, Two Lives (2013), and A North Country Life: Tales of Woodsmen, Waters and Wildlife (2013). Other recent publications include Six Sundays toward a…
Read More