Interviews

Jordan Castro is the Online Editor for the Tyrant Books magazine and author of the novel The Novelist, forthcoming from Soft Skull Press this year. In true Tyrant fashion, Castro is straightforward, cutting, and a little sarcastic. In this interview, Castro touches on the realities of online publishing and his work with Tyrant.

This fall, at Texas State University, I had the opportunity to sit down with Forrest [Gander] to talk about poetry, translation, and language. What transpired was an intimate discussion about experience, practice, recollection, and the impact of translated literature.

Jamie Kimmel Shelton’s mermaid statue, “Aqua Reina,” is a tribute to the San Marcos River and its diverse, delicate wildlife, complete with arms made of catfish and sunfish for cheeks.

“I have been in love with all things mermaid since I was a very small child. My father and grandfathers were both ship captains and I spent a lot of time on and in the sea. My father passed away when I was young, and is buried at sea. The love of water and the myths and mysteries of the ocean he imparted to me stuck with me strongly through life.”

Independent (or “indie”) bookstores are one of the many gems that emblazon and attract others to a community. Within their facets, they serve the local economy, bolster the small business industry, add flavor to a locality, and bring people together. Amidst the past year’s whirlwind of closures, layoffs, adjusted work environments, and various other impediments that affect how a community gathers and stays together, they thrived.

Mackenzie McGee has a habit of referring to her work in the first-person plural. Or so I gather when we meet to discuss McGee’s first “real” short story, to use her words: “Re: Frankie,” an epistolary fever dream of dystopian horror and e-harassment first published here in Porter House Review.

I remember leaving the U.S. embassy feeling hurt, sad and very embarrassed after that first rejection, thinking how I’ll never go back there again. But I was also thinking about what James Baldwin once said: “Because you’ve been hurt, you decide to make your talent important.”

You have racism telling you you’re one thing, telling you you’re worth less than white people. You also, sometimes, have this homophobic masculinity in the Black culture that tells you that you should be this thing. The attempt for “Tabula Rasa” is to say that you don’t have to be any of that. This is your life; you can do and say and be exactly who you are. You don’t have to conform to these standards.