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‘Some Things’ – A BURNING HOUSE PRESS interview with PANYA BANJOKO – by Trevor Wright

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Who is Panya the Poet and what does she do?

I am a writer, primarily, and an archivist. I mainly write poetry although I have written some children’s stories and I’m toying with a novel.  I also run Nottingham Black Archive and as part of that, a Black Writers Network. It’s all about raising awareness, helping with professional development and showcasing local black talent through a range of different initiatives. Read a Black Author for example which happens in October and where people are invited to read together in Slab Square. I organised a poetry weekender for Windrush 70 featuring Kei Miller then looking do a Festival next year – not just poetry but MC’s, grime and singers because we’re network of all kinds of writers.  I want to showcase the talent, because that’s just not happening. Continue reading “‘Some Things’ – A BURNING HOUSE PRESS interview with PANYA BANJOKO – by Trevor Wright” →

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July 2018 Guest Editor Is Lara Alonso Corona!!! Theme/s: BODIES (Ugly bodies — Queer bodies — Uncomfortable bodies — Bodies in summer)

Burning House Press are excited to welcome Lara Alonso Corona as our sixth guest editor! Lara will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of July.

Submissions for Lara are open from today – 1st July and will remain open until 24th July.

Lara’s Theme/s for the month are as follows

BODIES

(Ugly bodies — Queer bodies — Uncomfortable bodies — Bodies in summer)

Continue reading “July 2018 Guest Editor Is Lara Alonso Corona!!! Theme/s: BODIES (Ugly bodies — Queer bodies — Uncomfortable bodies — Bodies in summer)” →

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“From the sentence to the world” : A Conversation with David Naimon

Over the course of her extraordinary career, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote dozens of books that explored the essential issues of our time, including gender, race, and the degradation of the environment. David Naimon is the host of the radio show and podcast, Between the Covers, which features exceptional interviews with some of the most important writers of our time. When Naimon and Le Guin met for his show, it’s no surprise that their discussions were insightful and unforgettable, and they’ve now been collected into a new book, Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, published by Tin House Books. I previously interviewed Naimon for Burning House Press, and he was kind enough to speak with me again about his bond with Le Guin, how she impacted his life, and how their new book carries on her radical legacy.

–Caitlin, Nonfiction Editor for Burning House Press

 

Burning House Press: It’s impossible not to mention the circumstances under which this book is coming out, with Le Guin passing away shortly before its publication. You write a heartfelt and moving “In Memoriam” at the beginning of the book. How are you holding up as you—and the literary world at large—continue to grieve? How has it been to launch this book without her?

 

David Naimon: This is such a hard question to answer Caitlin. It was just a matter of days after Ursula had handed over her final edits of the manuscript when she passed away. It happened so suddenly that at first I was just stunned, paralyzed. But then, quite quickly, because Tin House pushed up the publication date from July to April I was swept up in the whirlwind of an accelerated publication schedule. I had no idea just how much work there would be between then and now, the In Memoriam that they needed on short notice at a time when I felt like I had no words for what was happening, and then several essays about Ursula that I was asked to write, to be published in concert with the launch of the book. On the upside, I’ve been steeped in a deep engagement with what Ursula meant to me and to the world. But I haven’t had a moment to be with my feelings, to experience them fully. The public memorial for Ursula is not until June. The city and state, which she has influenced in so many ways, has not had the chance to mourn her as a community yet. I could’ve used something like that, something public, communal, back in January. Now, with the book out, there are no launch events planned. It felt strange to do that without her. I didn’t want to be the focal point of a launch party. But, on the other hand, perhaps a launch event could’ve been a first moment of public remembrance.

Continue reading ““From the sentence to the world” : A Conversation with David Naimon” →

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Submissions Are Open!!! from 1st April – until 23rd April – for our third guest editor C.C. O’HANLON!!!

Burning House Press are excited to welcome C.C. O’HANLON as our third guest editor! C.C. will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of April – when he will then hand over the reins to our fourth guest editor for the month of May.

Submissions for C.C. are open from today – 1st April and will remain open until 23rd April.

C.C. will be responding and publishing your submissions on a rolling basis during the month of April – and has chosen his themes for submissions!

C.C.’s Themes are

Place: Movement, Escape, Exploration, Architecture.

C.C. has introduced the themes himself for your guidance:

“The act of journeying contributes to a sense of physical and mental well-being, while the monotony of prolonged settlement or regular work weaves patterns in the brain that engender fatigue and a sense of personal inadequacy…”

– Bruce Chatwin, from Nomad Invasions

 

The themes that most interest me have to do with movement and place, not just – maybe not even – travel writing but rather a kind of textual cartography: prose or poetry that map spaces, physical or emotional, words shaped by journeying or pilgrimage, or the impulse to explore or to escape (or to seek refuge, or to start again and somehow reinvent yourself). I am interested in emptiness (seas, deserts, padded cells) and architecture, especially the way we inhabit them, and record our presence within them. Naturally, I’m inclined towads the diaristic, most especially when it is visual (actual cartography, illustration, and photographs) or unconventional in form or content; like Florence Lenaers, I’ve also got a soft spot for lists.
Overall, I’m not looking to reassure, but rather, to some extent, to unsettle.

For submissions, C.C. is looking for your poetry, short stories, flash fiction, prose poems, art, collage, painting, photography – as well as non-fiction submissions: essays, reviews, commentary, features, interviews.

 

Submission Guidelines

All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com

Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: ARCHITECTURE/POETRY

Poetry and Fiction
For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.

Submissions are open from 1st March til 24th March – and will reopen again on 1st April for our third guest editor.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing C.C. O’HANLON – Friends, send him your best!

 

C.C. PIC

 

C.C. O’Hanlon is a relentless traveller, polymath and occasional diarist. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Ernest, Minor Literatures and The Learned Pig. It has also been included in several anthologies and ‘best of…’ collections. Born in Sydney, and raised nearly everywhere else, he has lived for the past five years in Berlin. He is now en route to somewhere else.

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Masks, Transformations, Cosmos, & Personal Myth

March 2018

Guest Editor: Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

4 March

 

Professional Mermaid by Megan Dunn

After the 10th Date by Sam Frost

gibbous moon waxing by Lewis Ellingham

Three Poems by Jared A. Carnie

Charon’s Amusement Arcade by BR Williams

 

 

10 March

 

Three Poems by Laura Potts

Plastic Eggs by C.B. Auder

Night Photos of Newstead Village & a Poem by Sophie Pitchford*

L’Idole by Laura Izabela

Two Poems by Annette Skade

A Bacon Sandwich by Jim Gibson

Solitaire by Attracta Fahy

 

 

17 March

 

Three Poems by Ivan de Monbrison

Forgotten Astronaut by Spangle McQueen

What Else Can I Do? by Rob True

How to Tell Men Apart by Breslin White

Invitation To Move On by Jonathan Humble

Two Poems by Kate Garrett

Stealing Sleipnir by Alison Lock

The Transformation by Emma McKervey

 

 

24 March

 

Three Poems by Samuel J Fox

Sing a Song of Ever Changing Perception by Michelle Diaz

Photographs of Bristol & a Poem by Jason Jackson*

When Food Goes Bad by Kelly Froh

Two Poems by Anna Wall

7yrs bad luck by Richard Biddle

Jack by Gene Farmer

 

 

30 March

 

Two Pieces by Erin Calabria

genesis by Clark Chatlain

Baroclinic Instability by katillac tweed

A Catalogue of Small Shatterings by Makensi Ceriani

Bear off a Leash by Stephen Lightbown

Photographs of New Orleans by Julia Skop*

Two Poems by Kate Dlugosz

Interminatus by Cory Willingham

The Boyfriend Pinch by Christopher John Eggett

Dissociation in a Museum Café by Belinda Rimmer

Two Poems by Soodabeh Saeidnia

The Linen Man Suite by Lorie Broumand

An Interview with Poet Laura Potts by Amee Nassrene Broumand*

 

 

 

Featured Image: Solar Eclipse from Salem, Oregon 2017 by Amee Nassrene Broumand

Individual featured images by Amee Nassrene Broumand unless marked with an asterisk

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An Interview with Poet Laura Potts

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

Hello Laura, thank you for taking the time to speak with me here on Burning House Press! I love the complex music of your work. What’s your relationship to sound and the oral tradition of poetry?

Always, in testament to its fundamentally oral heritage, sound has stood at the forefront of my work: that is, I have always tried to pay homage to the ancient verbal roots of poetry with an acute focus on just how moving sound can be. It is probably, in the words of Harold Bloom, my own anxiety of influence: the writers that haunt me the most are those who expand the malleable state of sound. There is no single prescriptive path which sound can take in poetry, and I think that appeals to the rebel in me. And I’ve studied it quite intensely really: I often apply scansion to Latin poetry to see the specific moments of gravity and levity which bring a line alive. And, of course, I always read my work out loud as I write: it may have one life on the page but it has another one aloud.

“the writers that haunt me the most are those who expand the malleable state of sound”

You had the chance to work at Dylan Thomas’s birthplace in Swansea. What was that like?

My summer there was the single most academic season of my young life. At first I’d planned to stay for a week or so, but that soon turned into a couple of months and I’m sure I learnt the equivalent of a whole degree in that time. I travelled from a small village in Carmarthen to Swansea each day, where I walked up the old hill of Cwmdonkin Drive and through the small black gate of number five which Dylan had pushed so many times. My time was largely spent reading, writing and researching his work. I wrote essays for The Dylan Thomas Society and saw a performance of Under Milk Wood. I drank in the pubs he drank in. I slept in his bedroom a night or two, with the old gas lamp still burning. I visited the boathouse in Laugharne which he shared with his wife, and even interviewed an old neighbour once. Yes, my broken old bookcase still models three rows of Dylan and always will. It was the summer to always remember. Continue reading “An Interview with Poet Laura Potts” →

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Storytelling: Interview with Rayji de Guia

Rayji_sketch1

How long have you been writing and drawing?

I’ve been drawing since even before I could remember. A funny story my mother told me was how she’d gone to the market when I was around four. An older cousin was babysitting me and my sisters. While she was away, my sisters, rambunctious as they were, accidentally toppled a cabinet over the bed. When my mother arrived home, I ran up to her with a drawing on a sheet of paper that clearly depicted the situation – she dropped her huge bags from her hands and was ready to bolt into the house until my cousin came out to assure her everything had been arranged back. I don’t remember this at all, but I never doubted it, given that I’ve always had the memory of drawing with me.

Continue reading “Storytelling: Interview with Rayji de Guia” →

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An Interview with Poet Farah Ghafoor

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

Farah, welcome! Thanks for speaking to me here on Burning House Press. You’re seventeen and not only an accomplished poet, but also the editor-in-chief of Sugar Rascals, your own literary journal for teens. What is it about poetry that calls to you? What role does it play in your life?

 Thanks for having me!

Poetry has always been the perfect outlet for my joy, anger, sorrow, and opinions. It means that I can come home after a long day, usually tired, and turn my emotions into something beautiful, something that other people can enjoy and connect with. A relief from the tedious busyness of life, reading and writing poetry forces me to slow down, spend some time in other people’s brains, and relish in the incredible complexities of language. Though it’s occasionally a little draining, if I don’t write for a week, I start to suffocate with words.

The adventure of poetry really calls to me, too. I love the tough questions, defensive answers, confessions, secrets, glorifications, histories, judgments, and other elements that poems can present in a condensed form. I love how you can control this kind of adventure. I love how you can use language to its limit. I love how this kind of raw, pristine communication is of endless potential. And I love how a poem can truly be anything.

“if I don’t write for a week, I start to suffocate with words”

Continue reading “An Interview with Poet Farah Ghafoor” →

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‘Our survival deserves a dirty prayer praising our divine faults and everlasting selves.’ – Rachel McKibbens Interview for Burning House Press

On the release of her latest poetry collection – blud – Adrianna Robertson interviewed Rachel McKibbens for Burning House Press.

 

I first contacted Rachel McKibbens because I had been—as I often am—considering what it means to write about mental illness. I wanted to have more conversation about why it matters to write poems about mental health, how it factors into one’s identity as a human and a writer, and what it is to attempt to put the experience of it into words. At the same time, I was reading more and more of Rachel’s work (I picked up Pink Elephant and couldn’t put it down) and I felt like I had to tell someone—or as many people as possible, that these poems were opening a door. The new poems in blud left me with that same breathless feeling. Again, I found myself reading them aloud, handing them to friends and my students. Yet, when I sat down to type my questions for this interview, I knew it was impossible to say all I wanted to say—how to describe all that these poems bring forth in me: sorrow, heartbreak, awe, kinship…and always surprise. Finally, I settled on some questions and what follows are Rachel’s eloquent and evocative answers, though they would have been this regardless of what I had asked. And, perhaps more important than any perfect word I could come up with to describe this collection, is this: we need these poems and I am so grateful to Rachel for writing them.

 

All we misfits, weirdos, black sheep, outcasts and witches who have managed to crawl out of the mud and hold our faces up to the light are family.

Continue reading “‘Our survival deserves a dirty prayer praising our divine faults and everlasting selves.’ – Rachel McKibbens Interview for Burning House Press” →

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Liz Zumin Interview

“Liz Zumin is an artist whose practice stems from an interest in contagion, suggestion and imitation. Through visual metaphor and physical experience she explores the duel between the isolated individual and the shared awareness of the group, the forming of relations, and how affect is transmitted between bodies and becomes enacted at a neurological, chemical and anatomical level.”

Earlier this year Liz Zumin answered some questions for BHP, an edited version of her interview was featured in The Arsonist magazine, which was published by Burning House Press a few months ago. We now make the full transcript of the interview available for BHP online.

 

Firstly, why make art?

I find it difficult to define and delineate what is art, perhaps because what art expresses and evokes is in part ineffable. I suppose that for me there has always been a fascination with the way that artists have the capacity to transform and alter things, to reverse the meaning of a sign, an object or a cultural form. For my part, I find that I am constantly collecting things; texts, fragments, images, ideas from all around, so in that sense, going back to the question why make art? It’s about sharing the way I experience the world and a way that I have of trying to make sense of it all. Continue reading “Liz Zumin Interview” →

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Hi-Vis Press Podcast – Interview With Miggy Angel

Hi-Vis Press interviewed Burning House Press’ chief Arsonist Miggy Angel – Covering the subjects of art, recovery, class, mental health and addiction, and his journey from South London to become a writer and poet – check it out here! Xx

 

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A Burning House Press Interview With Lydia Towsey

Lydia Towsey interviewed by Trevor Wright for Burning House Press 

 

lti01

We first met at the launch of the Refugee anthology, Over Land, Over Sea. Poems for those Seeking Refuge (Five Leaves Press 2015). What was that project like for you?

It’s been very positive – a great idea. As an ordinary citizen, especially, or even in our current political climate, it’s easy to feel powerless. Ambrose (Musiyiwa) whose poem The Man Who Ran Through the Tunnel stimulated the anthology) thought this would be a way to mobilise lots of voices, not just from Leicester but from across the country and the world. Continue reading “A Burning House Press Interview With Lydia Towsey” →

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An Interview with David Naimon

In the last few years, podcasts have exploded in popularity. Perhaps it’s something about hearing the human voice and feeling that connection with another person. Like many people, I have podcasts that I regularly listen to. One of my favorites is David Naimon’s Between the Covers. On his radio show, Naimon interviews a wide range of writers, from those who are household names to those who are just starting out. He engages deeply with each writer’s work and always gives his listeners a new way of thinking about complex issues related to literature, life, and society. Between the Covers is essential listening for anyone who loves books and thought-provoking, even life-changing, conversations. Just as his show is illuminating, so too was this interview. We talked about writing across difference, what role writers play in these difficult times, and much more.

–Caitlin, Nonfiction Editor for Burning House Press

 

Burning House Press: Thanks so much for agreeing to this interview! How did Between the Covers get started? Were you already in radio or was this new to you?

 

David Naimon: I was already hosting a non-literary show at the radio station (KBOO 90.7FM in Portland, Oregon) before hosting Between the Covers. At some point the programmers of all the shows started receiving emails with inquiries like “Rick Moody is coming to town, anybody available to interview him?” It made me wonder if that show was all of a sudden in need of hosts. It turned out that one of the main hosts of the show had left and that my interest in filling that void was a welcome one. My first interview was with Anthony Doerr. At the time he was a writer’s writer, not the household name he is today, but he was so warm and responsive and enthusiastic that it was infectious. I never looked back.

Continue reading “An Interview with David Naimon” →

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An Interview with Physicist and Poet Florence Lenaers

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

Hello Florence! Thanks so much for agreeing to speak with me here on Burning House Press. I’m fascinated by your bio: you’re a PhD student in physics who also writes poetry. I’ve got to ask, why? What draws you to both physics and poetry?  

Hi Amee! Thanks a lot for this opportunity. Oddly enough, the driving force was, & still is, the same in both cases: a thirst for equilibrium, the urge to build an extension upon my collage-like experience of the world; to challenge myself out of my comfort zone, towards areas left uncharted on my maps; to counterbalance an excess of centripetence; to overwrite certainties; to ride a Trojan horse within my own fortress, then to open the gates to cross-pollination.

“my favourite places to roam are borderlands”

Continue reading “An Interview with Physicist and Poet Florence Lenaers” →

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The Arsonist Magazine Editon 01 Now Available For Purchase!!!

The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01 – available to purchase here

Image of The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01
Flammable materials from 32 incandescent international poets writers artists and photographers.

Featuring the best poetry, flash fiction, photography, art, interviews and features from around the world, including the UK, Japan, Canada, USA, Malaysia, India, Philippines, Sweden:

stephanie roberts – Saquina Karla C. Guiam – Penny Goring – Adrianna Robertson – Anneghem Wall – Dawn Fredericks – badpoem – Dean Lilleyman – Antony Owen – Aina Izzah – Bruno Neiva – Paul Hawkins – Keith Ford – Joseph Ridgwell – Dhiyanah Hassan – C. R. Resetarits – Rob True – Sophie Pitchford – Jamie Thrasivoulou – Martin Appleby – Liz Zumin – Siddharth Dasgupta – Ben Williams – Caitlin Meredith – Adam Steiner – Jim Gibson – V.M. – Fredric Nord – Mark Goodwin – Hiromi Suzuki – Trevor Wright – Howie Good

The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01 is a 92 page full colour/b&w matt/gloss perfect-bound A5 magazine (this is a limited edition and, being the inaugural print publication from Burning House Press, is sure to be a collectible item)

 

The Arsonist Magazine Edition 01 – available to purchase here

 

Arsonist Contents Page

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‘Sad’ by Lica B Browne

Sad

 

Sad inside from outside

Bad outside now bad inside

Want to help outside, but can’t help inside

Should I start outside without inside?

Should I start inside and leave outside?

Very sad inside, want to leave outside, want to stay inside.. Continue reading “‘Sad’ by Lica B Browne” →

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3 Poems & An Interview With Poet Amee Nassrene Broumand

The Sandpipers

 

It’s time for a ghost story—now,

while opalescent giants, dark-robed, stride

over us, hair blazing with the night

to come—

they imagine themselves

masked, bejeweled, descending

to the asylum window. The inmate’s lament—

 

They came in the night and stole my head.

What did they do with it? My old green head. Continue reading “3 Poems & An Interview With Poet Amee Nassrene Broumand” →

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An Interview with Helen McClory

Helen McClory is a Scottish writer whose stories are multi-faceted gems, filled with atmosphere, mystery, and vivid detail. I discovered her work through Twitter and instantly loved it. Her flash fiction is collected in On the Edges of Vision, and you can read some of the pieces at her blog, Schietree. Her first novel, Flesh of the Peach, is forthcoming this year. McClory was kind enough to answer some of my questions. In our discussion, we talk about gender, Sylvia Plath, unlikable women, and much more.

– Caitlin
Nonfiction Editor of Burning House Press

 
 
 

Helen, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I am such a fan of your writing, and I’m so excited to have this discussion with you. First, I would just like to ask you some general questions about life and writing.

What are you currently reading? What made you want to read it?

I’m currently reading Alan Garner’s The Stone Book Quartet, a book ostensibly for children (like most of his work) that is composed of economical, brilliant sentences weighted with folkloric meaning. I loved his writing as a child myself and wanted to revisit his work (though I don’t think I ever read this one) because I’m writing a sort of fantasy/folklore novel myself and thought I’d look to one of the masters of the form.

Continue reading “An Interview with Helen McClory” →

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The Arsonist Magazine – Coming Soon

The Arsonist Magazine edition 01 – featuring flammable materials from 30 international writers artists photographers – Coming Soon

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Submissions open – 1st Edition of The Arsonist Magazine

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 1ST EDITION OF THE ARSONIST MAGAZINE NOW OPEN – SEND US YOUR BEST – CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU MADE X

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