TCR Talks with Author and Translator Kianny N. Antigua

by Maxamina Muro In our daily lives, we can communicate with people who speak and read entirely different languages with the aid of translation software, though it works best with brief pronouncements. To communicate entire stories, whether a novel, short story, or poem, we need human translators like Kianny N. Antigua. Antigua uses the Spanish language to communicate the complexities of human interactions and is able to translate not just the words on the page but their meaning. Antigua’s translation work connects cultures. It pulls back a curtain that allows a writer working in English to reveal stories for those…

TCR Talks with Pete Hsu, Author of If I Were the Ocean, I’d Carry You Home

Interviewed by Luree Scott In Pete Hsu’s short story collection If I Were the Ocean, I’d Carry You Home, the struggles and sorrows of childhood are brought to light with a fully compassionate view. Family, friends, and strangers change the trajectory of one another’s lives in small ways that are rarely noticed, but Hsu has a way of enlarging moments of intense emotional conflict to show how sometimes it really is the little things that develop so largely in our hearts. While the first six stories are more focused on the perspective of children and how their emotions develop as…

TCR Talks with Shifting Earth’s Cecil Castellucci

Interviewed by Michael Medina Cecil Castellucci does it all. In addition to writing for DC Comics (Batgirl; Shade, the Changing Girl; Female Furies), she pens music, opera librettos, novels, and everything in between. With her new graphic novel, Shifting Earth (illustrated by Flavia Biondi and colored by Fabiana Mascolo), the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author brings a “hope punk” take on climate change. In the book, a dangerous particle storm (based on true global events) brings Maeve, a botanist, and Zuzi, an astronomer, on parallel journeys to save their respective universes from impending climate doom. Through Castellucci’s careful…

TCR Interviews Erika Krouse

By Kaia Gallagher   An award-winning novelist and short story writer, Erika Krouse published her first book of nonfiction, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, in March of 2022. Described by The Washington Post as masterful and mesmerizing, Tell Me Everything recounts Krouse’s role as a private investigator who gathered evidence during a five-year investigation into a culture of sexual assault within a university football program. Krouse’s efforts to interview witnesses who were victims of sexual violence and gang rape were complicated by her own history of childhood sexual abuse. As a result of the compelling testimony…

TCR Talks with Patrick O’Neil

By Rob Bowman Patrick O’Neil spent the golden age of American punk rock touring as a roadie and road manager with now-legendary bands Dead Kennedys, Flipper, T.S.O.L., Subhumans, and others. That time—the misadventures on the road, the grime and needs of addiction, and the violence of the punk stage—fills the pages of O’Neil’s new memoir, Anarchy at the Circle K: On the Road with Dead Kennedys, TSOL, Flipper, Subhumans and . . . Heroin. This book not only is a jarring and rousing work but also a companion to his previous memoir, Gun, Needle, Spoon, which details the depths of…

TCR Talks with Jim Ruland

by Jenny Hayes In Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, Jim Ruland chronicles the history of legendary independent punk/alternative rock label SST—an epic tale filled with rock-and-roll thrills, chaos, bad behavior, good times, shady financial maneuvers, lawsuits, cross-country tours, and many other twists and turns with an eclectic cast of misfits. Started in 1979 by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn, SST has churned out nearly four hundred releases, including influential records from now-well-known bands like Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Bad Brains, and Sonic Youth. The label and its owner are known for eclectic taste and a nonconformist,…

A New Story: Capturing the World Through Photography

  by Fabrice B. Poussin The Coachella Review: Where were these photographs taken? Fabrice Poussin: All these were taken at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.     TCR: How did you become interested in photography? FP: My sister, who is five years older than me, was first to get a camera and to experiment with it. I was nine then and was intrigued. As we grew older, she began buying more and more sophisticated equipment and processing her own work. I also learned to do this. She still travels the world, and so do I.     TCR: What do you like most…

TCR Talks with Maryann Aita

By Emily Schleiger The Coachella Review had the pleasure of reprinting Maryann Aita’s essay “The Geography of Flight” in our Winter 2021 issue. The essay also appears in Aita’s debut memoir Little Astronaut (ELJ Editions). Aita’s collection of essays deals with her childhood experience in the shadows of family members’ illnesses (anorexia, cancer, alcoholism), the ways in which she coped, and the effects on intimacy and feelings of loneliness in adulthood. The book wrestles with heavy topics while experimenting with different forms, like screenwriting, journalism, math problems, and sketches. I recently had the joy of chatting with Maryann about her…

TCR Talks with Twice Nominated Author of The Perishing, Natashia Deón

By Sara Grimes   In Natashia Deón’s second book, The Perishing, Lou, a Black youth with no memory of her past, wakes up fighting for her life in an alley in 1930’s Los Angeles.  She gets taken under the wing of a police officer  who helps her as she adjusts to life in a foster home. But, as Lou transitions into adulthood, she starts to unpack the nuances of her school, foster life, and relationship with the tokenizing police force for racism, both ordinary and violent.  As Lou forms subversive romantic relationships and takes on a role as a journalist at…

TCR Talks: Michelle Ross Motives for Shapeshifting

by Lisa Loop A poet once said, “War is man’s tragedy. Woman’s is motherhood.” Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I think she was getting at something. The role of warrior has been mythologized, plumbed, and dissected throughout the ages. Motherhood? Not so much. I wish it had. Nothing I read prepared me for the loss of self that came with motherhood. Bringing my first baby home from the hospital was a swim through auditory hallucinations, a fugue state both painful and radicalizing. I found out later that my temporary insanity is common. One in eight new mothers suffers…