The Interview Issue (Vol. 1)

Vol. 16, No. 1

Writers speak about their work, published since the 2022 Mennonite/s Writing Conference. Volume 1 includes work published in 2022 and 2023. This issue also includes a bonus conversation between Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Janet Kauffman on the latter's work and their mutual interest in land.

Volume 2 will include interviews with authors on work published in 2023-2024 (forthoming November 1, 2024.)

In this issue:

0 read more
Introduction to the Interview Issues (Vol. 1)

by Jeff Gundy

Featured books and authors:

Ervin Beck, MennoFolk3

Julia Kasdorf, As Is

Janet Kauffman, The Book of Nails, All Things Being Equal, Haloes, and Other Ways Light Takes the Body, All Things Fall to Earth

Sarah Klassen, The Russian Daughter

Jesse Nathan, Eggtooth

Casey Plett, On Community

Carrie Snyder, Francie's Got a Gun

Robert Zacharias, Reading Mennonite Writing

Diana R. Zimmerman, A Lucky Breath
0 read more
Julia Spicher Kasdorf: As Is

by Julia Spicher Kasdorf

As Is by Julia Spicher Kasdorf. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series, 2023.
0 read more
Julia Spicher Kasdorf asks Janet Kauffman a few Questions in Public

by Janet Kauffman

Reading Daniel Shank Cruz’s provocative new book of critical and autobiographical writing, Ethics for Apocolyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature, I was reminded of Janet Kauffman, a poet and fiction writer who had once been so important to me that she blurbed my first collection of poems more than 30 years ago. I pulled five of her books from my shelf—one an uncorrected proof purchased at The Strand in the early 1980s, another inscribed as a Christmas present from an NYU undergraduate classmate. Here is an author who had helped me to figure out how to be a Mennonite writer—but that was so long ago, I’d almost forgotten about her.

So, in the exuberantly communal spirit of Cruz’s book, I sent her an e-mail message, and she kindly wrote back. That exchange led to an animated Zoom conversation, where I learned about her work as an environmental activist and joyful, innovative author. And then this written exchange. It feels like a gift to be able to bring Janet Kauffman back into the Mennonite Writing conversation with this interview, which begins with the usual sort of questions, but gets very large in idea and even philosophy! The DIY books, which can be ordered at the end of the interview, are lively works of visual and verbal art, suggestive of more new directions for Mennonite literature.

--Julia Spicher Kasdorf

Click below to see image

Julia and Janet, August 2024, Hudson, Michigan
0 read more
Jesse Nathan: Eggtooth

by Jesse Nathan

Eggtooth by Jesse Nathan. Unbound Edition Press, 2023.
0 read more
Carrie Snyder: Francie's Got a Gun

by Carrie Snyder

Francie's Got a Gun by Carrie Snyder. Vintage Canada, 2022.
0 read more
Ervin Beck: MennoFolk3

by Ervin Beck

Ervin Beck. MennoFolk3: Puns, Riddles, Tales, Legends. Goshen, IN: Painted Glass Press, 2022.
0 read more
Casey Plett: On Community

by Casey Plett

Casey Plett, On Community (Field Notes 8) (Biblioasis, 2023).
0 read more
Rob Zacharias: On Reading Mennonite Writing

by Robert Zacharias

Reading Mennonite Writing: A Study in Minor Transnationalism (Penn State University Press, 2022).
0 read more
Sarah Klassen: The Russian Daughter

by Sarah Klassen

Sarah Klassen, The Russian Daughter, CMU Press, 2022.

(In the USA, available from Wipf and Stock, 2023).
0 read more
Diana Zimmerman: A Lucky Breath

by Diana Zimmerman

Diana Zimmerman, A Lucky Breath, Workplay publishing, 2023.