This issue we bring you a poetry review and two interviews. Lo Galluccio aptly reviews the new poetry collection I Wish My Father by Lesléa Newman. The poetry takes a funny and poignant look at the relationship between a daughter and a father at the end of his life.
The first interview, conducted by Alex Poppe with our very own Patricia McNair about her new short story collection, Responsible Adults, carries on the theme of parent/child relationships. McNair works to challenge readers’ expectations when it comes to parent/child dynamics and focuses on the strength of what she terms girl-women characters—characters that are not typically given a lot of space or agency.
The second interview with Lou Jones, a photographer, and Michael Thorpe, a visual artist focusing primarily on quilts, also investigates how these two men can take up space and agency in their own work. They discuss with Solstice Co-Editor-in-Chief Lee Hope the challenges and rewards of making art in the pandemic and surviving year in and year out as a Black artist.
In our summer issue, look for an interview with Co-Editor-in-Chief Brenda Sparks Prescott about her debut novel, Home Front Lines. This BIPOC historical fiction focuses on the lives of women trying to navigate the rising tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962. Helen Elaine Lee, author of Water Marked and The Serpent’s Gift and Director of MIT’s Program in Women’s and Gender Studies, says “Through psychologically complex characters facing a charged, historical moment, Brenda Sparks Prescott vividly exposes our competing allegiances to country, family, truth, desire, and our evolving visions of ourselves.” Home Front Lines is available at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and wherever books are sold.
Much thanks to Lo Galluccio, Patricia McNair, Alex Poppe, Lou Jones, and Michael Thorpe for sharing their work, their artistic visions, and their passions with us. And also, many thanks to Amy Yelin for her work with these interviews in the past year, and to Lee Hope for serving as moderator for the Lou Jones/Michael Thorpe interview.
Enjoy reading these interviews and be sure to check out all of the links included in the issue for more information about where to purchase these artists’ incredible work.
Deidra Dallas
Acting Interview Editor
Lee Hope
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Amy Yelin
Interview Editor
Amy Yelin is a communications professional and writer whose essays and author interviews have appeared in publications including The Boston Globe, Globe Magazine, Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, and The Writer’s Chronicle. Her piece “Torn” (The Baltimore Review), received a notable essay mention in The Best American Essays 2007, and “The Memoirist” (Lunch Ticket) received a Pushcart nomination. She is also the recipient of awards from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, The Norman Mailer’s Colony and The Prague Summer program. She has an MFA with a focus in creative nonfiction from Lesley University and she teaches at Grub Street in Boston. Read more at YelinWords
Lee Hope, is the author of the novel Horsefever, a finalist in the Midwest Book Awards. She is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, and a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship for Fiction. She has published stories in numerous literary journals such as Witness and The North American Review. She founded and directed a low-residency MFA program and has taught at various universities. She also teaches for Changing Lives Through Literature, which serves people on probation and parole.
