CLA: Dislocate Magazine

by Holly Vanderhaar

In 1997, Vanity Fair's James Wolcott pejoratively referred to Lee Gutkind as "the Godfather behind creative nonfiction." Though it wasn't Wolcott's intention, his dismissive remark brought Gutkind and the genre to the awareness of countless Vanity Fair readers, and as we all know, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Gutkind started America's first MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh, and is the founder and editor of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction. He has written or edited twelve books, most recently Almost Human: Making Robots Think (2007).

I had the opportunity to work with him last spring at Arizona State University, where he was the Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Thanks to Lee, I came away with a new awareness of the importance of structure, and a new mantra: "The building blocks of creative nonfiction are scenes.� I recently chatted with him about immersion journalism, MFA programs, and the role of the internet in the genre of creative nonfiction.

Continue reading "An Audience with the Don" »

Posted by Dislocate Literary Journal at 6:13 AM | Permalink

by Ryo Yamaguchi

All the poets and I here at Dislocate are huge huge fans of Kristy Bowen's latest chapbook, feign, out from New Michigan Press last year, 2006. Okay, I have been trying to find a deft, definitive reason for why I am so enamored of this book, and short of solving any of my own life problems (inability to sleep, lack of rhythm, that reoccurring smell of copper), I have come upon a conclusion: I love these poems for the way they bring an otherwise associative sensibility into a strong sense of scene: how Bowen discovers within and at the corners of her stagings these shadow worlds: or a jar lifted to open the air over the curio: so everything has a pitch toward a silent figure: even has her mind leaps, it finds an accumulating logic: or maybe, just have a look at a few of these lines, from one of my favorites, "Girls Reading Novels:"

Violet is named for lavender equations, the glitter at the end of your spine. Avenues grow contradictory, the length of the chain-link divided by the water's murky circle. Kitchen floors tilt at a seventy degree angle while intricate societies are discovered among the broken dishes. My limbs are symmetrical, polite.

Oh, oh that exquisite tone, the abeyance, until we get the ending:

Some terrible violence in the way I say open.

These are careful poems, even as wild as they are. A measured mental conflagration, hoorah! So, so, the real bit here: this has prompted us to invite Kristy Bowen to kick off our series of:

Awesome Interviews with Awesome Writers

Continue reading "Interview: Kristy Bowen" »

Posted by Dislocate Literary Journal at 8:55 PM | Permalink