Tell us about MORALITY PLAY.

It’s a book I’ve always wanted to write. This line from Kayleb Rae Candrilli offers its interior: “In the vibrant dazzle of the 2000s, Hilger names a cheer uniform a tangerine peel, licks a glass of lemonade for its condensate, recounts a past of denim skirts and spilt milk.” 

How are you nesting during this time?

I’m not. I don’t know how! For this book, though, I felt like I required more self-sustenance to write, to call poems complete, to call the book complete. For my first book, I was (and felt like) an emerging writer. I sensed support. For a sophomore book I really needed to believe in it on my own. I had to always be working as if it was going to happen, which required a kinder mind.

 Do you have a bird story or favorite feathered friend?

I’ll say this, I like any bird in real life more than I like any bird in a poem!

What is your most memorable reading experience?

For my birthday one year, two of my best buds gave me a key. It opened the old Center for Fiction as part of a membership to write and spend time there. After work I would walk through the East 40s to my studio, turn the key, and step into the ancient elevator. There was always the feeling you were the only one there. Around were the mercantile libraries, men’s marble busts, old beauty. I wasn’t scared of my work, of being behind. I just read the books I brought and books I found, then I left. They've since moved and I’m sure the new location is stunning but it felt so holy there.

What makes you most excited about MORALITY PLAY?

Being able to do readings and learn sets by heart. I love connecting and forming new relationships with other writers, readers, and just that it might allow that precious sense of people in a bookstore for the fun of it.

 To tweet or not to tweet?

I waste my best material over text. It’s for the best though.

What book(s) do you have in your bag / at your bedside right now?

Kiana Davenport’s Song of the Exile and Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang.

Can you tell us your favorite rejection story?

“Is this a joke I don’t get?” That was the note! BUT they later published my work and I never spoke of the original rejection (until now).

 What literary journals do you love?

Anyone reading this, DM me a journal I should know about and love. Are you an editor or are you publishing somewhere great? I want to know! I’ve been thinking about journals for so long now—I think I started submitting in earnest at seventeen—I don’t want to ossify with the old favorites forever.

 What shakes your tail feathers?

Parris Goebel, cheap bracelets from the Jersey Shore, the outside smell of smoke from someone else’s unseen fire.

What advice do you have for fledgling writers?

Please don’t take advice. Seriously. If you took every edit from everyone who reads your drafts, you’d lose all the bits that have your DNA. This is a draft, they think, and so I have to find the spots I can edit. And those spots might be what charms someone if they were to pick your book up at the store. I guess what I mean is they’d have a different mind to accept and celebrate those same spots presented as a finished book. When it’s still in fragile draft form, others might be reading for something to be wrong. They may think there is something that is not working or strikes them as odd. Again, this might be the best part! Perhaps they just don’t recognize it yet, or maybe you need to make that section more confident in its weirdness.

What other eggs do you have in your basket right now?

I am working with the lovely FRIEDA on curating a monthly reading series with accompanying upcoming workshops, so stay tuned! And if anyone is in the Philly area—let me know, we’d love to host you!