TC Boyle

Meet the Interns: Heidi Nielson, Fiction Editor

Superstition Review

heidinielson_0Heidi Nielson is pursuing concurrent degrees in English (Creative Writing) and Journalism (Digital Journalism), as well as a minor in Music.

Superstition Review: What do you do for SR?

Heidi Nielson: As a fiction editor, I send solicitations to authors for work, as well as for interviews, read, discuss, and decide on submissions along with Riki, and conduct at least one interview with an author.

SR: How did you hear about SR?

HN: I first heard about the internship while I was interning at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, working with Hayden’s Ferry Review. Shortly thereafter, I volunteered at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers’ Conference at ASU and was able to attend a class on literary journals that Patricia Murphy was teaching, and met with her after the class ended. During the last issue, I helped with the blog, though I wasn’t officially an intern. I’m very excited to be an intern this semester.

SR: What is your favorite section of SR and why?

HN: As a fiction writer, I tend to gravitate toward the fiction section of any journal first. I am an avid reader, as well as a writer. I feel like I learn the most about writing fiction from reading the work of more experienced and talented writers, like those in Superstition Review.

SR: Who is your dream contributor to the journal?

HN: My dream contributor would probably be Jhumpa Lahiri. Her prose is beautiful, and I admire the way that she is able to immerse her readers in Bengali culture.

SR: What job would you like to try out?

HN: Probably blogger. I really enjoy social media and had a lot of fun when I helped with the blog during the last issue.

SR: What are you most excited for?

HN: I would say that I am most excited to just read submissions. We are writing to so many amazing writers this semester to request work.

SR: What is the first book you remember falling in love with?

HN: I think the first book I fell in love with was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. What made that book so compelling to me as a child, I think, was that their family felt so similar to my own. I come from a family of six girls, and one boy, and the personalities of myself and the three sisters closest to me in age, always seemed so similar to the four sisters in Little Women.

SR: What are you currently reading?

HN: I’m currently reading a compilation of T.C. Boyle’s short stories, entitled simply, Stories.

SR: What are your favorite websites to distract you from homework?

HN: I noticed that most people were saying Facebook, and I can’t deny that I do check it more than once a day, but I think the website that usually distracts me from homework the most is etsy.com. It’s a website of handmade or vintage items, and I can just spend hours browsing through the thousands of items. I also get distracted by my Google Reader. I subscribe to about 50 blogs, and so I’m almost constantly reading posts.

SR: Do you write? Tell us about a project you are working on.

HN: I write fiction, mainly short stories. I have been working on revisions of two stories I wrote for my fiction class last year since the last ended, and I’m on my sixth drafts of both.

Spotlight on Rebekah Richgels, by Danielle Kuffler

Superstition Review

rebekahrichgels_1Danielle Kuffler: What is your process when reviewing a submission?

Rebekah Richgels: I generally skip the title and dive straight into the story. If it is poorly punctuated or confusing, sometimes I have to start over. Once I am about a third of the way through, if I’m not invested in the story yet I call it a No. As I read, I look for character development and depth, interesting subject matter that draws me in and keeps me reading, and a coherent plot. Ideally these things also come with good prose. If a story has all that I say Yes. I love that we do a blind read of the stories so we aren’t swayed by the author’s fame or lack thereof.

DK: What has been your best SR moment?

RR: My best moment with SR was definitely when Sara Scoville and I interviewed TC Boyle. I was really nervous ahead of time, but he made everything really relaxed and the whole experience turned out amazingly.

DK: What has been your worst SR moment?

RR: It’s not that bad, but my worst SR moment was at the beginning of Fall 2008, when I accidentally solicited from a poet and he emailed back telling me he didn’t do fiction. I tried to respond in a joking way and also pass the blame, which made us all look pretty unprofessional. I learned from it, though, and I’m a lot more thorough with my solicitations now.

DK: What is your favorite book or author/poet?

RR: My favorite author is John Steinbeck, but I also love reading pieces by Rick Reilly, former writer for Sports Illustrated.

DK: What was the first book you ever read?

RR: I’m not sure about the first book I ever read, but the first ones I remember reading were the Boxcar Children series. I read so many of them that I even had a dream where I was reading one.

DK: What skills of yours are most beneficial to SR?

RR: I like to think that I work pretty hard to get through the things we need to do. I can sit down and run through a lot of work in a day if that’s what we need to catch up. I think I do a good job, too, of explaining situations to other people, like Sarah Dillard, my other fiction editor, so that she felt up to speed with our jobs here.

DK: What are you reading currently?

RR: I just finished Leaving Atlanta, Tayari Jones’ first book, and am starting Which Brings Me To You, the collaborative novel between Julianna Baggott and Steve Almond. I am also reading Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney for my Literary Forms class.

DK: What is your favorite work of nonfiction?

RR: I guess I would have to say Ghost Soldiers, the book about the Bataan Death March, because it was the first nonfiction book I had ever chosen to read. I really prefer the fiction world.

DK: What is your favorite work of art or artist?

RR: I love Rodin. For some reason, his sculptures seem especially beautiful to me.

DK: What are some advantages to working in the online format of SR?

RR: The best advantage of working online is the space. We have no limit to how much we publish, and aren’t limited by printing costs either.

DK: What kind of experiences have you gained at SR that will help in your future?

RR: I have learned better responsibility and independence, as well as increased diplomacy and really great connections to the literary world.

Superstition Review Interviews T.C. Boyle

Superstition Review
T.C. Boyle with Sara and Rebekah
Rebekah and Sara with T.C. Boyle

On February 25th, Changing Hands Bookstore hosted T.C. Boyle for a reading and questions on his most recent novel, The Women. Fiction Editor Rebekah Richgels and former Fiction Editor Sara Scoville spent about an hour interviewing the author before the event. Rebekah comments on the experience.

The idea of chatting with T. C. Boyle about his work seemed nerve-wracking at first because he’s a well-known author who has published 20 books. He arrived and we made our introductions, then Trish set up the camera and we dove right in. Sara and I had created banks of questions to choose from, but as we talked we became more comfortable and found ourselves going “off script.” Mr. Boyle entertained us with anecdotes but also respectfully considered our more serious questions. Changing Hands was the last stop on his nationwide book tour, but he answered our questions as though he was hearing them for the first time.

As we probed into the details of his literary career–his various styles, how he gets to know his characters, how he comes up with ideas–it became obvious that we were speaking with a natural talent. This is a man who finds a subject that interests him and spends months gathering and gleaning information so that when he finally sits down to write about it he sounds as knowledgeable as someone who has devoted their life to this one topic. He writes seven days a week, probably without fail, not because he has to make himself move forward with a piece, but because he has made writing so natural that it is almost like eating.

Though he is promoting his 20th book, Boyle has already submitted his 21st–a collection of stories including “Wild Child,” mentioned in his novel Talk Talk–and is more than halfway through his 22nd, another novel. He has an ability to write so that subjects are engaging and fresh, so that his characters are real, and so that each story draws you in. He writes with an ease that makes all authors jealous and makes publishers celebrate. Interviewing him was a priceless experience, and one that I am so excited to be able to share with all our readers. The podcast interview will be available on April 20th, the launch date of Issue 3 of Superstition Review.

T.C. Boyle
T.C. Boyle