AWP13: Hothouse Interview with Natalie Young of Sugar House Review

Natalie Young is a poet, graphic artist, and an editor for Sugar House Review. She’s a Utah girl, down to earth, whimsical, creative, compassionate, with a genuine and sly sense of humor. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in “Rattle,” “Tampa Review,” “South Dakota Review,” “Tar River,” and elsewhere. 

Natalie and I both graduated from Lesley University’s MFA Program in 2009, and it has been incredible to spend time with her at AWP — her third, my first. Over lunch, we talked about the differences in her AWP experiences. Her first two times at the conference, she spent her days at the Sugar House Review table at the Bookfair. This time she has been able to attend panel presentations, readings, tributes, the keynote conversation between Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott, and more.

I asked her three questions, short and sweet.

KARIN C. DAVIDSON: So, Natalie, how would you describe the difference of being here for Sugar House at the Bookfair and here for the events?

NATALIE YOUNG: Well, at the Bookfair, I’m here mostly as an editor. People know where to find us, and so we can meet our contributors. And as a participant, I can go to panels, visit other reviews’ tables at Bookfair, go to readings.

DAVIDSON: How has AWP influenced magazine submissions for Sugar House?

YOUNG: It has definitely increased them. There is always an influx of submissions after having the table at AWP’s Bookfair. The volume is affected, as well as the quality.

DAVIDSON: What is the importance of AWP to a small literary magazine?

YOUNG: AWP is a good marketing outlet. We get to meet people that we wouldn’t normally meet, especially since the review’s home base is in Utah. (In fact, SHR is the only independent print literary review in Utah). We also get ideas from other people, including editors and publishers. Spending time at AWP is productive in many ways. On the east coast there is a higher concentration of writers than in the west, where they are more spread out. Networking is important for a small journal.

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This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.

The Poppy - An Interview Series

Poppies - brightly colored flowers with four to six petals. 

Ornament, food, opiate.

Tall, showy, delicate. 

Growing in fields, deserts, cottage gardens, their faces to the sun.

Scarlet poppies - remembrance for soldiers lost in war.

Two, long-stemmed, leaning together.

Think of POPPIES as metaphor. Four to six petals become four to six questions. The questions lean together as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, black-stamened, conspicuous, lacy. Here, in the questions and answers of interview, writers and artists will come together, like so many poppies, and brilliant, colorful, tempestuous scenarios will occur. 

Ornament, remembrance, opiate. 

Icelandic, Nepalese, Welsh. 

Different every time. 

The first interview for "The Poppy" will be with Yolanda J. Franklin. Poet, teacher, PhD candidate, and third generation, north Florida native. Yolanda's work is forthcoming or has appeared in Sugar House Review, Crab Orchard Review’s American South Issue, The Hoot & Howl of the Owl Anthology of Hurston Wright Writers’ Week, SPECS: Journal of Arts & Culture’s Kaleidoscopic Points Issue, and Kweli Journal. Her awards include a nomination for a 2012 Pushcart Poetry Prize, a 2012 Cave Canem fellowship, and several scholarships, including a summer at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Indiana Writer’s Week, and Colrain Poetry Manuscript Workshop. Her collection of poems, Southern Pout, was a finalist for the 2011 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Award. She is a graduate of Lesley University's MFA Writing Program and presently a doctoral candidate at Florida State University. Yolanda's north Florida sunshine will break through any day now. Faces to the sky!

My interview with Yolanda originally appeared in HOTHOUSE MAGAZINE and is archived here at THUNDER ON A THURSDAY. And to read about the decision to transition The Poppy: An Interview Series to Hothouse, visit my post, The Poppy Becomes a Hothouse Flower.