Digital Readings & Interviews – Kathryn Nuernberger

The Witch of Eye Book Tour

I’ve been zooming here there and everywhere this spring, talking about witches with some of my favorite writers. If you missed them, it’s not too late.

Last week Kathryn Smith and I talked with Sharma Shields at Wishing Tree Books about Medusas — both in terms of her ecopoetic, cephalopedic interests in her book Still Life with Cephalopod and mine with fierce, defiant sea witches like the mythic Medusa. It was a really fun conversation and you can still watch it here.

Where I’m Writing from

Iron Horse Literary Review just released their fantastic April issue and it’s chock full of gorgeous poems for National Poetry Month. I was asked to contribute some photos and a description of my work space. It was an honor and a lot of fun to justify my junk-collecting.

Here followeth various ways witches injure cattle…

I had such a nice time reading for University of Arizona MFA Program’s Distinguished Visitor Series alongside Paisley Rekdal. I read an essay about Lisbey Nypan and another how obsessed witch hunters were with spoiled milk. We touched on some deeply weird shit about the tilberi.

The Witch of Eye Playlist

I’m so grateful to largehearted boy for inviting me to make a The Witch of Eye playlist.

In “The Invention of Mothers,” an essay from The Witch of Eye that is close to my heart, I wrote about Rhiannon, the fairy queen best known for having called forth the Alder Rhiannon, those three magical birds who sing so beautifully they send the living to sleep and raise the dead from their slumber.

So of course a The Witch of Eye playlist must include Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon.”

Love Spells

Happy Valentine’s Day! Last night I launched The Witch of Eye in the good company of writers, friends, and inspirations who each shared a love spell

Finding a Form, Choosing a Genre, Embracing Your Nymph

A common question I get, since I wrote poetry and creative nonfiction, has to do with how I know what genre a piece of writing should be in. One answer I have given to this question is to say that the work will teach you its form, to just write, and see what shape it takes on. But there are other ways to think about genre, form, and what that thing you are writing wants to be.

Talking about Talk in Poetry

I was really delighted to have the chance to do a reading and conversation with John Gallaher about conversational rhythms, tones, and rhetorics as sources of inspiration towards poetic forms. Before the reading, John and I put together a list of books that have influenced our thinking about talk.