Catching up with co-editor Teneice Durrant, plus her upcoming interview series Reply All

Hey friends of Blood Lotus! It’s been a while, and the first thing I want to say to you all is a great big THANK YOU for hanging out with us for the last nine years. Stacia and I are still chugging away on different projects, both together and on our own, and as we transition over to a literary blog, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share what I’ve been up to.

One of the things that absolutely fascinates me is how we continue to identify with place, actual locations on a map, in an increasingly virtual world. I have lived in the Midwest most of my life and proudly identify as a Midwesterner. However, a lot of other areas overlap in the Midwest: Rustbelt, Appalachia/Affrilachia, The Great Plains, The Ohio River Valley, and each of these areas contribute to the rich diversity of the Midwest. My Ohio Valley Midwest is different from someone else’s St. Louis Rustbelt Midwest, is different from someone else’s Iowa City Midwest.

To speak to this, I hope you’ll keep an eye out for my upcoming blog posts titled: Reply All. For the first round of Reply All, I’ve asked some Midwest writers of different locations and backgrounds to comment on their Midwest Identity. I’ll post excerpts from our Reply All email discussions in the coming weeks.

#BLauthor 11: Andrew Rihn

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#BLauthor11 is poet Andrew Rihn.

Andrew Rihn is a writer from Canton, OH.  He is the author of several chapbooks of poetry, including Foreclosure Dogs (Winged City Press), Outside the Clinic (Unlikely Stories), and The Hunger Dictionary (Night Ballet Press).  He works as a writing tutor at Stark State College.

Note: Winged City Press is another project by BL co-editor Teneice Durrant. She selected this Rihn poem for us; read about why below, and be sure to visit WCP, which publishes chapbooks of both fiction and poetry.

For now, here’s a new poem by Andrew: