October 2011

This month we are pleased to bring you an exclusive audio interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides. Mr. Eugenides’ third novel, “The Marriage Plot,” will be released this month, and our discussion provides listeners an opportunity to learn more about a great writer’s approach to construction. Also featured in our October issue is the latest album from the former singer and banjoist of Squirrel Nut Zippers, Katharine Whalen, along with an acoustic studio session she recorded for the Clarity in North Carolina. Blending old and new, Whalen’s music is at the same time melodic and invigorating. We are also pleased to showcase new fiction and poetry from J.S. Simmons, Carl Swart, and Nanette Rayman-Rivera, among many others. Furthermore, in a timely review, Scott Hightower assesses newly named National Poetry Series winner Idray Novey’s translation of Manoel de Barros.

Have a great October,

Benjamin Evans
Executive Editor, Fogged Clarity

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• J.S. SimmonsJ.S. Simmons is an author from Boston. He passed most of the ’90s in Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, and now lives in Eugene Oregon, where he writes stories, and is working on a novel predicated upon an obsession with his blue-collar breeding. Little Miracles

• Carl SwartCarl Swart grew up on the Great Plains in the shadow of drilling rigs, machine shops, and feed mills. He earned his BA in English at the University of Oklahoma. He currently is an MFA candidate at the University of Oregon, where he also works as a professor of creative writing and English. Lament
• Nanette Rayman-RiveraNanette Rayman-Rivera is the author of the memoir, to live on the wind, which was winner of the first Glass Woman Prize for non-fiction. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and a chapter of her memoir was published in DZANC Best of the Web 2010. She has been published in numerous literary journals, including Oranges & Sardines, MiPOEsias, Berkeley Fiction Review, Wicked Alice, Carve Magazine, The Worcester Review, Carousel, carte blanche and Pebble Lake Review, among many others. Stuck in Waco
• Jacob T. McCallJacob T. McCall is a graduate of Rutgers-Newark M.F.A. Program. His work has appeared in Future Earth Magazine and The Ampersand. He is currently researching and writing a chapbook, American Snapmare, on violence, mental illness and the African-American experience.Flipping (Bulimia) with Isaac Murphy
• Christopher KellerChristopher Keller is a poet and teacher living in Portland. His work has appeared in publications such as The Delinquent, Leveler and Poetry Quarterly, and is forthcoming in The James Dickey Review. Cider Garage
• Allison GrayhurstAllison Grayhurst is a poet living in Toronto. Her work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, Wascana Review, Poetry Nottingham International, The Cape Rock and White Wall Review, among other places. Her book, Somewhere Falling, was published by Beach Holme Publishers in Vancouver in 1995. Torn

• Erik OttoErik Otto has been working professionally in the arts for almost 10 years. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. In addition to painting, he has designed and constructed large-scale installations, theater sets, retail storefronts, and independent film sets. Otto recently completed the acclaimed Artist-in-Residence program at Recology San Francisco and is committed to working with reclaimed paint and materials to produce work that is both expressive and conceptual. Otto currently lives and works in San Francisco. Various Paintings
• Tran NguyenTran Nguyen is a freelance artist and illustrator living and working in Georgia, USA Illustration
• Chris FrielChris Friel is a color blind british painter who bought a camera in 2006 and has not painted since. He has been shortlisted for The Sunday Times Landscape Photographer of the Year for three years running. Land
• Justin MezzellJustin Mezzell is a designer and creative director currently based in New York, NY. Do You Remember When This World Was Ours?

• Katharine Whalen and her FascinatorsKatharine Whalen is a musician living and working in North Carolina. After a long stint with the band Squirrel Nut Zippers — which included appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien — Whalen moved on to embark on several solo projects, the most recent of which is her album, Madly Love.Madly Love
• Katharine WhalenKatharine Whalen is a musician living and working in North Carolina. After a long stint with the band Squirrel Nut Zippers — which included appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien — Whalen moved on to embark on several solo projects, the most recent of which is her album, Madly Love.The Fogged Clarity Session

• Jeffrey EugenidesJeffrey Eugenides is an American author born in Detroit and now teaching at Princeton. He is the author of three novels: The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot. Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Middlesex, Eugenides is also the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, an NEA fellowship, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and the Henry D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. the Pulitzer Prize winner discusses process
• Katharine WhalenKatharine Whalen is a musician living and working in North Carolina. After a long stint with the band Squirrel Nut Zippers — which included appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien — Whalen moved on to embark on several solo projects, the most recent of which is her album, Madly Love.talks about her latest album

• Scott HightowerScott Hightower teaches as adjunct faculty at NYU and Drew University. A native of central Texas, Hightower lives in Manhattan and sojourns in Spain. His translations of a manuscript by the Spanish-Puerto Rican poet Aurora de Albornoz garnered Hightower a Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. A bi-lingual book of Hightower’s poems — translated by Natalia Carbajosa — is forthcoming from Devenir, Madrid, later this fall. Also, stateside, this fall, his fourth collection of poems is forthcoming from Barrow Street Books.reviews Manoel de Barros’ “Birds for a Demolition”