5Q Interviews

Irene in the summer

5Q Interview: Irene Rodrigo, MFA Candidate in the Spanish Creative Writing Program

Wednesday, March 26, 2025
"... lately I’m getting to discover how useful can be for me to write outside from home. Some days I go to the public library of Iowa City, where I can find the silence I need to edit my texts or keep writing them. Some other days I go to cafés ..."
jessica alexander smiling

5Q Interview: Jessica Alexander, an instructor at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival

Thursday, March 13, 2025
"If you can make a single sentence do the work of 3 sentences or a paragraph—then, you’ve probably written a compelling sentence. In flash every word communicates."
Laura reading work

5Q Interview: Laura Jaramillo, instructor at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival

Friday, March 7, 2025
"This course gives you the opportunity to intensely focus on the visual aspects of writing poetry and how they affect the ways we understand poetry."
Kate O'Brien wearing bright scarf

5Q Interview: Kat O'Brien, instructor at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival

Thursday, March 6, 2025
"...I'll be sharing my top-secret tips and tricks that I love to tell everyone for how to blast past obstacles on the page, and embrace all the joy in your creative process."
Spencer Jones

5Q Interview: Spencer Lane Jones, an MFA candidate in the Nonfiction Writing Program

Monday, February 10, 2025
"I became an early bird writer because I had to be, and it hasn't really left my body."
Cover of Morillo's Mother Archive

5Q Interview: UI Press Author Erika Morillo

Wednesday, December 18, 2024
"In this image-text memoir, I create an archive out of a myriad of sources: family photographs, images I’ve made, news clippings, videos, and conversations. "
broken clock cover 1

5Q Interview: Solenn Vincent, editor of The Broken Clock Magazine

Friday, November 22, 2024
"Broken Clock is unique in the fact that it focuses on time. This can be as specific or as vague in the submissions as the contributors would like, but all the pieces are centered around a specific topic within time."
book cover with night sky and constellations

5Q Interview: UI Press Author Sharon Wahl

Wednesday, November 13, 2024
"The book opens with stories of new love—crushes, first dates.  There is a longer story tracing a relationship from beginning to end, followed by stories about breaking up and then starting over, finding just the right person to fall in love with again."
blue cover with 20 sided dice

5Q Interview: UI Press Author Shelly Mazzanoble

Tuesday, November 12, 2024
"As a parent, you can’t help but wonder if you’re doing it right, where you’re falling behind, is everyone having more fun than you, do these kids even like me??? I think that way as a parent and a Dungeon Master."
red and pink cover

5Q Interview: UI Press Author Marguerite Sheffer

Monday, November 11, 2024
"The stories are completely unlinked, and encompass a mix of genres: there’s horror, science fiction, historical fiction, and a ghost story or two, alongside quite a bit of flash fiction."