My blue stockings fit well with the ornate carpet on the second floor of the Marriott. As I sit against the wall waiting for the first panel to open its doors, a rush of thankful emotions drowns out the hum of the crowd. How did I end up at the Association of Writers & Writing … Continue reading State of the Obra: Transitions, Traditions, & Connections Between
By Carley Fockler I’ve always been the kind of writer who stares at a word document until everything blurs and my mind wanders. There’s something about it that blank space I find intimidating. I adjust the margins, the font size, and the spacing just to give myself the illusion of productivity. It distracts from my … Continue reading Alter the Process. Break the Rules.
By Tony Pizzo During my first semester retreat to the Atlantic Center for the Arts last January, I attended many eye-opening poetry workshops analyzing the vast selections of form, process, and purpose available to me in this curious expanded field. Among them was a focus on translation. You know those rainbow-colored plastic Hoberman spheres that … Continue reading Everything is Translatable, Especially A Rubik’s Cube
At the beginning of my journey as a poet, I had an incredibly narrow mind of what poetry was. It had to rhyme. It had to be on paper. It needed to sound classic, like Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, etc. Luckily, since then I have grown my horizons to encapsulate different genres and styles found in … Continue reading My Personal Process for the Expanded Field
We the editors of Obra/Artifact would like to wish everyone a happy and productive 2018 with plenty of comfort and inspiration. As the inaugural year of Obra/Artifact, 2017 was an onslaught of determination, reading and editing, coffeeshop meetings, and new staff members, all resulting in four beautiful issues. Many thanks to our contributors, mentors and … Continue reading New Year, New Call for Submissions
By Carol Ann Moon In September 1984, I headed to the Institut für Deutsch als Fremdsprachenphilologie, a.k.a. the Institute for German as a Foreign Language. I was so excited: all of my classes for the first time would be in German! Almost all of my classmates would be non-English speakers! I would be speaking, reading, … Continue reading Toward Generative Translation
By: Lucianna Chixaro Ramos The history of sci-fi fandom is deep. I am acutely aware of my shallowness when it comes to the genre—my longest forays into the realm of sci-fi involve defying the sophomore year reading list by spending an entire summer reading Dune and avoiding Warhammer conversations as much as is humanly possible. … Continue reading Harnessing the Fandom Phenomenon: A Call to Action for Expanded Fielders, Cross-Genre Writers and Artistic Innovators of All Types
