Jonathan Corcoran is the author of the story collection, The Rope Swing, published in April 2016 by Vandalia Press, the creative imprint of West Virginia University Press. His work has been named a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award in Short Fiction and a semi-finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award and is forthcoming in the anthology, Eyes Burning at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary West Virginia Fiction and Poetry. He received a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Rutgers University-Newark. He was born and raised in a small town in West Virginia and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. The Rope Swing is his debut.

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Roberto F. Santiago: Congratulations on the release of your first collection The Rope Swing! I am so proud of you! I must say outright that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have millions of notes in the margins. These notes range from ‘YASSSS!’ and ‘WERK’ to ‘STEAL THIS!’ and ‘THIS is poetry.’

Jonathan Corcoran: The highest kind of literary praise comes from a writer you respect, and you are that, sir. And to have a “capital P” Poet refer to my prose as poetry—I’m breaking out the champagne tonight (well, prosecco, if I’m honest). Thanks you. Seriously. It’s been such a journey getting this book out here. It feels like a victory lap getting to talk about it with you.

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Christopher Soto (aka Loma) is a queer latin@ punk poet & prison abolitionist. Their first chapbook “Sad Girl Poems” is forthcoming from Sibling Rivalry Press. They’ve interned at the Poetry Society of America & received an MFA in poetry from NYU. They cofounded The Undocupoets Campaign with Javier Zamora & Marcelo Hernandez Castillo in 2015. They edit Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color with the Lambda Literary Foundation. Originally from the Los Angeles area; they now live in Brooklyn.

Roberto F. Santiago: First and foremost, I have to congratulate you on your wonderful chapbook SAD GIRL POEMS. It is heartbreakingly lovely, and I am sure Lana Del Rey is gonna love it! I took your collection with me on my lunch break with the intention of having a bite and a few poems for lunch. I wound up reading it cover to cover… and I am sure SAD GIRL POEMS had me for lunch, rather than the inverse!

Loma: Thanks!

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Juliana Delgado Lopera is an award-winning Colombian writer/educator/oral-historian based in San Francisco. The recipient of the 2014 Jackson Literary award, and a finalist of the Clark-Gross Novel award, she’s the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latin@ immigrants awarded the Regen Ginaa Grant from Galería de la Raza and a 2014 National Queer Arts Festival Grant from the Queer Cultural Center. Her work has been published in Four Way Review, The Bold Italic, Weird Sister, Revista Canto, Transfer Magazine, Raspa Magazine, Black Girl Dangerous, and SF Weekly among others. She’s performed in countless events around the Bay Area including Action Fiction!, Red Light Lit, Beast Crawl, Lit Quake and lectured at Wayward Writers, SFSU, 826 Valencia. She’s the executive director of RADAR Productions.

Founded in 2003 by writer Michelle Tea, RADAR Productions nurtures queer artists and audiences by organizing literary arts programs that authentically reflect Queer communities’ experiences. RADAR’s presenting, commissioning, touring and professional development programs give voice to innovative Queer writers and artists and explores the community-building role played by literature and the arts.

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The Butcher’s Sons is the latest novel by author Scott Alexander Hess. He launched The Butcher’s Sons in May. The family saga is set in 1930 New York City and follows three Irish brothers as they attempt to find their place in Hell’s Kitchen.

Roberto Santiago: Congratulations on the release of book No. three, The Butcher’s Sons! Since we are Press brothers, I must ask: How did TBS find its way to Lethe?

Scott Alexander Hess: My first two novels were with a different press, which did not deal with literary fiction. Those first books were a bit more subversive, while The Butcher’s Sons represents my current direction as a writer toward literary historical fiction. I hunted around for a good match and saw that Lethe authors had won awards and I read some good press. So I submitted and began a wonderful relationship with publisher Steve Berman.

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I always wanted to be a writer. I loved writing stories and poems about things I knew (mostly) nothing about. Writing was an escape from the shitty life I could have had. Growing up in the South Bronx, I didn’t have many outlets. There was riding my bike up and down the Concourse, graffiti, dodging gang recruitment, bottle rockets, and police, the latest installment of Mortal Kombat, and watching the fathers on the block play dominoes until the their wives stopped feigning interest in the click-slam of palms on folding tables.

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In the semester before entering Grad School, I worked as a youth mentor for an HIV/AIDS organization in downtown New York City. This position required outreach, fieldwork, knowledge, and comfort within queer communities of color, as well as group facilitation (all of which were within my wheelhouse). The organization’s mission was one I could easily […]

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