Poem Reading on the Quarantine Review Podcast

So my little poem, "Legacy Act," published by The Quarantine Review last summer, continues to enjoy a life beyond its initial release. After a recording of me reading the poem was featured about a year ago on the CIUT radio program, Howl, the recording has now reappeared on The Quarantine Review's most recent podcast episode. It's so great to see this piece continue to, erm, tour around.

The podcast episode is great: it also features poems by Conyer Clayton and Kim Fahner, as well as a fantastic interview with S.M. Freedman about her new novel, Blood Atonement. Check it out!

Questionnaire with Canadian Writers Abroad

The online magazine Canadian Writers Abroad, which I occasionally write for, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. I was happy to answer a few questions to help them celebrate. (And yes, that pic below is of me in Korea, taken around 2004.)

Reading Announcement: Wolsak & Wynn 40th Anniversary Celebration!

Friends: I am excited to announce that I'll be doing a reading - in person!!! - as part of the Wolsak and Wynn Publishers' 40th anniversary celebration. This is happening Thursday, June 9th at 7pm at Wychwood Barns here in Toronto. This will be my first in-person reading since (gulp!) October of 2019. Looking forward to sharing a stagewith Nancy Jo Cullen, Catherine Graham, Susan Perly, Rasiqra Revulva, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Katie Welch, and Dan K. Woo. See this flyer for more details!

FreeFall magazine Volume 32, Issue 1 Launch recording

If you didn't catch the launch party for the new issue of FreeFall magazine last week, not to worry! The recording is below. Lots of great readings included as part of this hour-long event. I read my own poem, "The Mosquito's Aphrodisiac," starting at the 23-minute mark. Enjoy!

FreeFall magazine online launch party

Hey there, Blogspot audience (if you even exist!) - long time no chat. Yes, it's been crickets over here for quite a long while - two posts since October, Sampson? what have you been doing with yourself?? - but I do have something new to report.

Just announced: On Wednesday night, FreeFall magazine will host an online launch for its latest issue, which contains a new poem of mine, called "The Mosquito's Aphrodisiac." Indeed, there will be a pre-recorded reading by yours truly. If you're  able to come, please do! See this Facebook invitation for all the details. 

M.

Acceptance: FreeFall magazine

Well, here's a wee bit of news to kick off 2022: I've had a new poem accepted for publication! The piece, called "The Mosquito's Aphrodisiac," will appear later this year in Calgary-based FreeFall magazine. This will be the fourth poem I've had in this particular journal in the last 11 years: I placed second in its 2011 poetry contest with a piece called "On Choosing a Mattress," and I also published poems in issues back in 2014 and in 2019.

This new piece, about a guy who develops a sexual fascination with a mosquito, is part of a larger poetry manuscript I've recently finished and am trying to find a publisher for. 2021 was one of my quieter years on the publishing front, so I'm grateful (and relieved) to announce so early in the New Year something fresh coming out. Anyway, I'll post about it again when I have more details.

M.

Jack Wang interview on Canadian Writers Abroad

I'm back in the digital pages of website Canadian Writers Abroad, this time interviewing Danuta Gleed Award-winning author Jack Wang about his stellar debut short story collection, We Two Alone, published by House of Anansi. Through our wide-ranging discussion held earlier this month over Zoom, Wang talks about his interest in transnational and the Chinese diaspora, and how he wanted to write about Chinese people living in different eras and different parts of the world. Here's a snippet:

Sampson: [T]hat’s another thing readers will notice: the wide array of settings for these stories. You’ve got tales set in Canada, China, Austria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This really highlights your core theme of the collection, that of the transnational nature of racism, especially anti-Asian racism. How did you come to taking this prismatic approach to settings and their impact on discrimination, oppression, and even genocide?

Wang: That’s a great question. I feel like there are certain narratives about being Asian in general and Chinese in particular, about coming to North America, that have been done, and I didn’t want to write those kinds of stories. Moreover, I spent many years writing about my own experiences, sort of semi-autobiographical, but I just found that they were more interesting when refracted through other times and places. I wasn’t really conscious of this until I wrote “The Night of Broken Glass.” The idea came to me when I was in Shanghai for the World Exposition in 2010 and I saw a plaque at the Israeli pavilion dedicated to Ho Feng-Shan, the man who was the consul-general of China in Vienna during the time of Kristallnacht. It fascinated me that I had never heard of him, and I began to wonder why I hadn’t heard of him, and so I just began to follow my own fascination with the Chinese diaspora more generally. And the more I did, the more I began to ask: Why haven’t I read more about the Chinese elsewhere, in Africa, in Europe? So I wrote stories about the Chinese diaspora in other places because there seemed to be a dearth of them.

You can read our interview in full here. Enjoy!