Friday Five: Orange Rose editor Amber Budd

‘Literary magazines exist to uplift the work of other writers, and that’s always been my main priority.’

In less than a year, Amber Budd has built something incredible for the online literary world with The Orange Rose Literary Magazine. Since launching The Orange Rose last July, she has published five issues, each one of which is filled with a broad range of writing–short stories, nonfiction, flash and micro fiction, and poetry from writers well known, lesser known, and unknown–as well as visual art and photography. (Note to writers: Amber’s call for prose submissions for Issue 6 ends May 31, so get busy! [Orange Rose has already hit its cap for poetry submissions.) I’ve had three short stories appear in Amber’s magazine (in issues 2, 4, and 5, which was a pet-themed issue in honor of Amber’s recently departed orange cat, Biscotti). I also received one kindly worded rejection email from her.

Amber is a Missouri-based writer (as am I) who, at age 24, juggles her editor-in-chief work with her pursuit of an MFA in writing, which she began last fall. She holds an AFA and BA in Creative Writing and previously served as editor for Arrow Rock Literary Journal and as a reader for Fractured Lit. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple magazines and journals, and she is currently writing her first novel that will eventually serve as her master’s thesis. Though her chronic illnesses limit her day-to-day capabilities, she uses her free time, according to her bio, “to replay the same two video games for the millionth time, crochet while binge-watching her current TV obsession, and squeeze in D&D sessions with her friends.”

Continue reading “Friday Five: Orange Rose editor Amber Budd”

Friday Five: talking trash with Benjamin Drevlow

A Q&A with the author of ‘Trash Poems for Trash People’ and editor of BULL.

Content warning: strong language.

Reading Benjamin Drevlow‘s new collection of poems/pomes, Trash Poems for Trash People, put me in remembrance of my grandfather who, on walks home from his job at the shoe factory, had a habit of picking up items others left on the curb and bringing them home, thinking he might somehow find a use for them. The idiom “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” also sprang to mind as I read through this collection. That phrase aligns with the opening words of this volume’s epitaph:

Trash only becomes trash if you throw it away

Let it grow and clutter and climb and spread wings and fly.

Suddenly it becomes the hot new home decor.

Like some weird sort of alchemist, Drevlow, who is also the editor-in-chief of a great literary magazine called BULL and the author of several other books, turns trash into treasure with the poems in this collection. At least I think it’s treasure. Does that make me one of the trash people? If the old, discarded boot someone tossed at a dumpster and missed fits this misfit…

Read on to learn more about his reasons for writing this book, his work at BULL, his influences, his teaching gig at Georgia Southern University, and more.

Continue reading “Friday Five: talking trash with Benjamin Drevlow”