Notes From Crew Quarters: Writing Around the World

This week, Ethan Brightbill asked our staff where they would travel with one plane ticket to write anywhere in the world.

Patricia Killelea, Poetry Editor

Ireland. I have visited there in the past because it is ancestral land and I still have family there. I have many poems I wrote during my visit in 2012 that I need to polish. The spirit of that land brings out the storyteller in me, pushes me outside of my distilled approach to image. I believe very strongly in writing in foggy cemeteries.

Alexander Clark, Associate Nonfiction Editor

Thailand; the way Thai people and culture perceive gender is completely different than gender norms in the west. And the food/living there is really cheap.

Niikah Hatfield, Intern

France. Cobblestone alleyways, coffee, gardens, and good food... What more could anyone need? (Venice and prosciutto, maybe.)

E. Flores, Associate Poetry Editor

Definitely Russia, not only is it a place with a rich history that I know very little about, but I suspect Putin and I would hit it off.

Hayli Cox, Associate Nonfiction Editor

India, for sure. Ouside a market in Bombay, on a lake at a mountain's base in Kashmir, Thar desert, and anywhere else in the country, really.

Tianli Kilpatrick, Associate Nonfiction Editor

Greece, overlooking rolling hills of olive trees and the Aegean. Hunting and eating fresh octopus, climbing the ruins at Delphi and Knossos. I've never felt more free in any other country.