90
2017
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
NORTHEAST TO
DOWN EAST: FOUR DIVERSE
NORTH CAROLINA AUTHORS REVISIT THEIR NCLR INTERVIEWS BY SHERYL CORNETT NOTES CONTRIBUTED BY THE NCLR STAFF
A full circle revisit to the evolving creative productivity of the North Carolina writers I interviewed for the North Carolina Literary Review is decidedly a journey in amazement. The conversations that follow with four of North Carolina’s beloved literary all-stars bring home to the state’s literary landscape the serendipitous common ground that is also increasingly, stunningly diverse. Is it serendipity – or that great Southern comfort called grace – that the writers re-interviewed have such common ground concerns and strong stances for social justice? For individual spirituality as part social and part artistic inquiry? For the role of social media on the American mind and imagination? For the inevitably poignant human themes of love and loss? For the passion for community? Serendipity, coincidence, a sign of the times, grace – call it what you will, but as one listens to what Clyde Edgerton, Alan Shapiro, Jan DeBlieu, and Randall Kenan have to say in the pages to follow, it unfolds that these artists’ insights provide a feast of ideas and experience.1
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These interviews have been edited for clarity, flow, and format while remaining true to the voices and intentions of the authors and interviewer.