The Big Staff Interview | 2024
To celebrate our second winter in print, I wanted to step back and introduce our brilliant DIHP team. Anne, Angela, Grant, & Jody are the people who make this gratifyingly ridiculous dream of a magazine happen. While I ask a lot of their energy for DIHP, they’re also writers on their own literary trajectories and who hold a vast array of magical stories within their fascinating personalities, so I asked them ten burning questions about literature, life, and lessons learned.
To conclude, a small New Year’s gift, a 2025 playlist of our favorite road trip songs for your journeys near and far. – Cami Griep, Editor in Chief
What is your favorite kind of pocket?
Anne Anthony (North Carolina, US): A pita pocket, something I discovered after moving into a tiny roach-infested shared one-bedroom apartment on MacDougal Street in NYC five flights above a falafel shop which is how I stretched my limited grocery funds—daily buying (and devouring) a pita pocket filled with crusty, spicy chickpea nuggets of deliciousness.
Angela Kubinec (South Carolina, US): Secret. I have 2 coats that are over 30 years old because they have secret pockets.
Grant Shimmin (New Zealand): One with a zip in a pair of shorts, so I can go cycling or running and not worry about my phone falling out of my pocket. My phone is where all my poems start life, in physical form.
Jody padumacchita Goch (Germany): The inside chest pocket of my Carhart Storm Rider jacket, nothing ever gets wet there so my bits of poems that are written on torn pieces of feed bags, toilet paper, tiny notepads, they never get soggy, and the ink never becomes abstract art.
2. Tell us three interesting things about yourself that you don't usually include in your bio.
Anne:
· My Hungarian paternal grandmother’s name is chiseled on a statue in Kolontár center square commemorating all the townspeople who left.
· I had a newspaper route as a child at a time when mostly boys delivered papers.
· I won first place in the diocese-wide 8th grade oratory contest reciting a speech entitled, “I am the Cross of Christ.”
Angela:
· I can squash a bug with my bare hand and not flinch or cringe.
· I’ve been able to drive a car since I was in elementary school.
· All my tattoos form a life history totem pole on my spine, and no, you can't see it.
Grant:
· I love quizzing. I have been on the New Zealand version of the British quiz show Mastermind - I got to the semi-finals;
· I’m a decent swimmer - I’ve done a couple of ocean swims;
· I’m a cryer in movies - the most I’ve cried was in Shadowlands, the CS Lewis - Joy Davidman story
Jody:
· I am terrified of moths. I blame the Moth Man myth and movie.
· I have a deep and endearing love of tractors.
· I love to bake but struggle to cook. I love the alchemy of baking: putting a bunch of things together to create goo and then adding heat and getting something completely different.
3. What does your dog like best about being an assistant at Does It Have Pockets?
Anne: She loves snoozing on the sofa in my office nodding off while waiting for me to ask questions or her opinion on a piece. She’s not much into poetry and sternly refuses to read anything that rhymes.
Angela: Having their pictures on the interwebs.
Grant: The fact the Zoom calls are so early for me right here in New Zealand, he gets to sleep right through them.
Jody: The amount of time I spend reading on the couch, where of course she snuggles.
4. What’s the strangest job you’ve ever held?
Anne: I was a hospitality girl (yes, you read right, ‘girl’) at the Hotel Bethlehem during my sophomore year in college. I’d deliver room service, drive guests to the airport, hold the front doors open for guests, engrave matchbooks, and set up hotel ballrooms for large meetings and conferences. After the Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased the hotel in the late 1960s, the concept of hospitality girls was added to the hotel’s services.
Angela: I was an aerobics instructor. Constantly reflected in a wall sized mirror, with my body always under scrutiny.
Grant: I’m a bit boring on this score, most of my jobs have in some way been related to my career as a journalist. Possibly the weirdest one I did was working as a correspondent for a talk radio station in Johannesburg from the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. Because of the time difference, they would call me about 4.30 in the morning to make sure I was awake to appear on a 7pm sports show in South Africa. It was strange from the unusual circumstances, but I absolutely loved it for the 2 weeks I was doing it.
Jody: Sheep Dipping (fukkin creosote).
5. What are your current favorite literary magazines? What makes you sit up and take notice?
Anne: [Can’t answer this one with the limit of three.]
Angela: The Sun and Carve. They are still in print. I’m someone who likes the feel of a print lit journal in my hands as I read. I’m old school that way.
Grant: It’s hard to get away from mags that have published me. I’d prefer to avoid the ‘dream’ mags I aspire to be in, though obviously I’d change my choice in a heartbeat if one did. Roi Faineant - The Lazy Kings are anything but. I’ll always be grateful that they first published me. So approachable and engaging. They’re a new writer’s dream. The Hooghly Review - I have loved getting to know the staff of this Indian-based journal. They have treated my submissions and me with care and I’m grateful. Blue Bottle Journal - Editor Sean West’s response to my first, unsuccessful, submission was so kind and constructive that his advice on two of my three poems saw me improve them to the point they were accepted by two other journals within months, and his treatment of an accepted poem on my second submission was so great. I’m going to cheat here and say Epistemic Literary and Querencia Press, the journals who accepted the two poems referred to above, are extremely close to my heart too, such kind and engaging editors, and wonderful to deal with.
Jody: Does It Have Pockets...ooops, that’s cheating. The Sun: well shit it’s The Sun. Banshee: I really like a lot of the Irish and Scottish journals, there’s often something fresh about them, and serious and playful. The Chestnut Review: They seem to really want folk to keep trying.
6. If a friend only had time to read one piece published by DIHP, which piece would you assign?
Anne: Tough one. We’ve published so much excellent writing. But if you put a gun to my head (please don’t) I’d say it’d be the quirky flash story “In Praise of Angelica Valentine 1974 – 2024” by Alison Wassell.
Angela: From our first year, “Stigmata Pentaptych” by Spencer Nitkey. It is supremely pocket-y. It lives up to what we say we are.
Grant: It’s a tough choice, and even though I’m a poet first and foremost, my thoughts immediately go to “The Projectionist,” by Will Willoughby.
Jody: Pink Camellias (Longing) by K.M. Baykal or “That Night in the Ghost Town of Ashcroft” by Mary Catherine La Mar.
7. Have any of your perspectives regarding literary magazines/submissions/writers changed over your tenure at DIHP?
Anne: Working on a lit mag gives a writer a more complete perspective of the acceptance/rejection process so that I now take rejections much less personally. I’ve seen quite good stories rejected by our lit mag simply because a similar piece ran or would run in an upcoming issue. Lit Mag teams pay attention to the curation of stories and poems far more than I’d realized.
Angela: I think we organically perform best practices in reading and recommending pieces for posting. We have successfully created a high bar, using instinct and personal skills. I appreciate the effort mag staffs exert, but that was not a total surprise. Cami's personal letters make us unique. Our mix of folks have similar mindsets. I’m sure you can't find all that everywhere. So, the thing is magical.
Grant: I think I’ve realised the importance of kindness and empathy in being part of a lit mag environment. I’ve also realised that it’s not always the writers with the gold-plated bios who produce the writing that really floors me, as much as I appreciate a great track record.
Jody: Yes. I think I am a lot more calm about the whole process. I have a different appreciation of the work that goes into all sides. Sure, I had that before, but now there is a respect for the sheer care people take and the amazing words that float around waiting to be butterfly netted.
8. What do you find most surprising about working at DIHP?
Anne: I’m surprised by how widely the team can disagree on a particular piece. One person might love it while the others think it’s a pass. I’ve come to realize that we each bring our own personal history to the pieces we read and interpret aspects of a story far differently than someone whose lived a different life. What I do love is how the team offers space for discussing the merits of a piece which can sometimes convince the team as a whole to either accept or reject it. I live for those energetic discussions!!
Angela: Weekly Zoom meets. Makes for great morale. Lets us develop a true team. I've never experienced that before. Every working team in my life has had members with agendas.
Grant: How supportive, respectful, empathetic and, I’ll say it, loving the environment is, even stuck down at the a$$ end of the world, thousands of miles from my fellow staffers.
Jody: Oh geez. The Team. What an amazing, warm, kind bunch. It has completely gobsmacked me. My experience before when working in groups was ah, not so positive, but DIHP has really changed things up for me.
9. How about a favorite piece of your own writing? Or someone else’s writing that has special meaning?
Anne: I’d recently had a creative nonfiction essay, Finding the Sweet in the Bitter, published by The Phare, which covers my experience of putting together a collection of flash fiction stories dedicated to my mother shortly after her passing. Getting to know the writers and discovering their own experiences with a parent, spouse, or relative who also experienced memory changes carried me through the grief of losing my mother.
Angela: I was going to say Updike’s Archangel. “My pleasures are as specific as they are everlasting. The sliced edges of a fresh ream of laid paper, cream, stiff, rag-rich. The freckles of the closed eyelids of a woman attentive in the first white blush of morning. The ball diminishing well down the broad green throat of the first at Cape Ann. The good catch, a candy sun slatting the bleachers…” I think it might be as close to my hope for heaven as I’ve ever read. Of course, in today’s awareness of such things, Updike seems to think all the arms in heaven are white and holy. So, it is a very true problem. Definitely a writer for his time. I always thought he could be funny. Imagine. The piece elicits an intense feeling that makes me gasp, good or bad.
Grant: It has to be the first poem I had published by DIHP, “Would I have taken your picture on my phone if you’d been stillborn in the digital age?” which speaks for itself in terms of being a poem that really gets to the bottom of who I am. It’s since been reprinted, by Midsummer Dream House, and was also the first poem I read at an open mic event.
Jody: “The Castel Hotel.” It’s from the time when AIDS first exploded into our lives. It may never get published, but it never fails to open and soften my heart after I read it.
10. What is a question you wish I had asked and how would you answer it?
Anne: Why do you volunteer hours and hours of your life to this literary magazine? I grew up in a family with six children, born fourth in line with a six-year gap between my older brother and me, and because of that I have the qualities of both oldest child and middle child—leader and mediator. From that, I experienced being a part of something larger than myself. I studied community organization in my Master of Social Work program, finding the idea of bringing people together for the common good something to value. Working on DIHP gives me the chance to give others the opportunity to have their voices heard through their words or artwork. At the end of the day, I find nothing is more satisfying.
Angela: Do you consider writing to be the most important thing you do? I would have to say it’s the most important thing I don’t do - right now. Not forever.
Grant: What is your ultimate writing ambition? To be a really accomplished poet and writer, with multiple collections published, but more importantly to be a writer who cares as much about other writers and their work as I do my own, generous with advice and genuinely, unreservedly thrilled by their success.
Jody: What skill or talent would you like to be gifted? Sing, oh how I wish I could sing and dance. To be able to make music to go with my words, oh my.
Don’t forget our bonus playlist, below, hand selected for all your upcoming adventures. xoxo
Find this playlist on Spotify!
