What makes our new editorial staff at Flyway tick? What kind of writing gets their hearts pumping and gets them reading after a hard day, week, month, or year in Iowa State University’s MFA program? Over the next month, you can find out as we introduce each of our new editors.

Up first: Managing Editor, Chris Wiewiora

Chris "Vive" Wiewiora

What book can you not stop talking to people about?
Fire Season: Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

What book compels your writing?
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

What (other than Flyway) literary magazines do you read?
I read a whole helluva lot of them…but I subscribe to River Styx, the Florida Review (of course), Poetry, The Sun, Cave Wall, and I’m probably forgetting others. Also, online I read a lot of community writing like theRumpus, Hobart, the Millions, PANK, HTML Giant, et al.

What writers do you seek out in literary magazines?
I love to find any piece by Ira Sukrungruang. I like Ben [Percy’s] modern folktales. Billy Collins seems to be in any and all lit mags. Alex Lemon’s poems are solid. Brian Doyle’s prose-poem/auto-fiction/close-to-the-heart-nonfiction. Steve Almond’s love/sex/breakup-stories. Jeffrey Brown’s memoir-and/or-satirical comics. …Megan Mayhew Berman and her animal stories. Caitlin Horrocks; though, she’s mostly in “the slicks” now. Anything by these two amazing Florida gals: Karen Russell and Laura Van den Berg. Lindsay Hunter’s wild and weird stories!

What advice do you have for potential-contributors of Flyway?
Address your cover letters to the appropriate editor. Seriously.