Each week we will be connecting with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.
Name: Joshua Bernstein
Title of Pieces Published in Sweet: “Lost in the Fog”
Issues: 11.1
Find Him:
Joshua teaches and directs graduate studies in English at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Check out his website for more.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
I was honored to learn that a chapbook, NORTHERN COWBOY, was selected by Jessie van Eerden as the winner of the Wilt Prize for Creative Nonfiction at Lightning Key Review and will come out with Green Rabbit Press. Other pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in Washington Square Review, CutBank, Notre Dame Review, Moon City Review, Hobart, McSweeney’s, Hypertext, Contrary, North Dakota Quarterly, Inkwell, and Red Rock Review. I also have an academic article forthcoming on Joseph Conrad in a volume called Conrad and Ethics.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m completing a full-length book of essays, which includes the essay in Sweet. If I can plug another effort here, I’m also trying to bring awareness to and raise funds for a family friend, a girl of sixteen months named Kristina, who lives in Russia and needs an expensive drug to survive.
Who is your favorite author?
Joseph Conrad, without a doubt. While he’s not currently in vogue–Michael Eric Dyson told the New York Times he’d remove Heart of Darkness from the canon, and Robert Zaretsky is even more insistent in The American Scholar–it’s hard to imagine anyone who’s more conscious of race and the evils of oppression than Conrad. Moreover, even if Conrad were complicit in giving voice to the evils he decried–and he wasn’t–to suggest that we should only read works that we find morally tolerable is to ignore the bulk of great literature and fundamentally miss the point of reading.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Forgive me for listing four: the Bible’s Book of Job, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Conrad’s Nostromo, and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. All four are of a piece and part of what you might call a literary tradition of artistic nihilism. That is, they take on the world, pit man against the elements, and strive for a kind of meaning–literary or aesthetic–in a world that offers none. They’re also astonishingly funny and dark. To me, these four works are the greatest vindication of humanity and miracles in their own right.
What inspires you to write?
The Bible, Melville, Conrad, and Faulkner, along with other writers–Lily Hoang, Teddy Wayne, Amina Gautier.
What are you reading right now?
Jayson Iwen’s Roze & Blud, Becky Hagenston’s Scavengers, and Chris Fink’s Add This to the List of Things That You Are.
What is your favorite sweet? We would love for you to share a recipe or link to place that serves it. Pictures are great, too!
I’ve uploaded a picture of our family friend, Kristina, who needs a drug to survive. If you ask me, she’s pretty sweet.
We couldn’t agree more. She is just as sweet as can be. If you would like to give, too, please consider donating to help this little girl.
Thank you, Joshua, for taking the time to reconnect with us. We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
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