.Writers.on.Writing.
Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.
.W.o.W. #28
Alison Akiko McBain
What does your inner writing voice tell you?
“Hello? Is anybody there?” Nah, just kidding. Mostly, it just tells me to get writing.
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?
I’d love to have dinner with the late, great British author Tanith Lee. Her books inspired me to be a writer. She was the first woman to win the August Derleth Award (renamed the British Fantasy Award), and she wrote about genderfluid characters before there was even a term for it. Her characters are often caught between different worlds and have to make a choice between them, which has always resonated with me.
What is the first book that made you cry?
A book from my earlier years that hit me hard was Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. It mirrored so many of my grandmother’s stories about internment during World War II that it was a revelation. I could see my own relatives in the pages, and it made the story feel more real than other books I’d read and therefore more emotionally resonant.
Alison contributed the poignant poem “The Cost of a Dime” to Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VI, No. 1, RENASCENCE. Her debut novel The Rose Queen received the Gold Award for the YA fantasy category of the 2019 Literary Classics International Book Awards. She is lead editor for the small press publisher Fairfield Scribes, and associate editor for the literary magazine Scribes*MICRO*Fiction. When not writing, she does origami meditation, pens a webcomic called Toddler Times, and draws all over the walls of her house with the enthusiastic help of her kids.
Find out more about Alison at alisonmcbain.com.