Five Questions for Five Decades

In this new feature, we’ve asked Sun subscribers and contributors about their experience with the magazine and their thoughts about the future.

Heather Sellers published the first of many pieces in The Sun in April 1996. She is director of the undergraduate and MFA creative writing programs at the University of South Florida. Sellers has a new textbook, How to Make Poems, forthcoming this fall. Visit heathersellers.com for information on her writing workshops and her latest collection of poetry, Field Notes from the Flood Zone.

Browse all of Sellers’s work from the magazine here.

1. What inspired you to first send your writing to The Sun?

They paid writers and had a large readership. Eventually I came to love the truly wonderful Sun community — the writing retreats, meeting writers and readers, and so on.

2. What’s a piece in The Sun that’s resonated with you over the years?

In every issue, there’s something I fall in love with. Every. Issue.

3. What role do you see The Sun playing for readers today?

It’s the opposite of AI. It’s real I.

4. What’s a trick you use when you get stuck while writing?

Continue writing.

5. What’s an underappreciated book/writer that’s made a difference to you?

Helen Garner. I recommend any of her diaries.

For more on Helen Garner click here.