UnCensored Ink Interview – Earl Carrender

Hey everyone,

Ian Tan here, lead editor and project coordinator of UnCensored Ink: A Banned Book Inspired Anthology, set to release this October 29. Here is the UnCensored Ink interview series to introduce you all to the incredible writers, as well as the local bookstores and libraries that gave them safe creative spaces. Hopefully you can put these incredible places on your to-visit list, and feel inspired to support your own local bookstore, library and indie authors.

Today I am with Earl Carrender from Indiana. He is a poet and writer who earned his BA in English at Marian University and his MFA at Butler University. His fiction and poetry have appeared in The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Journal, Punchnel’s, Clever, Scissors and Spackle and BullshitLit among others.

1. You’ve written a fine piece for UnCensored Ink: A Banned Book Inspired Anthology. Can you give us a synopsis? How did the idea for this piece come about?

It’s about an artist who died of AIDS in 1986. I was reading The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara and watching the Nelson Sullivan videos on YouTube and one video featured the artist Martin Burgoyne, an artist who was central to the downtown NY art scene in the 80’s. Then I read an article in the NYT about a party at the Pyramid club to raise money for Martin’s medical expenses and I wrote about that party and just kept writing

2. Now, we would love to know you more! What do you enjoy doing in your free time, what is your favorite book quote, and how did you get into reading and writing?

Free time? Cooking, reading, writing and watching documentaries mostly (I’m a big history nerd). I got into reading because the women in the neighborhood where I grew up were always trading books among themselves and they shared their books with me. I started writing when I was a kid, around 8 years old. Writing my own episodes of TV shows I liked. Favorite book quote: “We live as angels among the Sodomite,” from At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O’Neill. And “A mirror becomes a knife when it’s broken. A stick becomes a flute when it’s loved,” from Grapefruit by Yoko Ono.

3. Do you have a favorite local library or bookstore? Also can you remember bookstores and libraries from your childhood, if they are not the same as the ones now?

To be honest, I don’t get out to bookstores (or anywhere else) much these days. I live in a small town in Indiana, literally next to a huge cornfield! My friend, Luke Wortley, loves Books and Brews in Indy. And there’s Indy Reads (my sister works in an office nearby and she loves it). My friend, Tracy Mishkin, just gave a reading there recently and they are doing great work there with literacy and education. Another bookstore I want to go to is called Dream Palace Books. I love their website and…is that the coolest name for a bookstore or what? And, of course, there’s Carmichael’s in Louisville where I went to grad school. And it’s Indy so the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library is a must.

The libraries I remember from childhood were the school libraries. I used to skip lunch and sit in the library reading. I still remember the librarians, Mrs. Jacobs and Mrs. McDonald. I loved them. Not really a childhood memory, but in my late teens, early 20’s there used to be a “feminist” bookstore here called Dreams and Swords. For a young guy coming out, it was a godsend. It’s where I discovered queer literature, and it literally saved me. It breaks my heart that feminist/queer bookstores have virtually disappeared.

4. What do you have to say on the importance of sustaining bookstores and libraries?

Bookstores, for me, aren’t just about the books. They are about community. It’s where I found my tribe as a young queer coming out. But that’s true for everyone, not just us. Readings, open mic nights, music. I was once a member of a writer’s group that met at a local Barnes and Noble. Bookstores are a safe space. I worry that those spaces, especially for queers and misfits like me, are disappearing.

5. Do you have any projects that your current and future readers can look forward to?

I’m writing a novella-in-flash that takes place in 1968 and is inspired by the music of that period. I’m really enjoying the writing on this one because the characters are so lively!

6. Lastly, what platforms can we find you?

@Nu_Flash_Prose on X