Q&A with Micro-Anthology Contributors

As you already know, if you’ve been following Miracle Monocle news, we’ve released the fifth installment in our micro-anthology series, A Little Sugar in the Tank. The book represents the first collaboration between the journal and PubLab, a new initiative pairing students interested in working in the fields of writing, editing, and publishing with projects that will give them a one-of-kind hands-on experience with bringing a book into being. One of our three PubLab fellows this year, Lizzy Roth, has stepped forward to conduct interviews with some of our wonderful contributors. We’re hoping that their words of wisdom and inspiration convince you to click through and order your copy of the book, which is now available in print and digital format.

Lizzy Roth: When you think about your piece what are the first things that come to mind?

WILLIE EDWARD CARVER TAYLOR JR: Namely, I think about how complicated these big ideas—like truth and freedom—really are. Those people who wished to liberate me, to feed me truth, to support me—they were also the people who saw me, vulnerable and twenty years old, and wanted to protect me. People who wanted to change my cover letter, to swap my pink interview shirt for a gray one. I recognize that I, too, have been a role model or voice in the wilderness crying out “Freedom” in a way that others responded to. I am equally a force that has slowed them, cautioned them, feared for them. 

When we stand back far enough, both responses start to feel like love.

LR: What is your favorite aspect of your piece?

WC: For me, personally, it’s remembering. I remember the feeling of opening up, like I could taste the future, sunlight on my tongue. I remember the feeling of being protected. I remember the khakis, the cement block walls, the chorus of students’ voices.  I remember those first few moments of brushing up against the real world, of finding Whitman and hooks standing over me while I filled out resumes—and they, too, had to live in this world.

I love knowing that they, too, had memories. Limits. 

LR: Can you describe the process behind crafting this piece?

WC: I would love to. I’ve been thinking about—which, for me, means writing about—my lifelong trajectory as a teacher. It began in kindergarten: I wanted to teach teddy bears, siblings, cousins, even parents. Whoever sat still long enough would be handed paper and pencil. I think the idea that I could help transform someone for the better from inside their head held deep magic for me—holds deep magic for me. 

But now, I realize it’s more than the brain. Learning is the entire body—a body experiencing stories.

This moment was a pivotal one for me. It was the first time the visibility of my queerness was tested, and I knew then that I was pointing the ship of my life in a direction—that this early on, small turns of the wheel have big impact.

So I choose to point it towards freedom.

Writing it, then, meant thinking about what freedom looked like as a person telling stories. This, then, was the form it took.

LR: How does this piece fit into your larger body of work (theme, form, etc.)?

WC: A young person once suggested that my work dealt with the “politics of innocence.” They were referencing Gay Poems for Red States specifically, but I think it has been a prophetic definition. I see stories all around us, and so often those stories are unexamined, unanalyzed, and unobserved, really—just playing in the background. Staring a story in the face and asking “Why?” is often the first step to dismantling it.

This piece fits firmly there. It was an early moment of asking, “Why?—why can’t I have gay hands? A gay voice?” I mean—what is so wrong with any part of me being gay, since, after all, every part of me is gay? That’s the distributive property. 

I never taught math, but I know that it, too, is a language of liberation.

LR: IF you were to choose a song to play while people were scrolling through this interview, what would it be and why?

WC: I think that one is easy—“Freedom 90” by George Michael, but only if they leave the video on in the background. George Michael didn’t officially come out as gay until years later, but as far as I am concerned, that is a coming-out anthem. Coming out isn’t just about saying you’re gay, trans, etc. It’s about feeling yourself trapped in a story and refusing to play the part.

In that song, he liberates himself directly from stories that force him to exist on others’ terms. 

In that video, he burns and destroys the symbols used to define him: jackets and jukeboxes.

Freedom might not always be a burning, but it is always a release of energy—a making space for new stories.

WILLIE EDWARD TAYLOR CARVER JR. is a minoritized youth advocate, Kentucky Teacher of the Year, and the author of Gay Poems for Red States, a Stonewall, American Library Association, Read Appalachia, Whippoorwill, and Book Riot-award winning collection shortlisted for 2024 Judy Gaines-Young Book Award. His novel, Tore All to Pieces, will be published in 2026 by the University Press of KY. Willie’s writing has been published in Appalachian Journal, Southern Humanities Review, Young Ravens Review, Another Chicago, Harbor Review, Smoky Blue Literary, Miracle Monocle, Good River Review, Salvation South, and Gay & Lesbian Review. Willie believes everyone deserves to feel that they matter.