Posted by: utcsequoyareview | November 9, 2009

Interview with Red Heart the Ticker

by Case Duckworth

MEACHAM, FALL 2009: There were many great writers here at UTC for the biannual Meacham Writers’ Workshop, but there was also something new this time: a songwriting workshop with Red Heart the Ticker, a band from Vermont composed of Tyler Gibbons and Robin MacArthur. I got the chance to interview Ty for the Sequoya Review.
ME: How do you write songs?
TY: I’ve always written songs–it’s how I express myself. I feel the most whole when I’m writing a song.
ME: What is touring like?
TY: It’s an amazing way to enter in to a place and have a reason to be there. It makes it easy to meet people–it’s a great excuse to travel. However, it’s very hard to make a living. It’s a privilege to get to see new cities, and if we break even doing it, that’s a start . . .

ME: So I guess you have a day job.
TY: I do carpentry, compose for media and film and also do some boom mic work for documentaries. Robin and I decided together that trying to make a living exclusively with music could be dangerous, both for our relationship and our love of music. We’ve had many friends who tried and their passion was squelched, and they dropped out. We do it when we want, because we love it, and if it works, that’s awesome. It’s not the best business model but it’s how we have been working it so far.

ME: What about publishing your albums?
TY: We’re on a very small label, Auger Down Records, where we paid for our studio time and they helped with the promotion around. This was good for us because we own all our masters, something that you can’t do with the bigger labels. We had management out of New York for a while, but we weren’t easy to work with: they’d come and say, “Do you want to do this ad?” or something, but we kept saying no, and after a while we felt pretty bad about it. It was these people’s job to help us make money, and we kept dodging things. These days, there seems to be very little benefit to being on major labels, at least artistically. There are some good things in being on the indies though–publicity, etc. Both of them, all labels, in fact, want you to tour. That’s their business–they make their money from bands touring around and selling albums. Essentially, the more people that get involved, the less control we have over our record, so it’s often a balancing act.

ME: You guys just had a kid recently, Avah. How has that changed the dynamic?
TY: Well, it’s harder to rehearse! She has this Johnny Jumpup though, and when we play she dances in it, spinning like a ballerina or something, going up and down. We’re touring less though, to spend more time with her, and when we do we often have a friend along to help out during shows. But night after night touring is difficult now–it’s too hard on us and Avah. We’re still finding time to record, and in some ways the energy of Avah transfers to new creativity in our little studio.

ME: Who are you all’s top albums and artists?
ROBIN: Loretta Lynne, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Bonny “Prince” Billy, that kind of thing.
TY: Lyrically, I think Leonard Cohen is one of the best. Most of the rest are pretty similar to Robin, though I also have some jazz influences, like Charles Mingus on the bass.
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If anyone missed Red Heart the Ticker, check them out at rhtt.net, or listen to their Meacham shows by subscribing to the podcast at meachamwriters.org.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | November 3, 2009

Interview with Philip Graham

by Katie Christie

Philip Graham is the author of two story collections, The Art of the Knock and Interior Design; a novel, How to Read an Unwritten Language; and he is the co-author of two memoirs of Africa, Parallel Worlds (winner of the Victor Turner Prize), and the forthcoming Braided Worlds. His most recent book is The Moon, Come to Earth, an expanded version of his series of McSweeney’s dispatches from Lisbon. Graham’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, North American Review, Fiction, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere, and his non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers Magazine, and the Washington Post. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, two Illinois Arts Council awards, and the William Peden Prize, Graham teaches at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is a founding editor of the literary/arts journal Ninth Letter.

Tell me about Ninth Letter.

In the official language of the Academy, Ninth Letter is jointly sponsored by the Department of English and the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; it is an interdisciplinary collaborative project that attracts people interested in the intersection of written and visual culture.

How did it get started?

We had a literary magazine some time ago but it was no longer being published. After UIUC started an MFA program in the early 2000s, we researched other magazines to come up with a budget and proposed it to our Chancellor, who approved the funding. We published our first issue in 2004 and have released 2 issues a year ever since.

Who makes up your staff?

There are about 30 people who help put together the magazine. Jodee Stanley is the editor, I am the fiction editor, and we have various other faculty editors in different departments and genres. In addition, we have six editorial assistants each year, who are paid students from the MFA program, either creative writing or art and design. Afterwards, they often go on to teach the introduction to creative writing classes, so working on the magazine really helps them learn how to critique student pieces. Education is one of our most important priorities, working with the students and the writers to create the best publication possible. These assistantships last for a semester, so that we are always getting new voices and new points of view.

Who do you publish?

The magazine is associated with the University and edited by faculty and students, but we are open to submissions nationally and internationally. In the past, we’ve published Tomaz Salamun, Yann Martel, Oscar Hijuelos, and George Singleton, as well as many writers who have never been published before.

How many submissions do you get a year? How many do you publish?

We receive probably between 2,000 to 3,000 fiction submissions a year. We have room for about 16 short stories.  That’s why we have to be sure we love a piece before we’ll print it. If we have a mixed opinion about the work during the editing meeting, then we table it for a week and come back to it again with fresh eyes before deciding.

Are your submissions anonymous?

No. We like to work with writers. We want to know who they are. Sometimes when we reject a story, we ask to see more work from the author, or a revision. I’ve spoke on the phone with writers. It’s an educational experience, for both the writer and the staff.

I’ve also had to reject friends before. It sucked. It really sucked. But I wanted the students who work on the magazine to know that it sucks but that you have to do it. You’ve got to love the story if you’re going to publish it. The magazine comes first.

The art and design team are obviously very involved in the magazine. Tell me about your collaboration with them.

That’s one of my favorite things about the magazine, designing the prose pages. As soon as we accept a piece we send it on to the art and design team to read, then we all meet together and talk about our inspirations and conceptions of the piece. Then art and design take the ideas generated in the meeting and make that come to life. It’s very exciting to see the final creation. I’m happy to be able to say that nearly all of the writers we’ve published have also been satisfied with the artwork.

The writers are very important to us. Once a year we bring in writers from each genre who have published work in Ninth Letter to read, kind of like a mini-Meacham conference, for a one to two-day celebration.

Thank you so much for talking with us and for visiting our conference!

Ninth Letter’s fantastic web site can be found at http://www.ninthletter.com/

More information about Philip Graham is available at his bio page on the Meacham Writers’ Conference website, http://www.meachamwriters.org/writers/philip-graham.htm where you can also listen to a podcast of his reading.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | September 23, 2009

Now Appearing Elsewhere

J. Michael Johnson’s creative nonfiction piece “My Landing”, which was first published in the 2009 Sequoya Review, is now available from the SNReview here.

Josh is a two-time Meacham award winner for creative nonfiction. He graduated from UTC in August of 2009 with a B.A. in English: Literature. This is his fourth publication.

Congratulations Josh!

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | September 22, 2009

Review of THE FOUNTAINHEAD

By Rachel Ford, staff memberthe_fountainhead

When I came across this novel after my teacher generously gave my eleventh grade English class all of the copies she had purchased with the intent of assigning it as required reading, little did I know the value of the literary gem I had just acquired. The struggle of the brilliant architect, Howard Roark in striving to pursue his passion according to his set of uncompromising standards laid out in each of his projects conflicts with the contemporary expectations of what great architecture should look like and thus places him before the brunt of scorn from the public. But he refuses to sacrifice his own artistic integrity just to bend to their demands or gain wealth. He is the very embodiment of human perfection for he seeks neither to influence nor please others with his work. His is the judge of his own work and sets his own standards.
The novel essentially poses a moral dilemma by juxtaposing Howard with his antithesis, Peter Keating. Peter lives only to please others and to elevate his own popularity by doing so. He’s obsessed with how others perceive him and constantly fears what should happen to him if his esteem in their eyes diminishes, which leads him to loathe his work since he takes no personal pleasure in it. He sacrificed everything that made life enjoyable to him in his race to secure a so called “successful” career. Ayn Rand identifies this process as the corrosion of his soul. Alternately Roark is obstinate and unyielding to the expectations of others and is altogether immune to self-consciousness altogether. It is his inherent loyalty to himself, what some would define as selfish, that preserves his soul throughout the duration of the novel, making him the ultimate protagonist who triumphs over a world heel bent on destroying the symbol of individualism that he represents.
Keating lives his entire life off the ideas of others – men like Ellsworth Toohey, who use their influence over others as evidence of their ‘greatness’. He chose to live according to the expectations others have of him – like his mother, from whom he learned to second guess any idea he might be inclined to act upon. When he enters Roark’s office, it is apparent that his psychological dependency – a primitive need to use others in his benefit just so that he can continue to live another day in the apple of the public’s eye- has left him incapable and unwilling to even attempt to tackle the Cortland Project on his own.
Unlike Roark, Keating never ‘decided’ to become an architect in the literal meaning of the word. He does not have the compulsion to design or the desire to become involved in the building process, beyond the question of how the finished product will appeal to his peers and in turn, elevating his supposed ‘greatness.’ All Keating sees in the occupation is the connotation affiliated with the word ‘architecture.’ In the minds of the incompetent, this field of study is synonymous with shelter, which everyone including the incompetent needs to survive. In Keating’s mind, if it appeases both the competent and the incompetent, then it must be an accomplishment. He never forces himself to stand back, analyze his blueprints and think, “Wait a minute, there’s a better solution for this problem” before he pawns it off to the next man for review. Tragically, he has been taught to not trust himself to think rationally about his work by striving to please everyone but himself with the final product.
Whereas Roark invests all of his time and energy into meeting the challenge and solving each problem that arises from a project with his own intellect, Keating’s concerns himself only with how he ‘should’ design according to what he thinks people will praise him for. He will go out of his way to avoid spending more time than he has to on any one project. If he cannot solve a problem, he passes it on to someone else. For him, it was never a question of interest or passion that prompted him to study architecture – only one of fame.
It is this manner of living that Roark calls “selling your soul”: For a man to allow himself to dumb down his ability just so that he can appeal the sensitivities of other men at the expense of the personal value he places in a project. While he may obtain the things that the world can give a man who ignores his aspirations to satisfy the ignorant, the stupid, and the unreasonable, he will have accomplished nothing worthy of respect in the end. He cannot claim to be an individual anymore than a rock could claim to be a pillow. His life will end in nothing because he proved ultimately that he valued nothing by mimicking the thoughts of others, of men who delude themselves they are “making a change” but at the end day know they are miserable, without possessing a single original thought to claim as their own.
When a man sells his soul, he surrenders his will power; he forfeits his right to think logically, to think freely, and to live for the fulfillment of his own happiness.
This is definitely a must have for any reader who claims to be a connoisseur of all the world’s literary classics. It is my all-time favorite novel and I would love to read the novel suggested by anyone who challenges its position as the best book ever written.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | August 22, 2009

Review of Crazy Love

Crazy Love

Pamela Uschuk's Crazy LoveEven the language and the speaker falls victim to the flux in Pamela Uschuk’s new collection, Crazy Love, from Wings Press.”I will be the torture rack/that stretches out my own truth,” she writes. Her poetry is both wrought by war and tended for its beauty, both bitter with “regret’s venom” and exuberant with love. After all, “What is the tender palm without the tough skeleton/forming the back of the hand,” she asks in the poem, “Geometry Lesson.” The persistent voice of these poems speaks of the tension of the dance between violence and benevolence, man and woman, nature and humanity, as well as the hesitation after the music has stopped. Here, in Uschuk’s world of encounters, nothing is complete, and everything is moving, extending, reaching, growing. Even the buck, the chickadee, the tigrita lily sway in the gust of Uschuk’s rhythmical words, and the reader has no choice but to follow suit.

Reviewed by Emilia Phillips (2009)

For more information about Pam Uschuk, see her profile on the Meacham Writer’s Conference website.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | August 22, 2009

Interview with Sebastian Matthews

Sebastian MatthewsSebastian Matthews, a graduate of the University of Michigan’s MFA program, teaches part-time at Warren Wilson College and edits Rivendell, a place-based literary journal. He is the author of the memoir, In My Father’s Footsteps, and co-editor, with Stanley Plumly, of Search Party: Collected Poems of William Matthews. His poems have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, New England Review, Post Road, Seneca Review, Tin House, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. Matthews was a recent Bernard De Voto Fellow in Nonfiction at Bread Loaf. His chapbook, Coming to Flood, was published by Hollyridge Press in 2005 and a collection of poems, We Generous, was published by Red Hen Press in February 2007.

Sequoya Review: On the poetry side at UTC, many of us are used to Rick Jackson’s workshop style. Do you operate your workshops under a certain philosophy? How do your workshops tend to work?

Sebastian: I actually borrow a bunch from Rick’s “Inside/Outside” approach. I love how he asks the group to enter into the language of a poem before trying to talk about it or fix it. But I have been experimenting with different workshop approaches–small groups, the low-residency packet system, etc. I am a little bored by the standard workshop, I guess. Thought I always end with “strategies for revision,” which allows ideas to be offered up by the group on how the writer might re-approach–or re-vision–the piece. “If I were you…” The writer gets to pick and choose, like being handed an assorted box of chocolates.

SR: Do you prefer to write in the morning or at night?

Sebastian: Morning. I had to train myself to do it early because of the way my wife and I live our lives. When our boy, Avery, arrived I had to learn to write later in the morning. That was hard. But now I just take a walk after my boy goes to school and come back to the desk. It works.

SR: It’s a part of pop-culture that every story’s been told and all we can do now is play with the pieces. As a writer, how do you respond to that philosophy?

Sebastian: I try to ignore it. It’s probably true but who cares when you’re sitting down to write, you know? It’s another example of how having too much information can ruin a moment. Like in that great Dr. John song, “It happened in the wrong place at the wrong time.” It’s up us to prepare ourselves for the task, I think, so I try to clear my mind before I write. And when I am done for the day, I’m usually too tired to think about the story anymore. My boy is calling for me to shoot hoops, anyway. So it’s easy to pretend–necessary, in fact–that I have an original story to tell. Otherwise, I might just turn on the TV or pick up a book.

Interview by Brian Beise & Trenna Sharpe (2009)
For more information about Sebastian Matthews and his publications, click here.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | August 22, 2009

An Interview with Chad Prevost

Chad Prevost

I first became acquainted with Chad Prevost back in the fall of 2007 during the Meacham Writer’s Conference here at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A man of many hats, I was amazed at how fluidly he shifted back and forth between the roles of writer, educator, and family man. When Chad arrived in my publications class a few days ago, my classmates and I were introduced to yet another ‘hat’ – the businessman. Chad, alongside his friend and colleague Ryan Van Cleave, runs a non-profit, independent press called C&R Press that primarily specializes in the publishing of poetry. The ‘conscious and responsible’ duo have published five books and have been contracted with five more for 2009.

In a time where big presses are dominating the literary world, why would one choose to go the route of the independent press? Chad admits that his desire to go the non-profit route is what guided him in the direction of starting an independent press. He also states that he was naïve in regards to making money. The important thing, he says, is to be realistic while being optimistic. He credits Van Cleave’s ‘energy and trustworthiness’ as pivotal to the success of the press but also recognizes that not every partnership would be as successful as theirs.

Now that you’ve set up your non-profit literary magazine, what do you do to set yourself apart as an independent press? “It’s an amazing amount of work,” Chad answers. “So many things to do.” The choice to focus on publishing poetry rather than prose was a direct result of poets being more “accessible” than fiction writers. When dealing with prose, you have to deal with agents and contracts. On top of all of that, no matter what genre of literature you’re dealing with, you have to have a slick website, a logo, distribution, and you have to purchase ISBNs. “Running C&R Press is a ton of work but it is also a labor of love.”

What are the biggest misconceptions that people have about literary magazines and presses? “Every publisher from big time to intermediate to the lower tier needs the author to market their work.” In addition, Chad believes that an author needs to have a strong passion for what they do. “If you write literature, no matter the genre, do it because you love to create art and with the expectation that you won’t be making a lot of money.”

Any advice to students seeking internships with C&R Press? The relationship between the editor and the intern, Chad explains, needs to be symbiotic. The editor needs to be specific and direct with the intern and adaptable to the knowledge of the intern. In addition, the intern needs to be confident in what he or she brings to the table. “As an editor, you don’t want to spend so much time detailing what you need from an intern, otherwise you can do it yourself.”

Interview by Bryce Lee Wynn (2009)
For more information about Chad Prevost and C&R Press click here.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | August 22, 2009

An Interview with Marc Fitten

Marc FittenA work of art is like a gem. Important elements of the world are compressed together to create a concise and beautiful artifact. Like the notes of a song, every word is important to a written work’s aesthetic appeal, not one too many or too few. Marc Fitten uses this description of art in a writer’s workshop he teaches for students at the UTC Meacham Writer’s Conference. “Bathe in art”, he tells them. “It’s important to experience artistic expression outside of your own expertise. If you are a fiction writer, go to poetry readings and fine art exhibitions.” There is a social dialogue mingling amongst all of the arts. Though each of us may have an independent form of expression, we must keep others works in consideration when creating our own.

At only 35, Marc Fitten is the editor of The Chattahoochee Review, Atlanta’s oldest literary magazine. This is the Marc Fitten that puts on a suit and attends the mandatory meetings.

How did he become so successful, so quickly? By avoiding New York, the place to be for the publishing industry. With only a high school diploma and four years of travel behind him, Marc knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against the Harvard graduates, so he decided to stick with Atlanta. He walked in off the street, asked The Chattahoochee Review for an internship, and the rest, it seems, was fate. The universe or some higher power orchestrated his bosses’ lives to allow him to climb up the corporate ladder to where he is today.

But the corporate ladder usually isn’t that easy to climb. Of all the interns that the Hooch sees, says Marc, many will leave and go about their lives. Another large percentage just won’t make it or can’t handle it. You just have to have the personality for it.

The most somber message he has, however, is for aspiring writers: “You’re not special.” Donning his figurative editorial cap, he elaborates. Everyone is talented, at least in his or her own way. What sets you apart from others is your determination and who you know. You just have to keep sending in manuscripts and making connections until you catch a break. And knowing people doesn’t always amount to a guaranteed publication. Marc is an editor and it took him almost eight years to get his novel, Valeria’s Last Stand, published. Publication, he says, is a business transaction. Art is only “ecstatic” while you’re creating it. After that, your work is a product, and you have to make strenuous efforts to sell it.

So how can aspiring writers help ensure that their work is notable and relevant to the artistic community? Read. Pinpoint those authors who inspire you to write. Read, not only, all of their works, but the works of writers that shaped them as well. Engage in an ongoing literary dialogue, attune to the nuances of your niche and the expectations of your audience. At least that’s Marc Fitten’s personal aesthetic style, and he just got a book deal.

Interview by Kristen Ayscue & Ashely Ledford (2009)
For more information about Marc Fitten and his publications, click here.

Posted by: utcsequoyareview | August 22, 2009

Review of Exit Pursued by a Bear

Exit Pursued by a Bear

Gaylord Brewer's Exit Pursued by BearIt is with an appetite, even after the feast, that Gaylord Brewer writes the poems of Exit Pursued by a Bear, the 2004 collection from Cherry Grove. Beyond the innocuous fruit fetishes, the near pornographic pole beans of “Co-op Girl,” Brewer dines on the ironies of interaction, and likewise, in assuming the authority of speaker, he chooses, with great immediacy and poignancy, what words to swallow, what to leave out of his lyrics. He writes, “and though I believe/I am correct, I couldn’t identify about what.” It is in these silences that the uneasiness, the regret, surfaces much like oil on still water and nudges the reader towards “some saner madness.”

For more information about Gaylord Brewer, see his profile on the Meacham Writer’s Conference website.

Reviewed by Emilia Phillips (2009)


Posted by: utcsequoyareview | August 22, 2009

An Interview with Xu Xi

Xu XiXu Xi is the author of seven books of fiction & essays, and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. A Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, the city was home until her mid-twenties, after which she led a peripatetic existence around Europe, America and Asia. She now inhabits the flight path connecting New York, Hong Kong and New Zealand.
Katie Christie: Is there anything you’d like to say to introduce yourself to our readers?
Xu Xi: Well, I didn’t mean to write so much about Hong Kong, but that’s where I came from and I wound up writing about it. I didn’t mean to become a teacher of creative writing. I fell into it kind of accidentally six years ago at Vermont, but I like it so much that I kept teaching. I got an MFA years ago but it wasn’t so much for teaching, but more because I wanted to write.
KC: So what have you had published so far?
XX:Three novels. Two collections of fiction, one is short stories, the other is a novella and three stories. One collection of stories and essays. And most recently, a collection of personal essays. I was the editor of three anthologies of writings in English about Hong Kong.
KC: And which of those would you call your favorite?
XX: I don’t have a favorite. If I was really forced to pick one that was closest to my heart right now, it would be The Unwalled City, a novel. But my last book, Evanescent Isles, is a book I really like as well, but they’re two different genres, so it’s kind of an apples and oranges thing. So I guess those two right now. But in a way they’re the two most recent, and it’s usually the most recent that’s the favorite, and when my next book comes out in October, it will be my favorite for a while.
KC: So can you tell us about the new novel that’s coming out?
XX: I wrote it through a lot of residencies actually. And it’s about change in a person’s life, a momentous change happens, and suddenly, everything you thought you were responsible for is taken away from you. Then what do you do with your life? The book was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, which is a prize for an unpublished novel, but now it’s going to be published.
Gavin Cross: So you travel a lot. How do you balance writing and teaching? Do you have a system?
XX: Well, I’ve been writing for so long now, that whatever project I’m working on will just get done. Actually teaching is a lot less work, in hours, compared to corporate which could be 80 hour weeks, and I was traveling 60-70 % of the time. My last job was with the Wall Street Journal. I was the circulation direction for the Asian Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, but I was traveling all day all the time. But after doing that and still writing and putting out books, I figured I could do this a lot easier, and I can. My teaching job at Vermont is a low residency program and I work by email. Sit in bed in my pajamas with my laptop. That’s great, I like it a lot. And residency is very busy. Like Meacham times ten, you know? Then it’s kind of hard to write. And teaching writing teaches you something about your own writing as well. I do believe that. Every workshop I teach, I learn something from the students in workshop. For years, I was a kind of insomniac. When I was working full time I would often get up at 4 in the morning and write. Weekends. Vacation. I didn’t have a classic social life, but I didn’t miss it, because I enjoy my work. My work is part of my social life. I come to Meacham and I get to hang out with people and talk and have fun.
KC: And so you also have homes in New York, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. How do you juggle that kind of travel?
XX: New Zealand was actually a kind of fluke. I got tired of going to so many residencies. It’s fun, but for three months you have to keep moving your stuff around. I kinda wanted a place that was my own writing retreat to go to. I went to New Zealand and I thought it was a quiet place, and I saw this house that reminded me of the Kerouac house and was really cheap, so I bought it. I haven’t been there in two years. I’ve been in Hong Kong more and collecting rent on the house in New Zealand. I hope to go back in Sept or Oct.
GC: What made you decide to start writing?
XX: I knew kinda young. I was about eleven years old and I woke one morning at 4am and my family lived in a sort of penthouse facing the harbor and I looked out and said “Wow, this is pretty,” and I wrote this essay and said “Hey this is not bad!” And that’s how it started. It’s always just come to me, I’ve never had to ask. You know, I’ve never had writer’s block. I’m rather prolific and I write whole stories at a time. And it’s about knowing what to cut out. I cut out about 80% of my work. Over time you learn which parts matters and which doesn’t.
I didn’t ever think was that I was going to be a writer. That wasn’t the point. You just do this. You eat, live, and write. And one day, I stopped my stamp collecting, I stopped my piano, I stopped my ballet lessons, I gave up tennis as soon as I could because I didn’t like playing it, but I never stopped writing. So, after a while, it was like well I guess this is just sort of you. The moment I said to myself “You are a writer”, that’s when I realized that it was true.Interview by Katie Christie & Gavin Cross (2009)
More information about Xu Xi and her works click here.

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