Interview with Eric Paul Shaffer

My next few posts will feature an interview with poet and novelist Eric Paul Shaffer. He's a good friend of mine who taught English at a national Japanese university on the tropical island of Okinawa the same years I taught in Shizuoka on mainland Japan.

Eric Paul Shaffer is the author of five books of poetry, including Lāhaina Noon; Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen; and (my favorite) Portable Planet. His poetry appears in Ploughshares, Slate, North American Review, Threepenny Review, and reviews in Australia, Canada, England, Iran, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and Scotland. Shaffer received the 2002 Elliot Cades Award for Literature, a 2006 Ka Palapala Po'okela Book Award for Lāhaina Noon, and the 2009 James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry. Burn & Learn, his first novel, was published in November 2009. After living on Okinawa and Maui, he now lives on O'ahu and teaches at Honolulu Community College.

Please feel free to post your own questions for Eric as we go along!