Behind the Masthead: Allegra Hyde, Prose Editor

You’ve met her counterpart, Jeff Albers (twice now!), but allow us to introduce you to our other prose editor in this edition of Behind the Masthead. Allegra Hyde, along with Albers, will be selecting fiction and nonfiction for issues 53 and 54. Kacie Wheeler caught up with her to find out about her current life as a prose editor.

Kacie Wheeler: What are you currently reading (outside of HFR submissions)?

Allegra Hyde: I’ll read just about everything. Coupon booklets, cereal boxes, wanted posters, people’s tattoos. Oh, and sometimes books.

KW: What are you writing right now?

AH: All I’m going to say is that it’s 50% tragedy, 50% comedy, 110% inappropriate.

KW: Who is your favorite writer? Why?

AH: Mark Leidner is my current poet of choice. He’s funny, sometimes aphoristic, says things like: “Writing is beautiful, like putting on a gold suit and going to sleep in it.”

KW: What kinds of things do you like to see show up in the submission queue?

AH: Sexy photos. Offers of cash. Writing that makes me want to read it aloud to everyone in earshot.

KW: How many times do you practice your fiction reading by yourself before you read in front of an audience?

AH: What are teleprompters for?

KW: What are three reasons why you reject fiction?

AH: I haven’t had my morning toast and I’m in a terrible mood. The reader’s bio sounds suspiciously like that of an ex. My psychic suggests I “let go.”

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Allegra Hyde just finished her first year in the Arizona State University MFA program. Her fiction has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Glasschord, and Spork. Originally from New Hampshire, she enjoys thinking about New Hampshire.