Excerpts from the Pinocchio Interviews
“And that magic’s smell—vernix and blood / and sweat and earth—I didn’t register it / as life. I sensed it and saw my decay.”
Todd Dillard & Ben Kline
Todd Dillard’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Threepenny Review, Southern Review, Guernica, The Adroit Journal, and Fairy Tale Review. His debut collection Ways We Vanish was a finalist for the 2021 Balcones Poetry Award. His chapbook Ragnorak at the Father-Daughter Dance is available from Variant Literature. A 2025 finalist for the AWP Donald Hall Poetry Prize, Todd lives outside Philadelphia with his wife and two kids.
Ben Kline lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. A poet, information professional, and Madonna mega-fan/podcaster, Ben is the author of It Was Never Supposed to Be (Variant Literature,) Twang (ELJ Editions) and Stiff Wrist (fourteen poems.) His work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry, and other publications. bentheauthor on IG and Ben Kline on Bluesky