Suspend Your Disbelief

Steven Wingate

Associate Editor

Steven Wingate is the author of the novels Of Fathers and Fire (2019) and The Leave-Takers (2021), both part of the Flyover Fiction Series from the University of Nebraska Press. His short story collection Wifeshopping (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008) won the Bakeless Prize in Fiction from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He has taught at the University of Colorado, the College of the Holy Cross, and South Dakota State University, where he is currently associate professor of English.


Articles

Interviews |

Seeds Planted in Families: An Interview with Paula Saunders

From the Archives: “My overall feeling is that it likely took a lot of energy just to keep track of what was going on around me at home—to make sure everyone was okay and the day wasn’t going to veer off into territory that felt fraught and unstable.” Paula Saunders talks with Steven Wingate about her novel The Distance Home and the winner-take-all emotional violence that underpins America.


Interviews |

I Didn’t Write Noir on Purpose: A Conversation with Chris Harding Thornton

“Creatively, music’s biggest impact is attention to sound—mainly rhythm. A sentence always needs a certain number of syllables in it. And my characters have soundtracks.” Steven Wingate talks with Chris Harding Thornton about her debut novel, Pickard County Atlas.


Shop Talk |

Quotes & Notes: Writers’ Notes

“Preparatory notes are like the pre-draft visualizations athletes use to prepare themselves for a difficult competitive task. If we want rich first drafts that will throw us into robust revisions, then it’s in our best interest to be free—even profligate—with our preparatory notes.” Steven Wingate talks about managing the work we do on our tales when we’re not actually writing them.


Interviews |

The Newness of Unseen Beings: An Interview with Maxim Loskutoff

“She kept coming back, speaking to me in the night, adding to and deepening her story, so in a way the realization that I needed to write a novel about her was very natural: she led me there.” Maxim Loskutoff talks with Steven Wingate about his novel Ruthie Fear, the gravity of Montana, and the freedom of the natural world.