“A lot of things are inherently funny when there is a conflict and an opposition. We’re not simple people. Everybody is complex”: Nina Buckless catches up with Marvin Cohen, whose strange and wonderful fiction is still finding new audiences 40 years later.
“Troubles arise, but Sidney’s frankness, her eye for detail, and her big-hearted determination carry the story”: Julian Anderson on Courtney Yasmineh’s debut novel, A Girl Called Sidney.
“In spite of the loss that pervades my novels, I hope that readers feel the continual making in the language, the poetry that shores us up against the loss”: Andrew Krivák talks with Shann Ray about family, landscape, and his latest novel, The Signal Flame, out now from Scribner.
Joshua Bodwell celebrates Black Sparrow Press’s fiftieth anniversary as a trade publisher—with five footnotes, one for each decade.
“His fiction is baffling and fresh enough to revert even experienced readers back into novices”: Eric McDowell on metafiction and writing lessons in César Aira’s “The All That Ploughs through the Nothing.” Aira’s latest in translation, The Little Buddhist Monk & The Proof, comes out today from New Directions.
“I suppose if flash fiction were a running form, it would be a sprint. One that requires a lot of thinking and training and art to have a good, solid race”: Kim Chinquee with Steve Wingate on her new collection of flash fiction, Veer, out this spring from Ravenna Press.
“The author gives us just what she promised: more than meets the eye”: Mari Carlson on Becky Hagenston’s “Scavengers.”
“With every fulfilled wish, the drama of the story is elevated”: Ayşe Papatya Bucak with some unconventional advice for crafting conflict.
“Driscoll is the master of capturing a delicate humanity where most people might be least likely to look”: Natalie Bakopoulos on Jack Driscoll’s The Goat Fish and the Lover’s Knot, out this spring from Wayne State University Press.
“Our participation in the story is much more than simply a reader or an observer”: Keith Lesmeister on Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel.”
Stories We Love: “55 Miles to the Gas Pump,” by Annie Proulx
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
capitalization as Stylistic Device
