I love the essay form; it’s a way of thinking, a form of thought.
After all, when there are few places to physically go in a story, every movement...
“The Healing Center,” a beautiful, enigmatic three-pager in the collection, showcases...
“It’s as if I hadn’t really read the work until I wrote the essay.” Benjamin Woodard interviews Douglas Glover about the art of the craft essay and his recent collection of them, The Erotics of Restraint, out now from Biblioasis.
“After all, when there are few places to physically go in a story, every movement counts.” Alyson Mosquera Dutemple inhabits the limited settings of John Updike’s “A&P” and Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster.
In commemoration of the recent death of a brilliant experimental fictionist, we revisit this 2009 meditation by Steven Wingate on the words of his mentor Steve Katz.
“I don’t believe that you can totally shed your old self (sorry, family from my first novel), but neither do I believe that identity is perfectly portable”: Bryan Furuness talks with Philip Graham about his new novel, Do Not Go On, books that are “suspenseful and insightful,” and more.
“What I love is the defamiliarization.” Kent Kosack appreciates the aesthetic openness of Catherine Lacey’s short story “The Healing Center.”
“No matter how well-documented the history of a family home may be, there are gaps… I revel in the license to move into those uncharted spaces; to take a leap of faith from the springboard of memory into the untethered dimension of the imagination.” Ellen Prentiss Campbell on dreams, intuition, and following “the vapor trail of memory” in fiction.
“Every character gets understanding. That’s what a writer does. But abusive humans only get two pages. That’s it.” Jami Attenberg talks with Melissa Scholes Young about her new novel, family secrets, the desire for happiness, and more.
“I just kept on telling myself, ‘All you need to worry about right now is what’s happening in this scene.’ Then I’d go forward page by page, sentence by sentence.” Angie Kim talks with Polly Atwell about her debut novel, Miracle Creek, as part of our Women Crime Writers series.
“The truth is that a blank page makes beginners of us all.” Bryan Furuness asks five writers for advice on the perennial problem of getting started.
“I actually think of Paris more as a city that encourages redemption.” Mary Fleming chats with Jessica Levine about her new novel, The Art of Regret, out today from She Writes Press.
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
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
Stories We Love: "Incarnations of Burned Children"
