Even before Ruth encounters Nao’s package, Nao and Ruth have parallel goals.
“If you can find that sweet spot between what the market is favoring but also what calls to you as an artist, you can’t top that combination”: Jessica Knoll talks with Polly Atwell about writing, success, suspense, and more in the latest installment of Atwell’s new interview series with women crime writers.
“It was only then that I realized I’d started a new novel, and I just kept going.” Steven Wingate talks with Chip Cheek, author of Cape May, about shifting gears, the shock and elation of a big release, and letting parenthood change your writing life.
“Life often feels overwhelmingly absurd and viscerally meaningful at the same time. I wanted to write from that feeling. So, even though my book is a satire of sorts, it’s also a work of loving fascination.” Evan James talks with Mark Mayer about his debut novel.
“An ocean gyre is a spiral of currents—formed by the combined forces of global wind patterns and the earth’s rotation—that can swivel up to 330 feet below the water, just like a theme is a dynamically layered mass beneath the front story, or surface, of a novel”: Candace Walsh takes an ocean-deep dive into Ruth Ozeki’s 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being.
“An ocean gyre is a spiral of currents—formed by the combined forces of global wind patterns and the earth’s rotation—that can swivel up to 330 feet below the water, just like a theme is a dynamically layered mass beneath the front story, or surface, of a novel”: Candace Walsh takes an ocean-deep dive into Ruth Ozeki’s 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being.
“I feel like genre is one of those terms that is becoming less clear and even less relevant all the time”: Janelle Brown talks with Polly Atwell about her new novel as part of a new interview series with women crime writers.
“Doubt is there for me, but I don’t see it as an engine in my life or in this novel. For me, the big engine is trying to align myself to the flow of a life that is spiritual in absolutely every aspect and moves in ways I can’t comprehend, but simply have to live”: Rolf Yngve interviews Steve Wingate about his new novel, Of Fathers and Fire, out from the University of Nebraska Press.
“If the end has truly come for the likes of the hoary old patriarchy, then let it happen on Ridker’s watch.” Michael A. Ferro reviews Andrew Ridker’s The Altruists, out now from Viking.
“I thought the time for the book had come and gone, but when I pulled the book out again in 2017, I realized the topic had become relevant again in the intervening years.” Julie Landsdorf chats with Kate Lemery about her debut novel, White Elephant, out tomorrow from Ecco.
“How can I describe my feelings upon reaching this conclusion?”: Jamie Yourdon on Aurelie Sheehan’s “The Nursing Home,” from her new collection, Once into the Night, out from the University of Alabama 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"
