Jennifer Solheim on the art of telling in Nathacha Appanah’s Tropic of Violence, examining how the author’s “use of perspective and authority might serve as an example of how writers can develop characters whose social identities are different from their own, in ways that are palpable, believable, and move beyond empathy.”
“I don’t feel compromised by the genre.” Jennifer Pashley talks with Barrett Bowlin about her first thriller, The Watcher, out now from Crooked Lane Books.
“I wish I had a great answer to the question of finding the right mix of pursuing activism and art, but it comes down to simply using one’s time as effectively as possible.” Steven Wingate talks with David Heska Wanbli Weiden about his novel Winter Counts.
“How many breakthroughs like that can a writer have?” Pamela Painter chats with Steve Yarbrough about her work over the years and her new collection, Fabrications: New and Selected Stories.
“It is Ndiaye’s voice—resonate, ruthlessly matter-of-fact, deeply wounded—which will be our light in this blood-soaked landscape of rusting barbed wire and whizzing shrapnel.” Travis Holland reviews David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black.
“I think the South is worth fighting for, with all its issues. I think it’s worth fighting for change here.” Eleanor J. Bader interviews Kasey Thornton about her debut collection, Lord the One You Love Is Sick, the writing process, and life in the contemporary South.
Shann Ray talks with Peter Geye about novels and people, water and existential erosion, human nature and the writing life, as well as his new novel, Northernmost.
“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.
Nicole Nelson on defamiliarization in Amy Hempel’s syntax in Tumble Home.
“I wrote out of a kind of homesickness, I guess, and out of a sickness of spirit over what was happening at the border, the dehumanization of children.” Melanie Bishop interviews Beth Alvarado about her new collection, Jillian in the Borderlands, out this week from Black Lawrence Press.
