Kate Levin received an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she currently teaches. Her writing has appeared in The Nation and the New York Times Book Review, and she was a finalist in Narrative magazine’s 2009 Story Contest for writers under 30. Three books she keeps close by are Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, and So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell.
Reading Deanna Fei’s debut novel, A Thread of Sky, rescued Kate Levin from a giant post-MFA funk. In this conversation with Levin, Fei discusses the role cultural identity plays in a writer’s persona and work, the value of unknowability, the secret to writing great sex scenes, the reason she watches Jersey Shore—and more.
Adam Haslett’s 2002 story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. His first novel, Union Atlantic, which focuses in part on unregulated trading, unethical banking, and the prospect of a massive economic collapse, was published this spring by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. Kate Levin talks with the author about fiction meeting reality, the psychology of power, the responsibility of writers to capture the social and political context of an era, and exposing ourselves in our characters.
