“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.
“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.
“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.
“I love work that examines what it’s like to be a woman struggling to act as an autonomous person inside a place or a culture that’s very invested in telling you how to act, how to do your gender”: Ashley Wurzbacher talks with Lee Thomas about her debut collection, Happy Like This, the complexity of female friendships, resisting gender narratives, and more.
Elizabeth Earley talks with Rosalie Morales Kearns about her new novel, Like Wings, Your Hands, formative influences, her writing process, and the intriguing new project she’s working on now.
“My most general advice to writers working on historical fiction is to do as I say, and not as I did, and to try to relax at least a little, and trust in both the power, and the necessity, of imagination”: Caitlin Horrocks talks with Marian Crotty about her novel, The Vexations, as well as how short fiction helped her prepare for a longer project, her work as an editor at Kenyon Review, and more.
“I come from patriarchy, and I would like to have written myself out of it. Strong female forces commanded several generations. The women were bent and sometimes destroyed by the pressure to submit, and the stories, the narrative drives, kept coming up male.” Terese Svoboda talks with Steven Wingate about her new short story collection and our species’ long-term relationship with the open spaces of the Midwest.
“I think the book isn’t grim because Ben is a loving, mischievous person first, and a person with disabilities second.” Lynn Sloan sits down with Julie Justicz to discuss her debut novel, Degrees of Difficulty, out now from Fomite Press.
“I love that short stories are tales—that you need to hold somebody’s attention the way you would if you were talking to them. With novels, it’s a Scheherazade situation, and you’re trying to get them to come back and stay.” Carrie Messenger talks with Jennifer Solheim about her debut collection, as well as fairy tales, Eastern European history, translation, and more.
“I’m Costa Rican-Colombian-American. And to constantly try to explain yourself with a hyphen, with saying you’re a little bit of this and a little bit of that, is tiresome and disorienting.” Stephanie Jimenez talks with Danielle Lazarin about the complexities of female friendships, self-knowledge, how we market literature, and more.
“A book only works when a reader understands it, and that is not always what a writer can judge.” Kate Lemery sits down with Tracy Chevalier to talk about reading, art, process, and her latest novel, A Single Thread, out now from Viking.
