“The cartoons were drawn in that state of horror, panic, sleeplessness, despair”: Tom Toro chats with Jennifer Solheim about Trump, the intersection of comedy and politics, and Tiny Hands, his book of New Yorker cartoons, out now from Dock Street Press.
“We tend to think of being an artist in terms of inspiration, but we also need to know how to work”: Kali VanBaale chats with Sophfronia Scott about misbehaving characters, what writers can learn from Bruce Springsteen, writing across genres, and Sophfronia’s new novel, Unforgivable Love, published this fall from William Morrow.
“I wanted to look seriously at a type of relationship that’s all but universal for girls and women, a close friendship between adolescents, and to accord it the attention and depth I believe it deserves”:
“When the idea, as originally conceived, drops out of the story in question, that piece becomes almost like a donut—with a missing center. I feel like that’s what fiction is supposed to do, in a way”: Doug Trevor chats with Jeff Henebury about writing long short stories, the many powers of books, the MFA community, and his new collection, The Book of Wonder, out today from SixOneSeven Books.
“The work of being a writer involves a continual examination of one’s work, one’s own self, as well as one’s biases, in relationship to the wider world”: Kaitlin Solimine chats with Hasanthika Sirisena about her debut novel, Empire of Glass, out now from Ig Publishing.
“If someone reads this book and ends up questioning her own beliefs, I’ll feel I’ve done my job well”: Joan Dempsey with Dawna Kemper on her debut novel, This Is How It Begins, out this week from She Writes Press.
“Oh, you’d think it would be so much easier the second time”: Nancy Kilgore chats with Kim Church about her second novel, Wild Mountain, out this week from Green Writers Press.
“I’ve heard readers say they see their own relationships to food and body image in the book and there’s real power in seeing oneself represented that way”: Noley Reid in conversation with Annie Hartnett about her novel Pretend We Are Lovely, published this summer by Tin House Books.
“There is so much published that is all the same. Yet there burns that desire to create something that does not exist. Especially for the Ozarks. Something that is not exactly like anything else under the sun.”
“As a fiction writer I am used to hiding behind the word ‘I'”: Margot Livesey chats with Emily Gray Tedrowe about inspiration, teaching, and The Hidden Machinery, her new book of craft essays, out now from Tin House Books.
“Often I get a really good draft done and then spend years polishing it”: Caitlin Hamilton Summie chats with Steve Yarbrough about her debut collection, To Lay to Rest Our Ghosts, out now from Fomite Press.
From the Archives: Nico Berry talks to Jesmyn Ward in 2009 about her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds.
