“I wanted the book not to look like other people’s books. And to have a kind of crazy logic of its own”: Charles Baxter with Ian Singleton on his new collection, There’s Something I Want You to Do.
“Flannery O’Connor once wrote that every good work of fiction must have an ending that feels both surprising and inevitable. And it strikes me that most of the realizations we have about ourselves are exactly that.”
Rebecca Scherm on using charts while working on her debut novel, Unbecoming: “It helps me remember how messy this process was, how difficult. I need to see the record of that mess to believe that I can do this again.”
“Be careful what you invent, darling”: Mary Kay Zuravleff talks to Melissa Scholes Young about her latest novel, Man Alive!
Diane Cook talks with Anne Valente about her short story collection By Light We Know Our Names: “In fiction, I think objects and patterns among those objects serve as something tangible for me and for characters, a way of making meaning out of something concrete in the face of uncertainty, intangibility, and everything we can’t and don’t know.”
John Vanderslice talks to Garry Craig Powell about his collection Island Fog: “. . . whenever I’m there I’m always struck by how different Nantucket seems. I’m always telling people it’s like visiting an alternative United States.”
Bonnie ZoBell talks to Jerry Gabriel about her linked short story collection, What Happened Here: “At one point in writing a story, the more words I have is the better. At another point, that switches entirely and I mark my progress by how many words I’ve been able to get rid of.”
Richard Fulco talks with Ken Wheaton about his newest novel, Sweet as Cane, Salty as Tears, as well as influences, whether he identifies as a Southern Writer, the role of humor in his work, and more.
Johanna Skibsrud talks to Molly Antopol about Quartet for the End of Time‘s musical legacy and the political and personal histories at the heart of her latest novel.
John Dermot Woods talks with Kristen Iskandrian about his new book, The Baltimore Atrocities, and the way in which text and image intersects in his work, saying, “I wanted to draw pictures that would extend the stories, further complicate them, contribute an essential narrative element that the stories could not exist without.” They also discuss the pleasure of writing on trains, balancing disciplines, exploring issues of place, and more.
“So one of my goals was to explore the seemingly perverse pleasure to be had from constraints, or form”: Peter Turchi discusses his new book, A Muse and a Maze with long-time friend Robert Boswell.
Shelly Oria on journeying with her characters: “I follow the voice; I usually have no idea where the fuck we’re going. I’m a hitchhiker and often the driver is kind of an asshole. Or not really an asshole, just very preoccupied with someone or something that isn’t me.”
