Rone Shavers talks with Karen Tei Yamashita about her National Book Award shortlisted novel I Hotel, and in the process the two touch on everything from the role of history and memory to the process of writing, to what one’s politics and culture says about the nature of storytelling itself.
It wasn’t until Peter Anderson began commuting by train from Joliet for his job in the heart of Chicago’s downtown financial district that he unearthed perhaps the most valuable aspect for any fiction writer: time. Nick Ostdick speaks with Anderson about his debut novel, Wheatyard, and how he turned his scribblings during his daily commute into the beginnings of a literary career.
Aaron Cance talks with Josh Hanagarne about reading, writing, weightlifting, and living with Tourette’s.
“Here’s a theory: To be a kid with a live mind is to be deluded and self-involved, but also curious and evolving at hyperspeed. To be insightful in surprising ways, totally off base in other ways, but never afraid to make sweeping pronouncements, like a little de Tocqueville in the Land of Adults.” Philip Graham talks with Bryan Furuness about his novel The Lost Episodes of Revie Bryson.
Samuel Sattin’s debut novel League of Somebodies follows Lenard Sikophsky, whose father has been feeding him plutonium since infancy in order to make him into a real-life superhero. Author Sean Beaudoin sits down with Sattin to talk with him about his book, the progressivism of comic books, early comic influences, origin stories, and more.
“I had a very clear sense of what her world looked like and what her actions were, but it took many, many drafts to get to the point where I knew what she was feeling and thinking and could articulate it on her behalf. ” Novelists and writing buddies Amy Brill and Allison Amend discuss the lives of their long term projects.
Kyle Minor talks with Ben Stroud about his debut story collection, Byzantium, released this week from Graywolf. The two discuss story origins, the importance of delivering story, and how some writers get bogged down writing about history.
Thanks to an unusual collaboration between two translators, Marguerite Duras’ 1971 novel L’Amour has been translated into English for the first time.
Kristiana Kahakauwila talks with Tyler McMahon about her debut collection, This is Paradise, about the importance of coming back to her Hawaiian-ness to write this book, and about the ways that the stories function collectively to capture how she experiences Hawai`i’s multitude and diversity.
Steve Wingate sits down with Gary Schanbacher to discuss his debut novel, Crossing Purgatory, and the challenges of writing historical literary fiction about a time and place that has inspired so much pulp: the 19th century American West.
Philip Graham talks with his former student, Ted Sanders, about Sanders’s debut collection No Animals We Could Name, the transcendence of the ordinary, the role animals play in his fiction, and his forthcoming middle-grade reader fantasy series, The Keepers, which will debut from HarperCollins next year with its first volume: The Box and the Dragonfly.
Douglas Trevor talks about his debut novel, Girls I Know, how the narrative voice of a silent character can expand in fiction, the way landscapes—human and natural—can rebound from death, and more.
