Natalie Bakopoulos, author of the debut novel The Green Shore talks about domesticity in the face of fear, the importance of what you don’t see, the fighting spirit of art, and a marriage proposal in a taxi.
Laura Maylene Walter talks about writing her IPPY-winning debut collection, Living Arrangements, using awkward high school photos to promote it, and honoring those who helped inspire it.
The prolific Richard Bausch on fear as fuel, naïvité as strength, and keeping the writing fresh year after year.
Lysley Tenorio, author of the hotly-anticipated debut collection Monstress, on secret identity politics, the risk of becoming “that Filipino writer,” lightness and darkness in fiction, and Peter Cetera.
Ben Fountain made a lot of noise with his prize-winning collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. Turns out he can write a damn fine novel, too.
When Wiley Cash found himself homesick for the mountains of western North Carolina, he didn’t drive or fly home—he wrote his way back. In this interview, Cash discusses the importance of place in his debut novel, the legacy of Southern literature, and the influence of mentors on his work.
Though written in English, Luana Monteiro’s debut collection is firmly rooted in Brazilian culture — carnaval to Coetzee, Candomblé to Christianity.
Beneath an unassuming demeanor, Pushcart Prize-winning Robert Garner McBrearty writes stories of the revolution. The former dishwasher on the mythologies of the American West, the bravery of small presses, Colonel William B. Travis, and why he feels solidarity with scrappy underlings.
His debut collection features sentimental Vikings, hungover moose-hunters, and fuming stepsons, among other luckless men. Wells Tower talks jokes, beauty, and painful, teeth-gnashing revision with Rebecca Scherm.
The title of Jim Shepard’s latest collection, You Think That’s Bad, could also be a creative mantra. Here the veteran writer discusses his research process, the apocalyptic state of the world, the (possible) irrelevancy of literature to the apocalypse, his epic mustache—and other matters of importance.
Musical, prayerful, mindful, compassionate—FWR’s Aaron Cance talks with Melanie Rae Thon (The Voice of the River) about what these qualities mean in fiction and in life.
“To love and to express it is to be vulnerable. To create works of art is to be vulnerable, and it’s hard for people to let themselves be vulnerable. Especially in this world, where the internet lets us democratically savage one another, it’s even scarier, but the courage to be an artist means also the courage to love and to express it.” So says Robert Olen Butler in this candid interview with Emily Alford.
