Stories We Love: “Poachers,” by Tom Franklin
by Leigh Camacho Rourks
“And though all the violence is ultimately, like most violence, senseless, it is not impossible to understand”: Leigh Camacho Rourks on Tom Franklin’s “Poachers.”
“And though all the violence is ultimately, like most violence, senseless, it is not impossible to understand”: Leigh Camacho Rourks on Tom Franklin’s “Poachers.”
“I think that the whole project of fiction is that you’re asking somebody to leave themselves and be somebody else in this fictive space”: Catherine Lacey talks with Danielle Lavaque-Manty about short fiction, identity shedding, the poetics of sentences, and more.
“What exactly did Carver do to make his character’s isolation so palpable that I felt it physically?” Amber Wheeler Bacon on Raymond Carver’s deeply affecting “Are You a Doctor?”
Robert James Russell speaks with Sara Rauch about her debut collection, finding inspiration in the literary arts and beyond, the role of writers in the public sphere, and the enduring value (and need) of showing how we’re all connected.
Shawn Andrew Mitchell on Gifts of Love, Meaning, and Craft in Aimee Bender’s “The Red Ribbon.”
“I wondered if this was going to be too on the nose, if the students would feel provoked or become defensive.” George McCormick on teaching George Saunders’s “Home” in an Army town.
“I think that the ‘stakes’ in my stories come out of those struggles, internal or between people, which become moments of decision.” Ellen Prentisss Campbell talks with Josh Barkan about her new story collection, Known By Heart.
Join us for our twelfth-annual celebration of the short story, as we dedicate the month of May to short fiction.
“All these distractions and barriers have softened my writing discipline and made it less like bone, more like water—it flows into any shape it’s given.” Steven Wingate talks about how parenthood, contrary to popular wisdom, can be the best thing for your creativity.
“I’m not the kind of historical writer who takes an event or a thing and tries to factually inhabit it. But I love to take the germ of something and pull it in a weird direction.” Melissa Scholes Young talks with Clare Beams about The Illness Lesson.
Surprising Things Can Happen: An Interview with Kristen Roupenian
Part of a Bigger Conversation: An Interview with Rebecca Makkai
If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi: An Interview with Neel Patel
Sometimes Taking Things Out Counts as Writing: an Interview with Celeste Ng
Influences: An Interview with Tobias Wolff
Stories We Love: “Blue Lenses,” by Daphne Du Maurier
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
