“When these stories occur—both in life and in fiction—there can be an almost a ghostly quality that arises.” Drawing on F. Scott Fitzgerald, Stuart Dybek, and Jhumpa Lahiri, Tyler McAndrew illuminates the narrator on the sidelines, caught between actor and observer.
“My goal is to make fiction that doesn’t read too much like ‘life,’ stories that repress the urges and impulses of characters.” Aaron Hamburger and Avner Landes discuss Landes’s debut novel, Meiselman: The Lean Years, out this week from Tortoise Books.
“There’s plenty of great fiction about belonging to a place and being part of a community—with the opportunities and obligations this brings—but that’s not a state of being I understand well.” Steven Wingate talks with Melissa Scholes Young about The Leave-Takers.
Amy Gustine talks with Kate Reed Petty about the structural features of her new novel, True Story, exploring not just what kind of story she’s written, but how she pulled it off.
“What makes Let’s Get Back to the Party so successful ultimately is the way in which it ignores or transcends so many of the issues that normally feel like an obligation when you’re writing stories that involve LGBTQIA+ characters”: Deborah Solo Collins on Zak Salih’s debut novel.
“More broadly, the book, and the short story form in general, is interested in the way that certain choices preclude others.” Danielle Evans talks with Melissa Scholes Young about her new collection, The Office of Historical Corrections.
Rachel Swearingen talks with Caitlin Horrocks about her new collection, Life Among the Terranauts, as well as her thoughts on the short story form, childhood and the imagination, and writing in these fraught times.
Ellen Prentiss Campbell meditates on the influence of teachers, fulfilling promises, and becoming who we’re meant to be in this homage to her teacher Sally Nash.
“The horror of the residency is not that one can’t leave; it’s that one doesn’t have to”: Nora Kipnis on Carmen Maria Machado’s version of the cabin in the woods.
Eleanor J. Bader talks with Jon Sealy about his third novel, The Merciful, as well as morality, ethics, the state of Southern literature, the business of publishing, and the pandemic.
