“Thanks! I will write that damn novel! I did pet a kitten while tripping! (Wait, did I say that?)”: Alex Behr and Emily Nagin talk music, writing, and Behr’s debut collection, Planet Grim, out now from 7.13 Books.
“The story evolves, and I evolve with it”: Michelle Ross chats with Eleanor Gallagher about growing up, flash fiction, and her debut collection, There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You.
“There is knowledge in this book that seems bigger than MFA fodder, a living-out of the truths that the writing life uncovers and details that cannot be arrived at via Google”: Nathan Poole on Robin MacArthur’s debut collection, Half Wild.
“With these folks, the trouble stews in the heart”: Jodi Paloni talks with Philip Graham about her debut story collection, They Could Live with Themselves (Press 53).
“Her stories know so much about the world—the small ways we betray the people we love and the horrors that are so outsized they’d be absurd if they weren’t crushing—yet Beasts & Children is never cynical or defeatist.”
“I hope readers feel some complicated empathy at the end of the book. Squirm a little, yes, but feel sort of happy about the squirm. That’s what I felt while writing it: Can I write this? Can I really sit still and commit this act of violence with my fingers? What does it mean about me that I did? And how do you actually explore human beings without getting into our inherent dark half? “
“It is a story, like love, as fanciful and appealing as a unicorn crossed with a whale, and as real and baffling as a narwhal.”
Matt Bell sits down with Hobart founder Aaron Burch to discuss Burch’s soon-to-be-released debut story collection, Backswing.
I’ve always been interested in family and the idea of family and the families we make for ourselves. Family is composed of the people you love most. Therefore, they’re the people most likely to hurt you. I’m interested, then, in how we hurt each other, often without meaning to, just by what we want.
Elizabeth Cohen chats with Assistant Editor Claire Skinner about The Hypothetical Girl, her new collection of short stories, as well as the human heart, online dating, and making a life as a writer.
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
Stories We Love: "Incarnations of Burned Children"
