“Reading A Bright and Pleading Dagger is a little like eating ortolan. Rivas’ stories are compact, tender, and razor-sharp. They combine the fairytale dread of Carmen Maria Machado with the dream-scape disorientation of Kelly Link.”
“I like binaries, but only if I get to play with them and break them down”: Lillian Li answers all Emily Nagin’s questions about writing her debut novel, Number One Chinese Restaurant, out next Tuesday from Henry Holt.
“Flash is slippery, hard to define. It has poetry’s short form and attention to detail, its disregard for what is technically possible, and fiction’s love of character and narrative.”
“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.
“Visitations is all about reckonings. Who are you at your most selfish, Upton asks, at your most desperate, your most monstrous?”: Emily Nagin on Lee Upton’s latest collection, out now from LSU Press.
“It’s a coming of age story turned up to eleven, sharp and visceral as a gunshot, and just as concerned with violence”: Emily Nagin on Andrew Bourelle’s debut novel, Heavy Metal, out now from Autumn House.
“I didn’t expect the new chapters—the ones from different characters’ points of view—to be so much fun, so interesting to write, so revealing”: David Hicks chats with Emily Nagin about his debut novel, White Plains, out now from Conundrum Press.
“It’s rare to read a book that’s right nearly all the way through”: Emily Nagin on Deborah Willis’s new collection, The Dark and Other Love Stories.
“Always Happy Hour combines all the addictive ingredients of a pop song with a self-awareness and emotional insight that is both searing and deeply sympathetic”: Emily Nagin on Mary Miller’s latest collection.
“Any adult who has spent significant time with young people knows these feelings—the loss of a childhood self, the urge to save a teenager from your own mistakes. We Show What We Have Learned is full of these moments of doubling and their accompanying ache.”
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"
