“That’s what made me a writer as much as anything. I wanted to hear the endings of stories that didn’t have endings.” Kathleen Alcalá talks with Elizabeth Huergo about storytelling, craft, and her 1997 novel, Spirits of the Ordinary, recently reissued by Raven Chronicles Press.
Sofie Verraest talks with Lydia Davis about her new book, Essays One, as well as the difference between writing essays and stories, the role of “coherence” in each genre, the climate crisis and the role of writers, and more.
Part I of James Pinto’s conversation with Tom Bissell on video games, questions of genre, and a writer’s confidence.
This week’s feature is Leah Hager Cohen’s new novel, The Grief of Others, which was published in September by Riverhead. Cohen is the author of seven previous books: Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World (1994); Glass, Paper, Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things (1997); Heat Lightning: A Novel (1997); The Stuff of Dreams: Behind the Scenes of an American Community Theater (2001); Heart, You Bully, You Punk: A Novel (2003); Without Apology: Girls, Women, and the Desire to Fight (2005); and House Lights: A Novel (2007). This new novel of Cohen’s, set in the suburbs […]
In her eighth book—and fourth novel—Leah Hager Cohen explores the dynamics of grief and mourning with her trademark curious mind and loving attention to detail. Steven Wingate and the author discuss “otherness,” withholding judgment on characters, and the importance of ritual.
Shawn Mitchell talks to Elif Batuman and Geoff Dyer (and they talk to each other) about obsession and addiction, the permeable line between labeling work fiction or nonfiction, Stendahl syndrome, and future projects.
Mary Roach is my favorite nonfiction writer—partly because she’s wickedly funny, and partly because we share the same fascinated appreciation for the absurd. I’ve been a huge fan since her first book, Stiff, which is about the various uses of human cadavers. In it and all her other books (Spook, about science and the afterlife; Bonk, about science and sex; and Packing For Mars, about manned space exploration), Roach unearths details that are just too crazy to make up—such as the fact that a dead pope is struck on the forehead with a special hammer to be sure he’s really […]
