From Story to Novel: An Interview with Ben Fountain
by Steven Wingate
Ben Fountain made a lot of noise with his prize-winning collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. Turns out he can write a damn fine novel, too.
Ben Fountain made a lot of noise with his prize-winning collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. Turns out he can write a damn fine novel, too.
In her seventh novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Margot Livesey updates Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre so smoothly and skillfully that you’d barely even notice.
At age 53, Joan Leegant published her first book, the critically heralded story collection, An Hour in Paradise. With her debut novel, Wherever You Go, she has continued to prove her presence as a preeminent Jewish-American writer. Jody Lisberger taught fiction at Harvard with Joan Leegant, and their interview explores questions of structure, identity, listening to your characters and the treatment of ethical issues in fiction.
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.
Character likability. “Plot-driven” as pejorative. Research limits in historical fiction. The mail-order-bride as escape route. The double-edged sword of social media. Anna Solomon tells it straight in this conversation with Sara Schaff.
In conversation with Julie Judkins, author Scott Nadelson discusses how the “mad mystic hammering” of Bob Dylan inspired him to become a writer, why being a formerly reluctant reader informs his teaching, and how New Jersey has evolved in his fiction from an actual place to a state of being.
An invented language, off-stage heroes, searing political comedy. Katarina Matsson sits down with award-winning Swedish playwright and novelist Jonas Hassen Khemiri to discuss translation, the power-struggle of words, rats, germs, leaving home to write about it, and why hearing voices doesn’t necessarily mean you’re crazy.
Jonathan Lethem discusses our unwillingness to let go of the Tinkerbell-myth of benevolent power, MFA programs, the idea of New York City as a Ponzi scheme, why in some ways subcultures are all that exist, and his past and future work in this wide-ranging interview with Roohi Choudhry.
“Thunderstruck,” Aaron Cance describes his reading of Bruce Machart’s two debut books: a novel, The Wake of Forgiveness, and a story collection, Men in the Making, out this week. They also discuss the themes of faith, masculinity, and love, and how a New England basement is a helpful metaphor for writing.
Tyler McMahon’s new novel, How the Mistakes Were Made, is a tragedy set to rock and roll. In this conversation with Caleb Winters, McMahon recalls the paranoia of Cold War America, shares his experiences touring with a band, and reveals how writing can be like church.
