Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘Interviews’

Interviews |

A More Interesting Period of Time: An Interview with Donald Lystra

Donald Lystra, who published his first novel Season of Water and Ice after retiring from a career as an engineer, talks about making the transition from engineering to writing, publishing with a small press, winning a Midwest Book Award, and what people get wrong about the 1950s.


Interviews |

A Little Distance to See Clearly: An Interview with Deanna Fei

Reading Deanna Fei’s debut novel, A Thread of Sky, rescued Kate Levin from a giant post-MFA funk. In this conversation with Levin, Fei discusses the role cultural identity plays in a writer’s persona and work, the value of unknowability, the secret to writing great sex scenes, the reason she watches Jersey Shore—and more.


Interviews |

Unanswered Questions: An Interview with Dan Chaon

“I’ve always felt personally and emotionally closer to the searchers, rather than to the finders…to those who don’t get answers, as opposed to those who do. For me, the experience of epiclitus is closely related to the experience of the uncanny, but also to the experience of complex and problematic emotions, like yearning, and awe, and psychic unease, which are of particular interest to me. That precipice of endless uncertainty, of the impenetrable—those are the moments that I’ve always loved in literature, as well as the moments that have haunted me in life.”


Shop Talk |

Granta's New Voices Series

Every six to eight weeks Granta highlights new fiction by an emerging writer exclusively on their website. The New Voices Project has featured work by such writers as Jessica Soffer, Laura Fellowes, Soumya Bhattacharya, Hannah Gersen, Erin McMillan, Evan James Roskos, Lana Asfour, Evie Wyld, and P.D. Mallamo. In addition to original work, each feature also includes an interview with the author. For details of how to submit your story, please see Granta’s submissions guidelines. The most recent writer to be featured as part of this project is Kenyan author Billy Kahora. Below is the opening to his story “The […]


Shop Talk |

The WSJ's Interview with Cormac McCarthy

So you didn’t win the auction for Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter. (Ahem–if you did, we know a great literary site that you could support as well!) For everyone else without a spare $254,500, we offer this interview with McCarthy in theWall Street Journal, available online for free. In the wide-ranging conversation, McCarthy discusses the film adaptation of his novel The Road, how his relationship with his 11-year-old son influences his work, the violence in his work, and much more: WSJ: Does this issue of length apply to books, too? Is a 1,000-page book somehow too much? CM: For modern readers, yeah. […]


Shop Talk |

New Lit Site: The Nervous Breakdown

Have you met The Nervous Breakdown yet? Founded by author Brad Listi, this new website is intended as a new space for authors to promote their work. The fiction section’s aim, as explained in an open letter, is not only akin to that of all good literary magazines–to showcase some of the most vibrant writers working today–but also to help provide these writers with a vehicle to market their books. This is why we provide links to authors’ websites and sales pages: to help directly connect the writers we love with their audience–TNB’s large, loyal and growing readership. But don’t […]


Shop Talk |

Fiction Writers Review is born

Welcome to the world, FWR. And welcome, world, to the booksite. Here’s hoping we can shine some love on that oft-misunderstood genre called fiction. You can read about our mission here and check out reviews, interviews and essays. We welcome ARCs from publicists and submissions from writers. This blog is going to be a hodge-podge of book news, recommendations, links, reviewlets, and discussions. I make no promises about being fair, balanced, consistent, or completist, but I hope to keep things interesting. Here’s to the lovely and fearless Marissa, who made this site possible, and to all FWR contributors for suspending […]