From the Archives: “Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Welcome Home alongside a new collection of Lucia Berlin’s short stories, Evening in Paradise, on the same day as the midterm elections last week. A knowing wink from the publisher to the politics that these books contain? Perhaps.”
Jennifer Solheim on the art of telling in Nathacha Appanah’s Tropic of Violence, examining how the author’s “use of perspective and authority might serve as an example of how writers can develop characters whose social identities are different from their own, in ways that are palpable, believable, and move beyond empathy.”
“If you can find that sweet spot between what the market is favoring but also what calls to you as an artist, you can’t top that combination”: Jessica Knoll talks with Polly Atwell about writing, success, suspense, and more in the latest installment of Atwell’s new interview series with women crime writers.
Yohanca Delgado on characters who want in Chaya Bhuvaneswar’s White Dancing Elephants.
In her inaugural interview with women crime writers, Contributing Editor Polly Atwell talks with Amy Gentry about women’s truths, the influence of Henry James, likeability, and her new novel.
“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.”
“My goal when I’m writing is to keep everything as real and hard and authentic as I can”: R.L. Maizes talks with Angela Mitchell about her debut collection, personal testimony, what she looks for as a fiction editor, and where we find ourselves (or not) in our stories.
