Donna Baier Stein talks with Diane Bonavist about her new book, The Silver Baron’s Wife, inspired by the life of Colorado’s Baby Doe Tabor, as well as the challenges of wrestling with research, how to portray characters with depth, and the ways she approaches writing in different genres.
“I was more interested in it as a book exploring characters just going about their lives. For me that’s the part of the Rust Belt narrative not often told.”
Charles Baxter poses five questions to his former student, Dean Bakopoulos, about his new novel, Summerlong, just out in paperback.
“I think this is the true defining literary tradition of the Midwest: all the things we don’t say”: Kali VanBaale chats with Donald Quist about her new novel from Midwestern Gothic Press, The Good Divide.
“What’s beautiful about translation is that it forces us to contend with that truth: that we are selecting one of many options. Or, that we can potentially see many options at once. Because, as you say, we’re moving to the side, we’re looking at it through an imperfect lens, or a lens that makes visible the imperfection of looking.”
“Both in life and literature, secrets often are viewed as socially inappropriate, whereas espionage is a line of work that sanctions lying, deceit, and secrets. Masters of the spy genre play with these layers of secrecy.”
“There’s also story-telling magic at work in this incantatory book; it sparks resonant memories of stories heard and internalized: once-upon-a-time-stories, fables, fairy tales, and myths, as well as those from Shakespeare and the Bible.”
“The novel is, at heart, a bittersweet love story about left-overs of many kinds, and once a reader trusts the strange terrain, it feels like our own.”
“Horses have an uncanny ability to tap into your feelings, your vulnerabilities, and your strengths.”
“So little of the book was clear to me when I began writing”: Garth Greenwell discusses What Belongs to You, his debut novel from Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, with Mary Stewart Atwell.
