“I’m interested specifically in the inner turmoil, the emotional price and weight, of self-betrayal and deception as it is experienced and enacted by queer people.” Lee Thomas talks with Peter Kispert about his debut collection.
“It took me writing these stories to understand that I’d been carrying rage with me, and what I’d done to suppress it even as I didn’t believe in suppressing it”: Danielle Lazarin talks with Lee Thomas about her debut collection, Back Talk.
From the Archives: “Work can be your life, but your life can (and I’d argue, should be) bigger than your work”: Danielle Lazarin on writing, motherhood, and how the things in our lives that we give ourselves permission to experience that aren’t writing might in the end offer us new perspectives on both writing and our selves.
Bich Minh Nguyen talks to Sarah Layden about her latest novel, Pioneer Girl, and moving from the Midwest to the West Coast: “For me, writing is always about looking back and looking forward in the same moment. It’s living within more than sphere, identity, and place, and trying to understand that—trying to find a few moments of stillness and clarity.”
Nichole Bernier talks to E.B. Moore about publishing her debut novel at 72: “The Amish life is exotic to behold and comforting, a little like going to a habitat zoo to watch the slow march of elephants cropping grass with their trunks and blowing dust over their backs.”
“When structure is done well, it should be like architecture: you sense the overall feel of the building—tall, or airy, or strong—but you’re not looking at the buttresses that hold it up or the seams where parts are fastened together.”
The secrets George Orwell revealed in Down and Out in London and Paris pale in comparison to the practices in the Camdentown kitchen of The Swan.
This week’s feature is Don Rearden‘s debut novel The Raven’s Gift, which was recently published by Penguin. Rearden grew up on the tundra of Southwestern Alaska, where his experiences with the Yup’ik Eskimo culture shaped both his writing and to a larger extent his worldview. He lives in the mountain community of Bear Valley, Alaska, and teaches as an Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Don also serves as the president of the board of directors for the 49 Alaska Writers and is faculty for the 2012 Kachemak Bay Writing Conference. In the introduction to his recent interview […]
Elliott Holt discusses writing You Are One of Them, her debut novel about friendship and propaganda during the Cold War, with friend and fellow writer Laura van den Berg.
J.T. Bushnell reviews Benjamin Lytal’s coming-of-age debut novel, “a vision of youth from the inside.”
Surprising Things Can Happen: An Interview with Kristen Roupenian
Part of a Bigger Conversation: An Interview with Rebecca Makkai
If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi: An Interview with Neel Patel
Sometimes Taking Things Out Counts as Writing: an Interview with Celeste Ng
Influences: An Interview with Tobias Wolff
Stories We Love: “Blue Lenses,” by Daphne Du Maurier
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
