Magical Realism as the Savior of Memory: A Conversation with John Manuel Arias
Characters do stuff, and the reader is always going to ask "why," and as a writer I’m just as interested.
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Greg Mania
20 posts
Philip Metres is the author of eleven books, including Ochre & Rust: New Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (2023), Shrapnel Maps (2020), The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance (2018), Pictures at an Exhibition (2016), Sand Opera (2015). His work has garnered the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lannan Fellowship, two NEAs, seven Ohio Arts Council Grants, the Hunt Prize, the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Lyric Poetry Prize, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University, and Core Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Writing the Emotional Stakes of the Mundane: A Conversation with Alexandra Chang
As a writer, I really like working with constraints and getting to play with different structures, voices, moods, and characters. The simple fact that short stories are short gives me all of that.
Allowing Space for What Isn’t Said: A Conversation with Elizabeth Acevedo
I have to know all the jokers they hold in their hand so I know how they would play or hold them—and I think it’s that level of intimacy I’m constantly trying to learn as I write.
Finding Conviction in Chaos: Talking with Prince Shakur
When we act and what language we use to defend ourselves matters; on a craft level, this is useful to know because this very logic reveals character. What do you care about? And how does that show up in your life?
Tasting Our Own Wildness: Talking with Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
. . . perhaps humanity is not the pinnacle of what a living thing can be . . .
The Dream Does What It Wants: Talking with David Santos Donaldson
. . . I advise any fiction writer who can afford it, to an get a Jungian analyst . . .
When Silences Need to Be Broken: Talking with Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Language is inexact, and will always be an approximation. In my own experience of amnesia, there was a period of time where things didn't have names, and it was in that nameless, getting-to-know-something that I felt I knew it better.
Honoring the Past That Built Us: Talking with Kali Fajardo-Anstine
All of my writing is guided by the need to feel culturally seen and acknowledged as a vital part of the American identity.
Finding Meaning at the Edge of Reality: Talking with Elissa Washuta
Elissa Washuta discusses her new essay collection, WHITE MAGIC.
Sacred and Profane and Infinitely Compassionate: Remembering Anthony Veasna So
Agent Rob McQuilkin and editor Helen Atsma discuss AFTERPARTIES by Anthony Veasna So.
The Dangerous Myth of the “Perfect Victim”: A Conversation with Jonathan Parks-Ramage
Jonathan Parks-Ramage discusses his debut novel, YES, DADDY.
The Seductive Nature of Faith: Talking with Alex McElroy
Alex McElroy discusses their debut novel, THE ATMOSPHERIANS.