Interviews
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Braiding a Story of Self into the Inherited Trauma of War: A Conversation with Jason Prokowiew
“I was getting encouragement to bring myself into the story. That’s when I found the year-long Memoir Incubator at Grub Street. I got into the Incubator on a Tuesday. The day after that, I searched for a therapist. I knew…
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I Don’t Want to Hurt These Characters: A Conversation with Paige Lewis
“It’s been really strange to live in the world of the book for so many years and now be outside of it. It feels a little bit unfair. I want to be back in the throes of the book. I…
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Reawakening the Kid Inside for Creativity + “Intergenerational Hanging Out” : A Conversation with Austin Kleon
“The older I get, the more I want to be edited. I just want the work to be good. I don’t care as much about the how of it. I’m more willing to kill my darlings. I like the term…
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Language as a Living Force: A Conversation with Nicholas Goodly
“Knowing myself as a dancer first allowed me to approach poetry as an extension of that process. I receive, I observe, I allow the insides to give the experience new shape. Similar to dance, I believe good poetry is not…
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The Possibilities of Satire in a Post-Capitalist World: A Conversation with Courtney Maum
“ All my books are about making art under capitalism, it’s a subject that’s dear to me as I’m a writer and my husband is an independent filmmaker and we’re trying to, you know, make art but also bring groceries…
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On Poetry, Passing, and Trans Politics: A Conversation with J Brooke
“Do you know the Walt Whitman poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer?” Whitman is hearing this scientist spewing out all the facts and the figures and formulas. He gets all agitated, so he goes outside and looks up at…
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Making Revolution Beautiful: A Conversation with Sophie Lewis
“Without wanting to make things too neat, I think there is a continuity between projects insofar as maybe one could postulate the love letter is part negation of what kills us.”
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Maintaining the Energy for Activism When You’re Struggling to Pay Rent: A Conversation with Jules Wernersbach
“So you’ve got this rat-a-tat-tat of things to do riding the wave of your own internal nonsense. That’s the natural tension of being a human being at work. My challenge as a writer is to make space for both in…
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Two Countries, Two Identities Asking “Where Do I Belong:” A Conversation with Sofi Stambo
“When I was growing up, no one had time for anything, so if I didn’t say what I needed to say quickly—in two lines—the person I was talking to would have moved on already. They would be in another room…
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Read Everything You Can and Keep Writing: A Conversation with Tracy Lynne Oliver
“You just don’t know how long something’s going to take to get published in terms of a book. But start small: Start publishing little things; get feedback; get rejected; get accepted. That’s all part of it. Just do all of…
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Cruise Ships, Clowns, and Comedic Calamity: An Interview with Kathleen Rooney
“It bugs me that in our culture, animal stories are typically relegated to being “just for kids,” a bias which underestimates both animals and kids.Fiction is a form of magic that lets an author—and eventually a reader—inhabit any kind of…
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Temporary Utopias: Resisting Machine Mind and Cognitive Surrender with Eleni Sikelianos
“There’s a research element to many of my books, not just reading or looking into the archives, in the vein of investigative poetics, but also sensory investigation. Lately, I’ve been calling the books “ancestral encounters.” That seems to cover a…