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.
Interviews
883 posts
If You’re Bengali, Food is the Center of Everything: An Interview with Madhushree Ghosh
But food is not just a tool for memory, but also important in terms of social justice issues which Indian Americans don’t talk about because we are the model minority. We don’t want to get in trouble.
A General Truth Through a Particular Lie: An Interview with the Creators of the Podcast Penknife
I personally find this myth of authenticity extremely insidious and damaging, because it often leads to purity tests and the constant need to prove one’s cred . . . rather than leading to constructive thought and action—
Make something inexplicable happen: An Interview with Morgan Talty
What's funnier than somebody having a mental breakdown? We all experienced it, so why can't we laugh at that?
Form as a Metaphor for Fatness: A Conversation with Stephanie Rogers
Is it ridiculous to say don’t give up? Because I mean it.
Just by Looking at Him: Ryan O’Connell Trust-Falls into Novel Writing
. . . after I finished my first book, I was like, “I'm never writing a book again,” because that process was so miserable. But now that I've written this novel . . .
Life has a way of taking that out of you: A conversation with Tom Perrotta
. . . the novel exists as a form because it allows you to see both the character’s thoughts and the character's actions, and they rarely line up.
We Live in a Speculative Fiction Novel Right Now: A Conversation with Andrew DeYoung
Rather than work being a place to follow your dream, or make a difference, it’s the place you work because you have to figure out a way to pay your rent.
This Is What We Have Inherited: A Conversation with Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
I think it is imperative to explore the limits of the colonial narrative and its dictates because, whether we like it or not, the world that we have inherited was created by that narrative. If we have any hope of moving past it, we have to understand it fully.
The Perfect Balance Between Momentum and Stillness: Chris Abani discusses Smoking the Bible
Masculinity isn’t a thing. It is an absence, an excavation. Men are raised in the erase of all that is tender and good and loving until for many of us, all that is left is an unfocused rage.
Accessing the Sublime: An Interview with Dalia Azim
Creating a site-specific installation in the middle of nowhere is somewhat akin to writing a novel—who knows if an audience will ever find their way to it.
Imagination Hunting: An Interview with Michelle Huneven
Start at the beginning—you would think it was something I should have learned from the first novel. But I wonder about these obstacles that we put in front of ourselves that keep us from getting further along or finishing.