Interviews
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Toward a Glimmering Unknowable Self: A Conversation with Emerson Whitney
The great thing about writing autobiographically, in these kinds of ways, is that I get to write the whole swarm of thoughts and connect them as I want to.
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The Fragile Ecology of Teenage Boyhood in Shy: A Conversation with Max Porter
We have to be urgent and radical in our belief that some solutions exist . . .
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Against a Singular Story: A Conversation with Jane Wong
In many ways, community is that which allows the heart to heal, and to heal that heart together.
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The Poem as an Archive of Your Life and the World Around You: The Rumpus Interview with Clint Smith
. . . intellectual rigor or artistic integrity don’t have to come at the expense of legibility . . .
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Very Little of This Book Is Made-up: Talking with R.F. Kuang about her Novel
I don’t think there are easy answers. Should we make judgments about rudeness when we talk about artistic freedom?
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Inheritance, Family, and Beauty: A Conversation with Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s debut novel Glassworks (Bloomsbury Publishing, May 2023) follows one family through four generations. The story begins in 1910 with the wealthy young philanthropist Agnes Carter, and then follows her descendants, both in blood and in spirit, up until…
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Our Own Messy, Imperfect Reactions and Feelings: Talking with Hannah Matthews
I’m working on a piece right now for the New York Times where I knew the last sentence before I knew the argument I was making.
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They Are The Bones: A Conversation with Kelly Link
Going around the world because you can’t go through it
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The Work We Can Do Only As We Age: A Conversation with Priscilla Long
I approach research dutifully and compulsively.
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Broadening the Scope of the Environmental Canon: An Interview with Camille T. Dungy
Some books defy categories. Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023) by poet Camille T. Dungy pushes the limits of what readers might expect from any genre. Is it memoir or environmental literature?The book covers…
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the strange, the surprising, the slightly off-center: A Rumpus Conversation with J. Bailey Hutchinson
part of my fixation with textured and torqued language . . . stems from growing up in the South, where figurative language isn’t limited to formal literary spaces.
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Not every queer story needs to be a coming out story: An Interview with Miah Jeffra
Don’t we often write about what we struggle to understand?