Features & Reviews
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“Pregnancy as a Haunted House:” A Conversation with Clare Beams
To me [metaphor] feels connected to the heart of fiction: I’m making a whole fantastical thing in order to capture the essence of a real state or feeling, in order to give myself a language for it.
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Between Conceptualism and Hyperpop in Michael Chang’s Synthetic Jungle
Here, failure to be “personal” reveals the unconscious biases that structures readers’ expectations of what counts as “personal.”
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Elegy and Echo: A Conversation with Callie Siskel
Poetry is the form of brevity. I wonder if his artistic view ultimately inspired me.
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Seeing What You Can’t Hear: Eliza Barry Callahan’s The Hearing Test
. . . ruminations on the creative process and what it means when your sense of self is upended through a series of small violences capture the mundanity in trudging through a long-term illness.
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Let Every Fence Have a Gate: A Conversation with Jessica Jacobs
How am I complicit in this moment? How might I do better the next time I’m faced with a similar moment of choice?
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Courage, Confidence, and Craft: A Conversation with Susan Lieu
Sometimes the book had to reveal itself to me, advice I really hated that I received but is so true.
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A Carousel of Feminine Experience: Danielle Dutton’s Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other
The stories she tells are profoundly intimate yet universal, with themes of self-doubt, irredeemable nostalgia, and uneasy nuclear families.
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The Aftermath of Murder: A Conversation with Kristine S. Ervin
I think language will always fail in some ways, that no matter how well we write, the words will ultimately never fully capture and convey an experience.
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Sketch Book Reviews: The Complete Gardener
What makes this book so different is the exceptional quality and thoughtfulness in Don’s writing.
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Perfumed by Fear: Silvia Guerra’s A Sea at Dawn
Guerra attempts to maneuver around obstacles with riverine language, and tensions organize around this effort.
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This is How We Make Monsters: A Conversation with Hannah V Warren
Nature is scary-beautiful, especially in the backcountry. I always carry a simmering fear of what I’ll find or what will find me alone on the trail: bears, storms, men.
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A Cult of Translation: Jennifer Croft’s The Extinction of Irena Rey
Readers preferring more straightforward narratives won’t find one here.