Features & Reviews
-
Memory Among Landscape: Alissa Hattman’s Sift
. . . in a barren world with little protection and corners to hide, it’s also impossible to hide from our thoughts . . .
-
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 . . .
-
Sketch Book Reviews: Night Vision
I love it when a book forces me to reassess my thinking on a particular subject.
-
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?
-
A Perfect Sketch of a Moment: Janet Malcolm’s Still Pictures
“Memory is not a journalist’s tool. Memory glimmers and hints, but shows nothing sharply or clear.”
-
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…
-
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.
-
Female Trouble: Cookie Mueller’s Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
If you want to evoke the idea of who someone really is, start by showing us what they see.
-
They Are The Bones: A Conversation with Kelly Link
Going around the world because you can’t go through it
-
The Work We Can Do Only As We Age: A Conversation with Priscilla Long
I approach research dutifully and compulsively.
-
The No-Man’s Land Between Art and Self: Seth Rogoff’s The Kirschbaum Lectures
We look for ourselves in literature—for comfort or for guidance—but the page rarely provides a clean mirror.
-
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…