Features & Reviews
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Hospitality Training and Taking Care of the Reader: A Conversation with Gabrielle Hamilton
“ I don’t like reading books where you can feel the writer fiddling with you and admiring themselves as they manipulate the words on the page. I don’t love a self-congratulatory writer—you can sniff it on the page immediately—more than…
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Buddhist in a Corvette: On Richard Siken’s Third Transformation
Richard Siken’s virtuoso third collection, I Do Know Some Things, Copper Canyon Press 2025, arrives as a righteous heir of Edson’s vision. The book, bloated with human truth and stripped of pretense, offers black comedy, lyrical excavation, and a persistent,…
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Getting Readers on Your Side through Humor: A Conversation with Erin Somers
“I love writing humor; it’s what gets me to my desk. The humor comes pretty naturally, which is part practice and part good luck. It’s baked into my worldview. Whenever I’m starting something new, I’ll have this moment of terror…
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An Exodus and a Beginning: A Conversation with Joanna Choi Kalbus
My memoir chronicles our adversities as well as our achievements. She wanted me to attend a university and become a teacher. She cried at every one of my graduations and achievements. I know now life is fragile and fleeting, and…
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Good And Evil and Other Stories: A Conversation with Samanta Schweblin
“I’m fascinated by poetry that reaches complex, new ideas through the most ordinary words. It reminds us that fire, that hypnotic, powerful force, is nothing more than a spark born from two simple pieces of wood. I suppose I long…
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Unearthing the Portrait of an Artist: A review of Brent Ameneyro’s “A Face Out of Clay”
The poet is not a singularity and is overwhelmingly in the world, among others, even when they are in a room with the windows shut to keep out the noise. Ameneyro’s most profound moments emerge when he shifts from singular…
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The Other Side of Paradise: An Interview with Cleyvis Natera
“Countries with a history born of colonialism understand intimately that the perversion of the power dynamics in the relationships we see in today’s tourist economy isn’t anything new. It’s just a remix of the same old dynamic. As someone who…
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It’s Hard to be a Person: A Conversation with Jeannie Vanasco
“All of us are searching for answers for something in our lives. I like when someone is coming at the subject from a place of not knowing and I am there with them. I can’t think of anything more intimate…
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The Perils of Prosthetic Memory : A Conversation with Aiden Arata
I just think that the way that we consume language on the internet has to be super utilitarian because our attention spans are being ripped to shreds at any given time. For me, prose and writing a book that I…
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Get Free, Man: A conversation with Zoe Dubno
It can be easy, when you’re young and you don’t know very much, to be a critic out of jealousy. To say, “well, that’s shit, and that’s shit.” To come directly out of being a fan, and then decide to…
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Scout Finch Will Outlive Us All: Harper Lee’s “The Land of Sweet Forever”
… there’s no new work here, only archives with a pretty cover
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Writing Their Story: A Conversation with Melissa Lucashenko
I do aim to be funny and writers and booksellers tell me that my work usually is. It’s partly to soften the blow, make the hard facts of history palatable. But just as important – if not more important—is the…