Jesse Ball

  • An Interview Goes Both Ways

    An unorthodox conversation, or experimental, two-way interview between Jesse Ball and Catherine Lacey at BOMB yields miscommunication, communication, repetition, randomness, push, pull, aphorism, and wisdom. On reading contemporary literature, Ball says: There’s something pernicious about work that is from your specific…

  • This Week in Short Fiction

    One of this year’s highly anticipated new novels is Jesse Ball’s How to Set a Fire and Why, forthcoming from Pantheon in July, about an intelligent and troubled teenage girl who takes an interest in arson. A standalone excerpt in…

  • Greatest Hits of the Heart

    Patience. Curiosity. Repetition. Looking again and again. Not imposing a story line. Letting composition emerge through pattern, rhythm, shape, sound, movement. Occasionally … you hit upon a moment of grace. You can’t plan for it. You just have to practice…

  • Sweet Deal!

    Rumpus readers are getting a sweet deal! The good folks over at Litquake are hosting an event on July 10th called the New Literary Vanguard, in which they will “delve into the minds of the new generation of American male…