INTERVIEWS
Interview: Pik-Shuen Fung
Pik-Shuen Fung’s Ghost Forest was first a visual artwork that evolved into a manuscript, which then became her debut novel. The story is a lyrical and tender one written in vignettes about a daughter grieving her father. The unnamed…
Read MoreHybrid Interview: Matt Bell
Essay by Jesse Motte • Matt Bell’s new novel, Appleseed, explores the climate-disaster subgenre through an interlocking system of storytelling whereby myth, legend, and Bell’s own originality converge. The novel follows three characters as they navigate the spaces between…
Read MoreHybrid Interview: Tyler Gillespie
Essay by Sam Risak • “Florida man arrested for calling 911 after kitten denied entry into strip club.” “Florida man once arrested for fighting drag queen with tiki torch runs for mayor.” “Florida man killed by alligator while hiding…
Read MoreHybrid Interview: Kiare Ladner
Essay by April Yee • How do we reconstruct a self that has been erased? Whether the erasure is the result of forces macro (a police state) or micro (an abusive parent), what remains is the need to fill…
Read MoreInterview: Eric Nguyen
Memories Have No Expiration Date Eric Nguyen’s Things We Lost to the Water ruminates on the constant disruptive sounds of waves regardless of which shore we land on, and on how the past echoes. “New Orleans is at war”…
Read MoreHybrid Interview: Melissa Broder
Essay by J. A Tyler • Milk Fed made me want to ingest a mountain of delicious, sugary, fatty foods—donuts, chips, pizza, candy—then sprint into the arms of some lusty entanglement. Yet the novel also gave me bouts of…
Read MoreArt of the Opening: Peter Selgin and YOUR FIRST PAGE
Suzanne Grove: On your list of “Seven Deadly Sins: Common Errors,” creating false suspense via the withholding of information earns the second spot. I appreciate the distinction you make between what you call “plot questions” and questions that tease…
Read MoreInterview: Kirstin Valdez Quade
Albert Liau: The Five Wounds is a fantastic reading experience. It is an immersive story, and for those of us who are looking, we can find craft elements being used to these degrees that at least I had not…
Read MoreConversations Between Friends: Sadie Hoagland and John McNally
SADIE HOAGLAND: John, I so enjoyed reading The Fear of Everything. Each story balances humor and darkness so well, and each piece held the sort of “good surprises” I love in fiction—the unexpected turns. I think one of my…
Read MoreConversations Between Friends: Nancy Au and Olga Zilberbourg
At the beginning of October, 2019, Nancy Au and Olga Zilberbourg celebrated the publication of their books Spider Love Song and Other Stories and Like Water and Other Stories. The E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore of Oakland, CA,…
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